Only in Burkina Faso

November’s been an exciting, but busy month. It’s flown by! I can’t believe I’ve been here for 17 months already! Wow, and just thinking about the fact that next Thanksgiving I’ll be at home celebrating with my family, crazy.

At the beginning of November, we celebrated a Muslim holiday called Tabaski.  On Tabaski, Muslims sacrifice a sheep. It’s a big party in my village. I was on my way back to village that day – I was on transport in the morning, but got to celebrate with my family in the evening. The day before, I was in the capital city. It was really funny to see sheep and chickens invading the streets. Because of the upcoming holiday, people were selling sheep and chickens everywhere, and I mean everywhere. The sides of the road were lined with them. Here, it goes without saying that they’re live animals. People rode their motos, even bikes, with a sheep attached to the back or between their knees. I was in a cab on my way downtown to run errands. The guys in the cab happened to be Bissa, so we chatted as much as my Bissa would allow me to. All of a sudden, I heard a noise and pounding from the trunk. It seemed as if someone was trapped there and trying to get out. All I could think was “what sort of cab did I get into?” Then I heard what sounded like a baby screaming when I realized it was a sheep. Sheep’s “bah” sounds exactly like a baby. I could feel the sheep kicking in the trunk on my back against the seat. The weird part – none of this seemed unusual to me. When I realized it was a sheep, I was like, “Oh yeah. Tomorrow’s Tabaski.”

We also had a fantastic Thanksgiving celebration here in Burkina Faso. I went into my district capital and celebrated with my neighbors. It was a legit Thanksgiving. We bought a turkey, and when I say we bought a turkey, I mean we bought a live turkey, had a neighborhood kid kill it and clean it, and then we cooked it. It was so delicious! This was all accompanied by mashed potatoes, garlic cheese biscuits, green bean casserole, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. It was a great way to celebrate and I know I have a lot to be thankful for this year – I’m so thankful for the opportunity to be here, experience a place I never would have known otherwise, live in a fantastic community with a great host family, be inspired and encouraged almost daily, and most importantly, have all the love and support I need back home from my family and friends. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving too with lots to be thankful for!

Stage, Part II

October 29, 2011

(Stage is French for training period. Also pronounced differently.)

We recently welcomed a new group of 25 trainees to Burkina Faso and I was lucky enough to host 3 of them for demyst, a weekend trip trainees do during their training to see the life of a volunteer. They came to my site about 2 weeks ago. They had been in country for one week and two days when they arrived in my village, so just off the plane. We had a lot of fun and they were a really great group – and really good sports about lots of biking! They arrived in my village on a Thursday. We ate lunch at the marche on the road and then biked back 9 km to my site. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing at my house and then went to greet a few people. Despite my insistence to the chief that it was proper for us to go greet him at his house, he insisted that he come greet us at my house (which is really bizarre and not at all traditional for a chief in Burkina, but it’s definitely refreshing to have a chief like him). On Friday, we did a family planning sensibilisation (health talk) at a mosque after the 1:00 pm prayer (Friday 1 pm is the big prayer where everyone goes to the mosque). It overall went really well. The imam was really supportive and I was really happy at the end when he added a comment about how using family planning methods allows Muslims to practice Muslim values but protect women’s health at the same time. Saturday, we went to the marche and then met with the CSPS (health clinic) staff and community governing board. I was really excited to share my experiences and my village because I live in an amazing village with an awesome family. It was also a cool chance for me to look back and reflect on the past 16 months. I don’t always see how I’ve grown, but moments like that, I can.

It was also exciting because I finally got around to doing something I’ve wanted to do for a while (well decorating my house too, but that’s not the important part). I’ve wanted to sensibilise men on family planning for a while. During the family planning sensibilisation, we focused on the importance of family planning and I particularly focused on the role men have in this decision. There’s this approach Peace Corps talks about called Men as Partners. It’s really important, especially here. You can’t empower women without getting the men on board. It would be dangerous to the social dynamics and brews resentment. Any time you talk about women’s development and empowerment, you have to talk about how men are involved, what role they play, and how you can encourage them to be supportive. Anyways, using this approach, I’ve wanted to talk to men about what people usually consider women’s health issues, such as family planning. Because it was successful, I am going to try it in other villages and on different topics (like the importance of giving birth at the health clinic versus at home).

I am now working the training for the new volunteers for a week. It’s exciting, but definitely lots of work. But again, also a good chance for me to reflect back on the work I’ve done the past 14 months, recognize success and see what I can do better and set goals for my last 10 months. It’s also cool to realize how comfortable I am here – I feel adjusted and integrated into my community. Things that I thought would never become easy are second nature now.

Projects in village are going well. Moving forward on the World AIDS Day project. We are doing an awareness campaign. We will train community health agents on HIV and then on World AIDS Day in December, they will do educational activities. We will also have a theatre performance and a soccer game. Right now, I’m trying to get the mayor’s office involved in this as well. School started mid-October, so I’m doing more health classes. Just last week, I went back to the school to do a health class. I am finishing up hygiene (which I started last year, but I wanted to do hygiene with the two newest classes before I move on to a new topic).

Last blog, I mentioned that I was doing the malnutrition program again, but with some modifications. It’s the same thing I did back in May – find malnourished babies and do a rehabilitation program with them. You met with the moms every morning for 12 days, make enriched porridge and do health education – mostly nutrition, but other topics as well as they are intertwined. It’s gotten off to a slow start this time. While it’s cool that I have 3 counterparts trained on the program and it’s a chance for me to be more hands-off and let them learn by doing and empower them, it’s also logistically less organized. While it may have more bumps along the way now, it leaves them with the skills to do this project when I’m gone.

One thing I’ve learned about malnutrition recently is how much it’s related to so many other health topics. I used to just think about malnutrition in terms of food. But what I’ve seen recently though is that children that are always sick become at risk for malnutrition or fall into malnutrition. A big issue here is hygiene-related illnesses. If a child is always sick with a bacteria infection, parasite, diarrhea, or other hygiene-related illness, they lose weight, lose their appetite, and can’t retain the nutrients they take in, meaning they don’t eat and don’t gain weight. Same thing with malaria. I had a mom come in with her child and the child was moderately malnourished. After talking to her, I realized she understood nutrition and tried to feed her child well, but the child didn’t want to eat and because she was always sick, she was losing weight to the point where she fell below the line into malnutrition. So particularly for malnourished children or children at risk of malnutrition, it is important to talk not only about nutrition, but preventing other illnesses (such as hygiene-related illnesses or malaria) so that the child has the opportunity to eat well and gain weight. That’s one thing we need to focus on more during this second try at the malnutrition program.

