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.
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| A Burkina man handing a goat up to the roof of the bush taxi |
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| On the road to my village, Bagassi |
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| These were grey at the beginning of my trip... |
Good morning, how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because through them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Burkina Faso? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Burkina Faso in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Calle Valencia, 39
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez