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