I harvested my peanuts finally! As usual, it turned out to be way more work than I expected. Seriously, every time I went to work in my field, I swear it grew larger. Because I only weeded once, it was tough to get to all the plants, but apparently they yielded really well (according to my brother, I have no frame of reference). I averaged about 10-15 peanuts per plant, although some had almost 30 peanuts. Of course, now I’m trying to figure out how to get rid of all these peanuts because I’ll never eat all of them. And I always get gifted peanuts because I live in the peanut region.

NY Times Article: Contraceptives and HIV in Africa

Last week, the New York Times published a front-page article with the results of a study on the effect of contraceptives on HIV tranmission in Africa (sorry, I know I am now a week late on this post, but that’s how things work in Burkina Faso – slow). A recent study suggests that injectable contraceptives, which are widely used in Africa, may increase the risk of HIV transmission and infection. The hormones in the shot seem to have some physiological effect on women, although it is unclear what exactly that effect is and why it doubles the risk of transmission and infection. The study followed couples where one partner was already infected with HIV. In couples where the hormone shot was used, the uninfected partner was almost twice as likely to become infected with HIV during the two years of the study compared to those that did not use the shot. (The study also recorded condom use. Couples using another method of family planning are less likely to use a condom. However, researchers controlled for that and were able to eliminate that as a cause for the increased risk in HIV transmission and infection.) Although the study focuses on eastern and southern Africa, it still applies here in Burkina Faso. While the HIV prevalence rate in Burkina Faso (and West Africa) is much lower than it is in eastern and southern Africa, it is still present and people need to learn how they can protect themselves.

Family Planning in Burkina Faso
Family planning is a huge priority health initiative in Burkina Faso. Education and awareness are really important. During pre-natal consultations, I commonly see women coming in on their 9th pregnancy (although usually not all 8 children are still living). However, especially in a place where maternal and post-natal health care are sub-standard and women generally have to do a lot of physical work often very soon after giving birth, multiple pregnancies without appropriate spacing exhaust a woman’s body and increase the risk for complications. In addition, there are economic and social consequences if you do not have the resources to support all your children. The availability of family planning methods greatly increases the health of women as well as the economic and social dynamics of a community. At the end of the day, there are some people in Burkina Faso that understand the importance of family planning. But there are also some that don’t or don’t accept it and don’t want to talk about it. And even among those who understand the importance, it is hard to translate that attitude into practice for many reasons. There are always exceptions (positive deviants as we like to call them in Peace Corps). I have many conversations in the market about family planning. One man called me over, knowing I work with the CSPS (health center), to show me his wife’s health card and confirm her next rendez-vous at the CSPS for the next dose of the hormone shot. He was involved and supportive of his wife. I have others ask me about the different methods available and where they can go to get them. While I haven’t done much work on family planning in my first year, I definitely want to in my second year and these instances of openness are encouraging, especially knowing there will be just as many instances of restraint and resistance.

According to documents in my health center (CSPS), about 13% of women of procreating age use some method of family planning through the CSPS (hormone shots or pills). This number does not include those who use only condoms, which are available at the CSPS as well as the boutique/store and one of the bars in my village. This may seem low, but considering the cultural norms, access, and education, this is actually pretty good, although there is still much room for improvement. The injectable (hormone shot, what the article is talking about) is by far the most common family planning method used. It is a much more realistic form of family planning here. First – it’s once every three months instead of remembering to take a pill every day. Second, for women whose husbands are not supportive, they can do it quietly at the health center, without their husbands knowing. If she has to take the pill, it is much more likely her husband would find out. (Just to be clear, this is obviously not ideal. It is much more ideal for the men to be supportive and implicated in family planning, not just leave it as a burden for the women or even worse, prohibit it. However, we do not live in an ideal world.) It is always important to emphasize that neither of these methods protect against HIV – condoms do. So even if another method of family planning is being used, condoms should still be used as well. But again, in the case of a husband who refuses to use a family planning method, the shot at least does something. There are other methods of family planning, like implants and intrauterine devices, however those are not available at my health center, but in our district hospital.

HIV in Burkina Faso
The HIV prevalence rate in Burkina Faso, like most West African countries, is much lower than other African countries. Here are some HIV prevalence rates from UNAIDS.

Burkina Faso: 1.2%
Ghana: 1.8%
Côte d’Ivoire: 3.4%
Benin: 1.2%
Togo: 3.2%
Niger: 0.8%
Botswana: 24.8%
Kenya: 6.3%
Uganda: 6.5%
South Africa: 17.8%
United States: 0.6%

Education and awareness are really important in Burkina Faso, both to prevent future transmission of HIV and lower the present rate. There are many misconceptions and just total lacking of information about what HIV is and how it is transmitted. In addition, knowledge on prevention is low and there is still a stigma against those living with HIV. While I do not have a rate for just my health region, I would guess (and it seems to be confirmed through my observations at the CSPS), that it might be slightly higher than the national average because we are by a border and the mines in the region attract many young men from my village to live and work there. These factors and the social effects of them make the population more vulnerable to HIV.

Impact of the study
It seems like officials are trying to be cautious – rightfully so. Sending out alarm signals too soon on the number one family planning method could unnecessarily place women in increased risk. While it is certainly irresponsible to knowingly do something that makes a patient more vulnerable to HIV, the dangers of discrediting or warning against injectable contraceptives in Burkina Faso (I can only speak from my experience here, but it can probably apply elsewhere) are also quite serious. It may mean some women no longer use any family planning method, increasing unwanted and improperly-spaced pregnancies, which would in turn increase injury, illness, and death from complications in childbirth. However, it is just as serious if it is proven true; the public health sector here would have to immediately educate people about other safe forms of family planning and make them available in addition to continuing education on HIV prevention.

