Tying the Knot & My First Bush Taxi Experience

So up until this point, we have been training and living in the village of Leo on the border of Ghana and have all gotten relatively comfortable around the area and with the people. For our 2-day village visits we all got thrown into the rest of Burkina to spend some time getting to explore our respective homes for the next 2 years. My village is called Bagassi, a rather large gold-mining village in the Southwest-ish region of the country.

We left Leo and our host families on Sunday and headed to the capital, Ouagadougou or Ouaga for short (prounounced Waga), to meet our future professional homologues who are responsible for the initial integration and introductions in our villages and who will be working alongside us in our school whenever we need advice or help with whatsoever. The first workshop was a little awkward, we were all put into one large conference room (the 31 trainees and their 31 counterparts) and after a brief introduction from some of the staff, we were told to wander about the room and introduced ourselves to everyone until we found our appropriate homologue. That took a while but it forced us to just jump in and start talking to people. Everyday I thank my mom for forcing me to speak French my whole life, it has made everything here a hell of a lot easier! I could not imagine not speaking French and having to do all these sorts of activities, much less teaching students in front of our trainers during model school! My homologue is a younger man, shorter than my shoulder with a round, pudgy face and bulging eyes. He is nice enough, but just a little weird.

Today was also the day I got married. Justin, who is my closest neighbor 35km away in the village of Yaho, has fell into the unfortunate role of being my husband for the next two years. Though he might be stuck with me for two years claiming him to be my man-warding gem, he has been getting a kick out of the whole situation…Justin is the epitome of a goofball so he is great at playing the part of a over-possessive and caring husband. The staff and current volunteers in the country recommended that all the girl volunteers claim their closest male neighbors to be their significant other, in order to help ward off any unwanted attention, so Justin stepped up to help a sista’ out (thank you!) and we told our counterparts that we were hitched and therefore were put in close-ish proximity to each other.

After counterpart workshop, Justin and I headed to the gare with our homologues to purchase our bus tickets for the next day. It was our first time in a Burkinabe taxi! The taxis here are usually old Mercedes Benz painted a forest green and the inside usually looks like a tornado tore threw it and spit everything back out haphazardly. Never again will I think the taxis in parts of NYC are dingy – they’ve got nothing on West African taxis! As we got in, the ceiling was sagging so low that I had to duck my head down and the seats were so torn I was scared to fall through to the trunk at any moment! The disarray of the taxi also represented the driving skills of the driver very accurately. I think I almost peed my pants 4 times on the short ride to the gare.

The first bus ride the next day went a lot smoother than I had anticipated. It was air-conditioned and had a French news radio station playing on the loudspeaker. After a few hours we arrived in Boromo. The epitome of a busy West African gare…as soon as I saw the crowd of vendors with fruit and bread and sesame sticks on their heads, begging children with tomato cans tied around their waist with a thin string,  pushing up against the bus and waiting to tug at you and your things and shout “nasara! Nasara! Faux achete pour faire cadeaux!” (You have to buy as a present!), I immediately froze and Justin had to coax me (more like shove me) down off the bus and into the impending crowd. I swung my backpack to the front of my body, tucked my arms around my head and pushed myself through the swarming bodies until I reached a pocket of fresh air.

After a couple of hours and lunch in Boromo, we got on a bush taxi which would take us down the dirt road where our villages are.  When they say that Burkinabes are professionals at packing things, they aren’t lying. On our 15 seat bush taxi, they managed to squeeze about 20-25 people (and a couple of screaming kids), with overflow bags and chickens, on the roof they managed to throw 2 cows, 5 goats, 13 chickens, all the bags and 1 moto. After I recovered from the shock of all of this, I finally relaxed a bit against the open window and just when I thought that it wasn’t so bad, the goats decided to release their bladders simultaneously and it streamed in through the open windows…let me tell you: Goat pee is not the best smelling pee out there.

