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!