Bikes, Bats, and Burgers

So I’ve had quite an exciting past two weeks. After finishing the malnutrition training in my district capital, I biked back to site to leave the next morning to join the Burkina Faso Bike Tour. It was so much fun! The Bike Tour is a fundraiser put on by volunteers in Burkina Faso to raise money for gender and development projects. The tour went around the entire country, although I only did four and a half days of it. They passed by one of my satellite villages, so I joined en route to Beka. I finished the tour from there into Ouaga (the capital) to celebrate the 50^th Anniversary of Peace Corps. Definitely hard and exhausting, but like every other part of our service, we got through it together and had some fun on the way! We were greeted by a huge welcome ceremony when we arrived in Beka. Literally, the entire village must have come out for it. There were drummers and dancers and of course tons of people just staring at us (we were about 20 people in total). As well as people taking pictures of us with their cell phones (yes, there is no electricity or running water, but don’t worry, you can still take pictures with your cell phone). After our two host volunteers thanked everyone, we presented the chief, mayor, and prefet with certificates to thank them for hosting us. Then we split the men and women and did a health talk – malaria with the men, nutrition with the women. It was really cool how excited everyone was to have us there and a great chance to educate lots of people.

The next morning, we packed up at 4:30 am to leave at 5 am for Pô. I had a rough day because my gears broke and it wasn’t possible to repair them – so I biked most of the day on a gear setting that was way too low. But we did stop in Tiebélé, which although you probably haven’t heard of it, is actually a tourist site.   There are traditional Gourounsi houses and after discussing for 20 minutes a good price, we went to tour. They were really cool. One of the things I liked was the pictures and symbols painted on the outside of every house that represented different parts of their traditions. They also use the pictures to teach the children things like not to mess with snakes. The doors are really unique too – you have to crouch to get into the house because they’re really low. And then you have to hop down into the house. It used to serve as a protection against warriors from enemy tribes. Because you duck under and then have to go over another ledge to get in, you could see the head of the person before they fully entered. So if it was an enemy, you could chop off their head. I did not however like the bats in the houses. Apparently in their culture, bats are a good luck symbol. They teach kids not to tease the bats. We were inside a house and going into the back room. I was next to enter when someone said, “Hey wow, look at all those bats!” To which I said, “Yep, no way I’m going in there. I’m leaving.” But then I decided, what the heck, I’m in the Peace Corps to challenge myself. I’ve already overcome my fear of chickens, why not bats too. S o just as I crouched down to enter the really small doorway, a bat decided to fly out at the exact same moment. It flew by just centimeters from my face, to which I naturally screamed. But I made it in the room and stayed despite seeing at least five other bats hanging out there too. Although later I felt bad for screaming at the good luck symbol, I’m so glad that’s not a thing in the Bissa culture.

The next day was the longest bike I did – Pô to Léo, which wound up being 124 km (77 miles). But we kicked butt that bike ride! Luckily, I was able to trade bikes with someone leaving the tour, which made the rest of the tour much easier. We of course left ridiculously early (4:30 am), so it was still dark. My headlamp broke my first week at site (which I don’t mind because it makes my forehead too hot anyways), but it made biking in the dark challenging. The first stretch was through an elephant park that was beautiful. We had a gendarme (police) escort through the park and we were required to bike close together for a good 15 km, I guess the danger zone. I’m still not exactly sure how they could have protected us from elephants, but we sadly did not see any. I arrived in Léo around 12:20 and was greeted with a cold Coke. The highlight of Léo was the tofu brochettes.  So they usually sell meat on a stick here, called brochettes. But this entrepreneur in Léo, on his own, researched soya beans and what you can do with it. He found the recipe for tofu and tested it out in his market. It has become really successful. He has done this project with young women for them to have a source of income. Many of the young women use the money to pay school fees. So not only delicious, but also for a good cause.

The next day, we biked to Gallo, a small village, so definitely a change of pace from Pô and Léo, which are bigger towns. The bike was only 80 km, much easier than the day before, although still far. And all paved. In Gallo, we had a quick welcome ceremony at the school and then had time to just hang out and relax. Some of the neighbors decided to come over and dance, so we had a small dance circle and they were of course entertained by us attempting to join in. Gallo is in the Mossi region of the country (Mossi is the dominant ethnicity in BF). They have a traditional dance where they bump hips. It looks quite painful actually because they do it with such force. The Bissa (my region) are more into stomping, so I don’t know how to do this hip bump thing, but it was fun watching others try.

The last day, we biked into Ouaga, the capital city, as the start of the 50^th Anniversary Fair. That morning, the newest group of volunteers was sworn-in. We biked most of the morning in rain. We meet at the edge of Ouaga and had a police escort to the Maison de Peuple. They had sirens and everything and we were running all the red lights – super legit and official. We arrived however, and there was only one person waiting for us – the swear-in ceremony was still going on, so everyone was inside. We did get to shake hands with the Prime Minister. As he left the ceremony, we were all lined up waiting outside.

As a celebration to the end of the bike tour, we made burgers. So to you at home, this may not seem so special. But if you only understood the food here, you would understand why we took this task so seriously. We were divided into teams (strike forces) to buy ingredients. Then we made burgers. I was responsible for dishes (fun, right). There was quite a lot of planning involved in this. We don’t joke about a good burger here (because the ones you actually do find in Ouaga do not suffice). So we had our grill masters make the cheese burgers plus an assortment of toppings, including BBQ sauce, bacon, avocado, tomato, lettuce, onion, etc. I can confidently say it was the best burger on the continent of Africa. 

There is an official Bike Tour Blog. Check it out for more pictures, stories, and info. You can also still support us with a donation! All the money funds projects done by volunteers here in Burkina Faso.

The next two days, I was at the 50^th Anniversary Fair. It was really cool. The Fair Committee did a fantastic job with all of it. The Fair was a chance for volunteers to showcase their work and bring their association/community group to sell stuff, network, or sensibilize. Committees also had tables (that’s what I was doing, helping out with the Community Health and AIDS Task Force table. I’m on that committee). There’s a ton of great videos up on YouTube. I unfortunately can’t get the internet to download them that easily so will probably watch them in 10 months when I’m back. But you should check them out!

After the Fair, I went back to site for a week and am back in Ouaga now for a training of trainers. We are welcoming a new group of health volunteers to Burkina Faso on October 11 and I will be working at some point during their training.