Just a few tips for any of you folks out there who want to get on a bush taxi in West Africa (the list could go on and on but I will keep adding as time goes on):
1. Get there early and squeeze yourself by a window or else you'll end up being smushed between the man who smells like he hasn't bathed in weeks and the small child who keeps touching your skin and your stuff in awe and shock while she's trying to figure out whats wrong with you.
2. Ladies: Do not wear chapstick or anything of the sort on your lips while taking a bush taxi...the dirt and dust sticks to everything.
3. Make sure to wear clothes you are willing to never wear for any other purpose but taking bush taxis ever again.
4. Bring headphones, even just to pretend to be listening to music, so that you don't get 12 people asking you for a cadeaux or your phone number.

A Burkina man handing a goat up to the roof of the bush taxi

On the road to my village, Bagassi

These were grey at the beginning of my trip...

Typical day during PST (Pre Service Training)

A typical day here? Hmmmm well, there is no more "normal"...it's a whole other world, which I knew it would be, but actually being here is another thing.

I wake up every morning at 6:15 and wrap my pagne (the material they use to make clothes and use to wrap themselves when they go get water to wash, etc.) around me and grab my bucket to go get water to wash...the Burkinabe don't greet each other in the morning until the face is washed and teeth are brushed.

After I take my "shower" (I have a technique now to make sure I'm clean with just one bucket) I get dressed and make my bed and by that time I'm already pouring sweat.

My breakfast is ready when I'm dressed around 7, I get an omelette (peppers and onions), coffee (instant and instant milk), bread and sometimes the Burkinabe version of peanut butter...plus my malaria pill I take on a full stomach. I eat and chat with my host mom or aunt or cousins until 730 then I bike to the corner to meet up with another trainee and bike together to the training center which is about 2-3km from our neighborhood.

We have the furthest bike ride everyone else is closer to the training place. We have class 8-5 with a 2 hour lunch break, some people stay at the center to nap or study, some bike to the market or the American cafe we found (no BBQ sauce and I forgot my bottle at home, I'm going through withdrawals!!) where we found the best French fries (and actual ketchup!), some walk across the street from the training center to a small shack where an old lady makes a traditional dish called Benga, its some sort of rice & beans, really good and filling and cheap and super easy to make at home.

At night I either go straight home and hang out with my host cousins and do homework or I go to the cyber cafe near my house with other volunteers to get wifi (the connection is so slow I can't do much but look at emails or sometimes when NOBODY else is there i get lucky and I can upload a couple pics on Facebook) or some of us go grab a beer or stay at the center and some do yoga or work on homework/lesson planning for model school (where we teach in front of real students in order to receive feedback and practice before the school year begins in October).

I barely have alone time because the concept is a weird one here, the Burkinabe don't have a sense of personal space or personal belongings, everything is shared and people don't like to be alone, so even though the Peace Corps explained that Americans like to have some time alone, I don't like to be holed up in my small room with a tiny window anyway (it gets claustrophobic in there plus its too hot inside) so I mostly relax outside in the shade if I don't have anything to do or want to read a book, etc.

Then I strip down naked because of the heat, get in bed, tuck my mosquito net in around my bed and fan myself with my hand fan or a piece of notebook paper until I fall asleep!

Sundays are chore days, I clean my room with a hand-made broom my cousins made out of some sort of thin twigs or something and then I do laundry. I get two buckets for that...it's a challenge but getting easier, whenever I start washing my clothes my cousins or even some random neighborhood girl that I've never seen before will run over to start helping me, I guess I look ridiculous trying to scrub the way they do! The guy volunteers apparently have had to really really insist on doing their own laundry instead of the daughter of the family doing it and they get weird looks haha (it's a patriarchal family system society here...the father is the king and men don't do any chores at home at all and the daughters or any other young girls like my cousins do the majority of household chores).

Peeing and such in a hole in the ground is getting easier (though the smell in the latrines is enough to knock you out if you breathe through your nose!)...I don't know why they haven't thought of the concept to put in some sort of chair or something where you don't have to strain to squat!

The trash, naked children, donkeys, dogs, chickens, pigs, cattle & goats line the roads and are constantly having to be dodged so I don't crash right into them. They are EVERYWHERE, my trainer explained that people here don't lock up their animals, they let them wander anywhere in the city and they apparently know their way home.

