...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!