I’m excited to get back to site. Between the nutrition training, Bike Tour, Fair, and training of trainers, I’ve been out of site the past 4 out of 5 weeks. And now that rainy season is almost over, as is harvesting, I can start picking up speed on projects. I am doing another FARN (rehabilitation program for moderately malnourished babies, the same thing I did back in May). The cool thing is I am working with the same counterpart from before plus two new ones who attended my nutrition training, so it gives me the chance to be more hands off and really empower them to have the confidence to do the program on their own (and ideally after I leave too…). We are doing it in one of my satellite villages. I also received some grant money to build 16 latrines, so will start that process again (although it should be easier the second time around). And as soon as school has started next week, I will be doing more health classes plus a pen pal program with the English class. Then in December, CHAT (Community Health and AIDS Task Force, which I am part of) is planning an activity for World AIDS Day, so I am involved in that. We are trying to get tons of volunteers to paint murals. We’ve done all the work to get the funding and will buy the materials, to make it as easy as possible for volunteers. So I will be doing a mural in my village and helping other volunteers do murals. Sounds like I’ll be busy, but a welcome change of pace. That’s just how Peace Corps goes – your first year is slow, the second is packed.

Wow, I know, super long update. I’ll be here until Saturday and then back the next weekend for meeting, so I’d love to hear from you (e-mail, facebook, gchat if it loads with my super slow internet, whatever works). Miss you and hope you’re doing well!

Erika

CREN Training

Just finished my biggest project so far! I organized a nutrition training in my district capital. One was for the staff of the CREN (rehabilitation center for severely malnourished children) and one was for community health agents from some of the villages the center serves. It was a lot of fun, but a lot of work!!! Luckily, there are others volunteers in my same health district, so they helped out a lot!

So I’ll start with the training for the community health agents. Community health agents are volunteers from different communities that serve as liaisons to the CSPS (health clinic). They help with vaccination campaigns, health education, and community mobilization. The community health agents are absolutely fantastic in my area! I love working with them. For the training, there were two from each of the four CSPS’s in the district with a PCV, so eight community health agents in total. The training was two days on the theme of nutrition. We chose to train people on the ground in the communities because one of the problems now is that there aren’t many referrals to the CREN. Since January of this year, there has only been 14 referrals. Not because there isn’t malnutrition, but because it’s not always identified on the community level and people don’t always understand the options available when a child is malnourished. The first day, they did sessions on nutrition education, identifying malnutrition, and responding to cases of malnutrition in their communities. The second day, they were trained on community mobilization (with the CREN staff) and the FARN (a rehabilitation program for moderately malnourished kids, see What Exactly Do You Do as a PCV). It was a lot of fun, but super exhausting. They did a fantastic job and I’m really excited to see what they do in their communities.

The other training was with the staff of the CREN (rehabilitation center for severely malnourished kids). This one was a little more complicated because it was a higher level (health professionals) and because it was ten days (although just one short session every day). The first week, we talked about the proper functioning of a CREN, identifying malnutrition, treating malnutrition and the medical complications associated with it, nutrition education, and community mobilization. The second week, they were trained on enriched bouillie preparation (my counterpart from my village came to do this session), moringa, the administrative responsibilities of CREN, and ways to generate their own revenue. Right now, their budget is what’s left over from pharmacy profits, meaning little to nothing. So this is really important – they can’t function if they don’t have money to fund programs. So we talked about different things they can do – sell enriched bouillie packets, sell moringa powder, or search for outside financial partners – to meet their material needs and be more involved in more activities like education and prevention. The last day, they started an action plan. I will go back in one week to review the rest of their plan and help them prepare it to present it to the MCD (the doctor in charge of the district/their boss). Overall, it went really well. I didn’t facilitate a single session – I got other PCVs, a PC staff member, and someone from a neighboring CREN to do different sessions. But it meant a lot of coordinating for me to do. I think that the biggest thing they took from the training was identifying what they want their CREN to look like and what they need to do to get there. Even just getting the four of them sitting in the same room talking about a CREN was a big deal. They all have other responsibilities within the district hospital too, so they don’t often dedicate much time to the CREN. Some of what they need to do is as simple as cleaning and rearranging the room they are in. Some is more complicated, like generating revenue to meet a long list of material needs. But hopefully with the support of the MCD, they can keep moving on what they’ve already started.

One other element was the mural we painted in the CREN building. We painted “the house of nutrition.” They do three food groups here – energies, constructors, and protectors – all of which coincide with a part of the house. I am so glad I worked with other volunteers on this because I’m not artistically talented at all! We included a mural for two reasons – for nutrition education and to liven up the room to make it more conducive to the rehabilitation of the patients. Picture below.

Wow, so I’ve officially been at site for one year now! August 31. Crazy. It really does take the entire first year to figure out what the heck you are doing here. Grassroots community mobilization and development is much harder on the ground than it is to think about it or talk about it during training. So I wish I could say I celebrated my one year anniversary in some really exciting way. But I was in the regional Peace Corps office until almost midnight making copies for the training I’m doing (see below). Feels like college again.

I’ve been planning a training with the CREN (center for severe malnutrition). The CREN is in my district capital, but it serves my community and all the others in our health district. It’s actually two trainings, one for the four staff members of the CREN and the other for eight community health agents (community volunteers who work with the health clinic on community mobilization and help out with vaccination campaigns). I’m excited for it to start and I think it will go really well. It starts the 5^th of September and will last 2 weeks. We’re covering lots of different things based on the needs discussed with the CREN staff and the MCD (doctor in charge of the district). The topics we have are: identifying and treating malnutrition, enriched bouillie (pourridge) preparation, moringa, community mobilization, and the functioning of a CREN – keeping records, revenue sources, and budgeting. I’m not facilitating any sessions, but I’m organizing all of it – who’s coming to do what sessions, what the objectives are, and all the logistics. It’s been challenging, particularly because a lot of the work I can’t do in village. It either involves meeting with people at the district capital or preparing materials, which requires a computer, electricity, and a printer. It’s also complicated because it’s two different trainings running at the same time – one for the CREN staff (medical professionals) and one for the community health agents. It is also much more official/the big leagues than projects in village. But I think that it really addresses the needs of the CREN and most importantly will encourage collaboration between the district and the communities, which is crucial to the functioning of the CREN because it can’t function in the community level does not refer patients to it (which is one of the major problems right now). Will let you know how it goes next time!