Theres a typical day in training...now everything is about to change when I go to my village (we also refer to our villages as our "sites") so I will keep you updated about that when I actually get there in a few days!

Also, as a side note: My host family gave me a Nuni name (Nuni is another culture here, Mossi is the most common) Kahleo, which means "bienvenue a Leo" or "friend of Leo" and can also represent the first daughter in a family (my host mother only has a son so she thought it was fitting for her...plus my little host brother, Steve, has the name Bahleo as his Nuni name, which is the male version of mine). I like it! Its supposed to be a big honor to be given a name here, it means you are part of the community, part of the family. The neighbors only call me by Kahleo now too but my host family goes back and forth between that and Zazie.

My host brother, Steve

Benga dish made by my host family

First Impressions

So I know I haven't really been keeping up with blog posts since I've been here...okay, haven't even started blogging, but its been a crazy and packed couple of months of cross-cultural & language training with little and inconsistent access to the internet. So all apologies!

Now that I've given you all my excuses for not blogging, here is a wrap-up of the past couple months in my world:

First, Burkina Faso is HOT. I thought coming from Florida would help me out a bit, and in some ways I guess I have suffered less than others in our 'stage' (a group of trainees/volunteers...we are G30 - the 30th Group of volunteers in Burkina) but the Sun here is just so intense with no cool ocean breeze that everything shuts down at lunch time for a 2-3 hour repos (nap time) and people try not to move. And forget about looking half decent anytime here, by the time you make it to the end of the dirt (or mud with the rainy season going on right now) you no longer have dry clothes or a clean face.

Secondly, throw everything out that you think you know about West Africa because unless you have physically squatted above a latrine hole filled with a cesspool of everything horrible while bats attempt to fly in and out of your legs, you have not experienced true West Africa. One of my fellow trainees had an epic battle with a bat while he was squatting down with diarrhea in the middle of the night (read here: http://ryankennedyburkinafaso.blogspot.com) and that was just a normal Burkinabe evening.

Also, I have become a vegetarian again for the most part since I've been in Burkina because you're just never quite sure what kind of meat you are getting when you order it. Another fellow trainee (and Floridian!) friend of mine was enjoying his meal with his host father one night and because the electricity in our training village of Leo (about 15km from the border of Ghana) is spotty at best, he was blindly eating his rice, veggies and meat with his hands and finally realized that the unusual taste in his mouth was coming from the meat in the dish. He asked his father what kind of meat it was and the response was a shrug and a nonchalant "c'est de la viande"...its just meat...My friend insisted for a straight answer and finally his host dad confessed that it was chien. For my non-franglais speaking friends out there, his host family had cooked him dog meat. Now, in the states that is a terrifying and unethical treatment of our beloved pets, but in Burkina the concept of "pets" is nonexistent. Animals are food, simple as that.

Not to make it seem as though Burkina is this terribly difficult and scary place, it is definitely rough but has many perks. The Burkinabe people are extremely welcoming, treat guests with all the best parts of 'southern hospitality' and the fascinated children are a joy. The constant cries of "Nasara! Nasara!" or "Tubaboo! Tubaboo!" or "Le Blanc", which we hear shouted to us wherever we go anywhere, terms meant to distinguish us as foreigners, have become just something we have learned to ignore or even joke around with and are not usually shouted in a malicious manner. The children have learned to use those terms as a way to receive our attention...they love to run along or behind your bike as you go by and laugh when you wave to them or attempt to say hello in the local language. Just like the old men at the corner who grab your arm when you stop at a light with your bicycle and insist that you MUST marry him, these are all things you have to smile and have a good sense of humor about here and everything else will seem easier. As they always say here, even when deathly ill or recently hit by a moto, ça va aller.

Burkina Faso is a very peaceful and welcoming country and I have full confidence that I am in safe hands here with the locals. :)

Some of my neighborhood kids near my house in Leo where we had training and their mode of transport