I was trying to explain to my brother the other day that planning the training was stressful, but had a tough time explain stress to my brother in French. I looked it up in the dictionary, but he didn’t know the word. The dictionary listed another word too and my brother knew the word, but I’m not sure that it has the same meaning. He told me that he doesn’t know a word in Bissa for stress. I just think that’s interesting – that stress isn’t really a word used in village, but it’s definitely used all the time in America! The mentality here always is “Ca va aller,” it will go on. But we Americans seem to be stressed out about something all the time.

Yesterday was Ramadan, the end of the month-long fasting period for Muslims. It’s a big fete in village. It was fun to see everyone all dressed up, to eat, and to go around and greet people. Unfortunately, it rained all evening so ended the party a little bit early. I got some really cute pictures of my nephews! The one is the suit is Aziz, my brother Drissa’s son. The other is Walilo, my cousin’s son, who recently moved in with us and will live with us for a while.

I’ve also been busy cultivating my peanuts! Right now is rainy season, so it’s the time everyone plants in their fields, cultivates, and harvests. I planted peanuts, mostly just to understand what it is like to cultivate and the lifestyle here. I didn’t plant much, but it's more work than I expected. It is surprisingly relaxing to do physical labor (just a little bit each day though). Here’s some pictures of my field!

So I will spend the next two weeks in my district capital for the training. Then after that, I am participating in the Bike Tour. I am participating in 5 days. I am joining on route to my district capital where they will pass one of my satellite villages. Then from my district capital, we bike to three other cities before we get to the capital. The first day I will only bike part of the route, about 33 km. The second day, I will bike about 80 km. Then 125 the 3^rd day, 80 the 4^th, and 85 the 5^th. I’ve been attempting to train… The Bike Tour is a tour of the entire country by bike over 3 weeks. It is a fundraiser for gender and development projects carried out by PCVs here in Burkina Faso. For more information or to support us, check out : http://burkinabiketour.blogspot.com/

Well that’s it for now. I will be back in the capital around September 22^nd after the Bike Tour and to celebrate the 50^th Anniversary of Peace Corps, so I’d love to hear from you then, either e-mail, facebook, skype, snail mail, whatever works!!!

Miss you and love you!

Rainy Season!

Rainy season is so cool – all of a sudden a huge rain storm that stops everything will come in.  I love watching them.  Pictures from the first real rain storm this season (from my latrine).

On the note of rainy season, I have decided to plant and harvest peanuts this year.  Will update soon…

 

Mid Service Conference`

At our mid-service conference now.  (Can you believe I’ve been here over one year now?!)  It’s definitely been a great morale booster and I love hearing about the cool things other volunteers are doing at site and getting ideas for my own projects. I’m excited about getting some great stuff done at site and am starting to see that I really can have an impact here. It’s also great having people to relate to and who understand the experience. The connections you can make when you all experience something so intense together are amazing and I didn’t really feel it until today.

One year in is a good point to look back and reflect. I’m happy with some projects I’ve done. We’ve definitely had a tough year here and I did the best I could in a difficult situation. But there’s still so much more I can do. I’m not done here yet. Although it’s challenging to extents I never imagined, I wouldn’t want it any other way. Despite the many times we sit and complain about site, the weird cultural things, how frustrating development work can be, being called “nasara” and constantly asked for money, and a million other things, we didn’t join the Peace Corps to do something easy. We wanted to challenge ourselves and to grow. I’ve been learning to appreciate the bad along with the good and I’ve developed a patience for it. I don’t want my service to be perfect. It wouldn’t be any fun that way. I want the difficulties, the frustrations, and the things that go wrong and I wouldn’t change them because of what I’ve learned from them. At the risk of sounding super cliché, the bad things made the good better. Those things all together make my service what it is. Frustrating, challenging, sometimes demoralizing, but all in some really weird way, empowering and fulfilling. And I hear the second year just gets better…

Thank you all for your thoughts, love, and support. Thank you for verbalizing that – whether it was a letter, package, phone call, e-mail, comment on my blog, or Facebook message. It really does keep me going and gives me just the encouragement I need. Lots of love!

So what exactly do you do as a PCV…

So a long time overdue – but I will try my best to update you as much as possible! Lots going on here, so I’ll break it up into three blog posts. I usually get questions about what projects I’m doing and what life in like in village, so I’ll start with those. The last post is just fun stories I would only experience as a PCV.

So what exactly do you do as a Peace Corps Volunteer…

It good to finally be feeling busy with work! I’ve gotten to do a lot of cool things and I’m excited for some other projects in the works. April and May were really busy because I was trying to finish things up before rainy season. During rainy season, everyone goes out into the fields to cultivate, so people are really busy, meaning projects are more difficult. I’ve done most of my work on nutrition and hygiene, but I’m hoping to get more into family planning, HIV/AIDS, and maternal health in my second year. (Can you believe it, I’ve been in country for over a year now!!!)

Nutrition:

My big project was the FARN or hearth model. It’s a rehabilitation program for moderately malnourished kids. We weighed babies in two villages in March to identify malnourished kids to participate. Every morning for 12 days, we met to make an enriched bouille (porridge) and talk about health. We started off talking about nutrition and then moved on to other topics like family planning and hygiene. My counterpart for this project is absolutely amazing!!! She is the volunteer in maternity and lives in one of our satellite villages. She’s so positive and really motivated and excited about working on nutrition. We had 6 women participate in the program. The cool thing about the program is that it is really all about empowering the mothers. The bouille is made from ingredients found locally and the women all contribute resources to buy the ingredients, so they know they have the ability to properly nourish their kids with the resources they have. The moms were all fantastic and I had a lot of fun hanging out with them every morning. Most of the babies were afraid of me, but by the end of the 12 days, they got used to me and would even sometimes let me hold them. Assetou is my favorite, mostly because she was the only one totally comfortable with me holding her and would play with me. The others were more hesitant. All of the babies gained weight after the 12 days, which is awesome. But definitely have ideas to change it next time around. Most of the babies didn’t gain weight during the month after (although it is hard because June is a tough month because people run out of their food stock from last year’s harvest and they haven’t harvested yet for this year), so I want to focus more on the nutrition education and what the moms can do at home. But not bad for the first. Definitely learned a lot and have lots of ideas for next time. That’s why Peace Corps is two years, not just one.

Hygiene

In my last post, I mentioned a latrine training I went to with two counterparts from my village. (So I sometimes forget what words aren’ t part of general American vocabulary. A latrine is the hole in the ground that is your bathroom. You dig a deep hole, put a cement square over it that has a small hole, and build a house around it.) The training focused on hygiene and then how to actually build latrines. I brought the only female Burkinabe to the latrine training. Construction is generally a male job and it can definitely be intimidating to be the only female Burkinabe, but my counterpart stepped up and did a really awesome job. The first female mason of my village now! Her name is Sibi and she’s so much fun to work with. Really positive and enthusiastic.

It was definitely a slow and frustrating process getting the latrines started. When you only have the funding for two latrines, its really hard to pick just two places out of so many options! And the politics of it all – getting it approved by all the important people. We finally decided on one mosque and one church (I’ve had trouble figuring out percentages of religious affilation in village. I’ve heard that my village is 50/50, Muslim/Catholic or Protestant. But I’m not so sure that’s accurate. But I also work in a health center that serves 16 villages. There are some villages that are predominately Muslim and some that are more split.) Anyways, we built in two different villages. After the building of the latrine, we talked at the Friday afternoon prayer (mosque) and Sunday morning service (church) about hygiene and the importance of latrine use. It would sure be a waste to build a latrine if we never explained why it was important to use it (thus encourage people to actual use it). We’re hoping to do more latrines after rainy season.

During the hygiene talk at the church, the women’s choir at the church asked me to come back teach them how to make soap to sell and promote hygiene. So I went back the next week to plan and then two weeks later to make the soap. The women decided to start with liquid soap because the start-up costs are less. The eventual goal is to use the profits to invest in hard soap making. The ingredients are much more expensive. Soap making is a great activity in Burkina Faso because it is a way to generate income and promote good hygiene practices at the same time. And while making soap, it’s a great opportunity to explain how soap works. I actually didn’t know this before (and excuse the very basic explanation, I was never very interested in chemistry), but soap works because a chemical reaction suspends oil and dirt and then you wash that off with running water. While running water isn’t an issue in the States, it’s important to explain this process while talking about soap because there is no running water here. But you can substitute pouring water, but lots of people often just dunk their hands in a bowl to wash the soap off, which doesn’t work then. And I’ll admit – I used to do that too. I thought soap killed stuff. But it suspends the bad stuff to be washed away. Learn something new every day.

Health Education:

I’ve also been trying to do as much basic health education as possible. In March and April, I went to two different literacy centers to talk about health. In one, we talked about pre-natal consultations – why they’re important and the appropriate schedule for them. At another literacy center, we talked about nutrition, hygiene, and malaria. But I think my favorite thing I’ve done so far is the health classes at the middle school/high school. I talked to the equivalent of the 7^th, 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th grade classes (although the corresponding ages tend to be older) about hygiene. It was a lot of fun to work with students again – teenagers are always teenagers, no matter where they are. For the oldest class, I taught them the health terms in English as well. Next school year, I am hoping to work a lot more with the school. The director is awesome and really supportive.

Upcoming projects:

Moringa garden at the CSPS: Morigna is a tree with really nutritious leaves – tons of vitamins, iron, and other good stuff. We are planting morigna at the CSPS and hopefully selling the leaves in powder form (to add to sauces or bouille/pourridge) and using the profit to subsidize bi-monthly or monthly enriched bouille demonstrations at the CSPS after baby weighings.

Training at the CREN: The CREN is a center for the rehabilitation of severely malnourished children. While moderate malnutrition is addressed on the community level, severe malnutrition needs to be treated at the district level – it requires more intense medical supervision. I am working with a neighboring volunteer on this project. Because nutrition is something we’ve spent a lot of time on in our respective villages, we want to work at the district level as well to ensure that our efforts in village are complemented by support in the district. We’ve planned a training that covers the identification and treatment of malnutrition; nutrition education and enriched bouille preparation; community outreach and mobilization; and financing and administration of programs at the CREN. We’re aiming right now to do this the last two weeks of August.

What’s it like living in a village?

Okay, so I’m kinda late answering the question, mostly because it’s a really hard thing to describe. After one year, things have become quite normal for me. Like going to the pump or attaching a pagne (basically a large piece of cloth that you wear as a wrap skirt). But as I write this, I am on my way to visit my Mom in Italy and I just had quite an overwhelming experience at the Paris airport. So seeing all that again puts village life in perspective again.

My village is everything you’d imagine Peace Corps to be – no running water, no electricity, and a hole in the ground for a toilet. But those are the easy adjustments. It’s in the bush, but really laid back. I bike everywhere and it’s beautiful (mostly just during rainy season).

The upsides of village life:

· Awesome family! I live with an infinitely fantastic family! They’re so welcoming, supportive, and just lots of fun. They take really good care of me. Sometimes I feel bad because they always have to help me – get the bats out of my house, explain things, decipher my French and Bissa. But then I think about the laughs they get from having the crazy nasara live with them. I was burning my trash one night and it was already dark. I had already lit it and was waiting for it to burn down. My family was hanging out outside and could see me. Near the fire, I saw a bug that to me looked like a baby scorpion or something. And I hear those bites are really painful. So naturally, it freaked me out. It started to crawl towards me, and obviously I started to run. Meanwhile, my family is just looking over at me, seeing my run in circles around my burning trash. I’m sure I looked totally ridiculous, but makes life more fun, right?

· Always someone around to help you. Whether I need help finding something in the marche, bargaining for a good price, or fixing a stove that lights on fire when I cook, someone will also help me when I ask. Although this doesn’t always work with finding places if I’m lost – I’m not sure what it is, but they’re not really good at giving directions here.

· Slower pace of life. Taking time to get to know people. Caring about how people’s family, work, and life are going. Always being greeted with a smile.

The hardest parts of village life are the cultural adjustments and not understanding things. Just being in a place where there are days where nothing seems to make any sense at all. It’s a tough thing to describe, but I’ve learned to live in a state of somewhat confusion all the time. No running water, no electricity, those things are easy. It’s living in a completely different cultural context that is difficult. Things that make sense or are obvious back home aren’t here and the things that do here, aren’t the same back home.

A lot of what Peace Corps is about is integrating into your village (to gain respect and trust to serve as a foundation of your work). So I do spend a good bit of time getting to know people in my community – hanging out with my family, going to the market. Marche days are big social events. There’s a marche in my village and a grand marche 3 km away. My marche is pretty small, but plenty of benga (beans and rice), which I am known for eating all the time. My grande marche used to be really overwhelming. It’s much bigger and people from all around come, so not everyone knows me as well (at least when I first got here). I was constantly called at and people would constantly greet me. But now I love going and it feels so much more comfortable. I usually go just to say hi to people and talk to my friends. Those sorts of relationships and taking time to do those sorts of things are really important to the life of a PCV in Burkina Faso, which is a refreshing change of pace.

Only As a PCV…

I celebrated my birthday in village. The actual day of my birthday was exhausting because we did a vaccination campaign (meaning we went door to door to give polio vaccines to kids). April, by the way, is hot season although it’s basically always hot. And in the late afternoon, I had to go with my counterpart to visit families to talk to them about our malnutrition program. But the next day, a neighboring volunteer came over and we (and by we I actually mean my brothers because that’s why I have brothers) killed one of my chickens (see story below), and cooked a delicious meal – curried rice and jerk chicken (all Takiyah’s doing. I just got the charcoal going). It was delicious!

So my chickens… my oldest brother (Drissa) is really into animal raising. (Animal husbandry I think is the real word in English, elevage in French). He has goats, cows, pintards (guinea fowl, it’s probably the stupidest bird besides turkeys. They get stuck in my latrine and can’t figure out how to get out), turkeys, and chickens. He really wanted to me buy a chicken so it could take care of the pintard eggs so that I could have my own eggs to eat. I still don’t really get why the pintard takes the chicken eggs, but whatever. Anyways, I was in a larger city and decided to by the chickens there since they were cheaper. And then took them on a 3 hour bush taxi ride and a 13 km bike ride. I named them Lucy and Ethel after I Love Lucy. My bag with cans of tuna fell on Lucy during the bush taxi ride, but she seemed to recover. Ethel did not like the bike ride. Wish I took a picture. Anyways, I got home and gave them to my brother (because I don’t really know what I’m doing with them). The next day, he informs me they’re not chickens but roosters. Meaning they won’t take the eggs. Oh well. Guess I should rethink the names, but we ate Lucy for my birthday. The other was a gift to the volunteer in a neighboring village, so Ethel biked 33 km with me to the other village.

I’ve been starting running a lot more in village, which definitely gets a fun reaction from my community. In the evenings, if I run about the time school gets out, the primary school kids will run with my for a little bit. There’s actual two girls who do surprising well keeping up. It’s kinda fun always having encouragement, although most people just laugh (loving of course, but still laughing) when they see me running. Although I think altogether most people are just confused as to why I would want to tire myself out for fun – life is already exhausting here, going to the pump, handwashing landry, and cultivating in the fields. But I consider this a huge success – my 23-year-old sister has started running! When I first started, my brothers would occasionally run with me, along with the family dog. But one evening, my sister and her friend decided they should start running too. My sister went to school in the capital city for a little bit, so she’s not so “villageois” anymore and at her school, she did sports as part of school, so it’s not the first time she’s run. But I still think it’s really cool for girls to see a young woman from their village run, not just the crazy nasara.

Some other new and exciting news….

I got a radio/cassette player. So if you don’t want to write a letter, you can record on a cassette tape and I can listen to your voice!! Or you can record random conversations or everyday happenings to make me feel like I’m at home with you!

I also got a kitten. Really adorable. He’s quite a baby and spoiled. He’s constantly at my feet and cries when I leave. When I sleep inside, he likes to sleep by my feet. When I sleep outside, I don’t let him in my tent (a – my family would think I’m totally weird if they don’t think I’m weird already and b – I don’t want him peeing in there). So he decides to find other people to cuddle with. That doesn’t go over well with Burkinabe. I got him because of a terrible mice problem – eating through my wood counter and my clothes and pooping on all my dishes.

A nurse at the health clinic is looking for an American pen pal. So let me know if you are interested! It would be really cool if someone who did something in health wanted to write with him, I think he’d like that, but it’s really just about learning about America and learning English. You can e-mail letters to me and I can e-mail you his letters. Or snail mail if you prefer the excitement.

Miss you all so much and think about you everyday!

March 6, 2011

Just a quick post to let you all know what I've been up to. I'm in Ouaga for the weekend because I had a meeting at the office and then for Fespaco, the big film festival. So apparently it's a big deal, it only happens every two years, so it's my only chance to be here. Figured I should go. I feel asleep during the two films I saw. In my defense, I took the 5 am bush taxi, so I was really tired and French subtitles are hard to read, especially when they don't change the font color to the scene - white font doesn't work on clouds. It was nice to relax for a weekend though. I definitely needed it.

Village has been exciting the past week. Saturday was a random bike race, which was really fun to watch. It kinda felt like a block party - everyone hanging out. This coming up Tuesday is International Women's Day, so there's a huge celebration for that. The regional celebration is actually in my village, which is a huge deal. There's going to be a parade and another bike race (I'm participating in this one). The women have been practicing all week (and of course everyone goes out to watch, so that's been fun too).

Still working on the malnutrition program and hygiene and latrines. Talked to the school director about doing health classes, so should be starting that soon. Also started planning a training with my neighboring volunteer for the CREN, the center for the rehabilitation of severely malnourished kids. The CREN is at the district level, which is one above the community. All severe cases are suppose to go to the CREN, rather than be treated at the community level because they require more medical attention. I'm really excited about this project, but because we're applying for funding, it doesn't look like this will happen until July. But we're really excited about this project.

On other note - I've been doing some informal English classes with some of the students and the nurses. I have a few friends in village who really want to learn English and have requested that I find them a pen pal back in the US. Let me know if you are interested. you can either snail mail letters to me or e-mail them, have the same access to both, only kinda sometimes. :)

Okay, sorry so short. Will have internet next maybe at the end of March, definitely mid-April. Miss you all so much and would love to hear from you!!!!

Wousso Dora Yita Kare...

...Happy New Year's, in Bissa. Literally translated, it means, "May God give you a next year."

Again, sorry it’s been so long… So much has happened since I last wrote, where to begin…

The holidays in my village were so much fun!! I spent Christmas and New Years in village, which was awesome. My village is about half Muslim, half Christian, with a few people who practice traditional religions. The family I live with is Muslim, so I got to celebrate the past two Muslim holidays with them. One of the coolest things about Burkina Faso is the religious tolerance (within the religions practiced here, not out of the ones already accepted). But religion is more of a unifying factor here than dividing one, despite people practicing different religions. People live and work together no problem. In villages like mine, people celebrate both holidays.

For Christmas, I went to the midnight church service. It was a lot of fun, although I didn’t understand a single thing that was going on because it was all in Bissa. There’s was one kinda awkward moment. Okay, so it’s complicated but I accidently sat with the choir. I thought of that before I walked in, but I saw a bunch of women all wearing the same pagne (piece of cloth), so I figured they were the choir (and they were). I came with two friends, so wanted to sit with them. The whole service, you’re sitting down, standing up, sitting down, standing up. So we stood up to start singing again, and I noticed everyone around me knew the same dance. And no one else is the room was standing up except for our section. Apparently there’s like 3 different choirs. I must have looked like a deer in headlights, I didn’t know what to do, I sat down, stood up, sat down, and then quickly slid over to a different bench. How awkward. Later in the service, the pastor made some comment, all in fun of course, like “Let’s see if she knows this dance.” I’m really glad I went, it was a lot of fun. I spent the rest of Christmas day helping the mid-wife of the CSPS cook. I brought mashed potatoes with me, but I’m pretty sure everyone just thought they were weird.

New Year’s was also a lot of fun. My dad threw a huge party. I “helped” cook (meaning chopped some vegetables and then mostly watched), but it was fun to hang out with all the women. I really felt like part of the family. So here, when they cut vegetables, they sit down and don’t use a cutting board, they cut holding the vegetable in their hand. I can’t do it, I’m going to cut myself. I tried to explain that we generally cook standing up, on a counter, and use a cutting board. It’s because we use stoves, but here with a fire, you breath in too much smoke if you stand, so you have to sit.

And then, just when I was sad that all the parties were over for the next few months, weddings started. The week after New Year’s I went to my first wedding. It was really cool, although I still don’t totally get all of it. The wedding is at the husband’s house and the husband’s family pays for all the food for the party (usually rice with peanut sauce). The first wedding, the bride was from my village. I went with all the women to bring her over to her new husband’s house. As you approach the house, you sing. It was a lot of fun. Then the women and girls dance. So they make it look so easy, but it’s really hard. I danced for a bit, but mostly got laughed at (all in fun of course). It’s a lot harder when it’s not something you’ve been doing since you were 10. Oh well. It definitely provided my community with a topic of conversation for the next three days. The next marche day, people kept asking me about the wedding. The next week, there was another, but this time, the groom was from my village. I went over to help the women cook for a little bit. This time, when they brought the girl over, it was a bunch of the young men bringing the bride and some of her friends over. They all came in on their motos and tried to do tricks in the field as they dropped the girls off. It was quite the show.

Speaking of weddings, my host brother just got married this week. It’s actually his second wife. It’s interesting because I left for a week for a training on Sunday, and on Thursday, he got married. I asked why no one told me before I left, and my dad said it was because it wasn’t sure. They don’t really do long engagemenst here. I was bummed out I missed it, but my dad said we’ll “fete” (party) again when I get home.

So let’s talk more about what I’m actually doing here….

Right now, the big issues I’ll be working on are hygiene, nutrition, and getting people to give birth at the CSPS, not at home. I’ve started planning a hearth model (rehabilitation program for moderately malnourished kids) with a really motivated community counterpart. Her name is Madame Gouba ne Boro Kadidia. She’s a volunteer at the maternity in the CSPS and lives in one of the satellite villages. She used to do a lot on nutrition, but stopped because the women didn’t want to cotizer money to pay for bouille (enriched pourridge) demonstrations. She came with me to counterpart workshop during our in-service training. We did some stuff on nutrition and it was really cool to see her in her element talking about it and see her getting excited about doing them at site. When we got back, she decided totally on her own to start doing bouille demonstrations again. I’ve been really busy recently with various trainings, but now that that’s all calmed down, we’re starting to plan to do the hearth program soon. It’s an intensive 12-day program where you gather mothers together every day to make bouille and talk about nutrition and other health topics. It takes a lot of planning – mobilizing the community and gathering support, figuring out families to participate, planning logistics, and getting everything ready.

I went to a latrine building formation this past week. Latrines are a huge need in the community, as cited by the community health agents. Most families don’t have a latrine, so they just take care of business wherever. Which is not hygienic at all. The 4th and 5th most common illness at the CSPS are hygiene-related. I brought two community members to the training with me. We’re excited to go back to site and start building latrines. I want to incorporate latrine building into a larger marche-based project, like education on basic hygiene during marches (since it’s a great venue to reach a lot of people) and putting in hand-washing stations. I brought two counterparts, the vice-president of the CoGES and the community health agent for my village. The second is a female. She was the only female Burkinabe there, which I know must have been hard for her, but she did awesome. She really stepped up and took an active role in the construction part (which is normally a male role) and I was really proud of her.

I’ve been in country for almost 8 months and at my site for about 5 ½ now. It’s crazy, I know I have a year and a half left, but I feel like there’s so much to do and not enough time to do it.

So one Peace Corps stereotype I hate is that of PCVS as kids just hanging out in crazy parts of the world, escaping reality for a few years before settling down. And sometimes that’s somewhat true – I do live in the bush in Burkina Faso. I have a job so different (and so much more exciting) that many jobs in the States. It is exciting and somewhat exotic living here. But it’s anything but an escape from reality. Just walk into the CSPS. Just talk to the families and hear about the challenges life here brings them. Look at babies at the marche. The reality here is often times much harsher than the reality in the US. Sometimes, I can enjoy the adventure of it all - being in the middle of nowhere, in a country I never would have thought of before. But for people that live here, life is nothing but reality.

I knew being here would be hard, but it’s hard in ways I didn’t expect. Most people think it’s the no running water, no electricity, no iced coffees that would be hard. Which, as much as I hate to admit, some days, it can be. But it’s much harder being so far away from and unable to communicate instantly all the time with my family and friends. It’s trying to live in a completely different culture and express yourself and be yourself in a different language. And I didn’t expect it, but the work part of it is really hard too. Especially as a first generation volunteer, I’m often starting from nothing when I start projects. Just figuring out where to begin is hard. But, as I remind myself almost every day, I wouldn’t have done Peace Corps if I wanted to do something easy. The challenges are frustrating, but also exhilarating.

Okay, so that’s all for now. Hopefully I can get pictures up soon too. Hope you are doing well and miss you all so much! Would love to hear what you’re up to!! Letters or e-mails, both are super exciting!