A Tubabu in Burkina Faso: October 2014

Update on the political situation here in Burkina:

Let me start off by saying that I AM NOT IN DANGER. The political situation here has nothing to do with Westerners and they are not targeting us in any way, what is going on is between the Burkinabe and their government. Plus the Peace Corps is working closely with the American Embassy here to ensure all volunteers' safety before all.

So basically whats going on is that the current President, Blaise Compaoré, is trying to pass a referendum to the constitution to be able to lift the term limit on his presidency, which he has already successfully done before. He has been in power since led a coup d'état in 1987, and has been reelected president four times since 1991.

And a lot of people are pissed because they believe it is time for the President to step down, some have been going as far as to say that he has become a dictator. The opposition has called for protests and civil disobedience starting tomorrow (October 28^th). All schools and universities are closed for the entire week and government offices will be closed at least for tomorrow for the start of the protests. Over the weekend, some people here in the capital have begun their rioting and set tires are fire and blockaded roads and police have responded with tear gas, but nobody has been severely hurt.

We will see what happens from now until the elections next year! If the referendum passes then Compaoré will most likely win the election next year as well thus why the opposition is trying to stop this NOW. In any case, history for this country is being made this week and I am happy to be here to witness it.

Full article with more detail:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/23/us-burkina-politics-idUSKCN0IC11120141023

President Blaise Compaoré

So the past few weeks have been a combination of a great, seaside vacation and a very painful experience. Just 2 days before the official start of classes in Burkina, the PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) called and said that a Medevac (medical evacuation) was approved to remove my severely impacted wisdom tooth (see picture below). I was headed to Dakar, bustling capital city of Senegal! I immediately made arrangements for my new puppy, Captain (also see picture below), with my neighbors (they are convinced he is an angel sent by my deceased kitten, Pirate, to keep me company so I have no qualms about leaving him in a dog-eating village, I know they will keep him totally safe!) and started packing.

I didn't even have time to unpack before they were shoving me into the dentist's office the very next morning after my arrival, Peace Corps didn't want to take the risk that the roots of my tooth grow into my jaw bone so my plans to visit the city was put on hold...

As we drove through downtown Dakar, I was nervous but reassured thinking that I would be knocked out and drugged up during the procedure so I wouldn't be aware of what was going on anyway. That was not the case. They laughed when I asked if I was going under and they scoffed when I asked for laughing gas.

"Laughing gas is only for patients who are too freaked out to cooperate with the dentist" they said. "You seem to be completely calm!"

While the dentists might have been impressed with my calm demeanor, they had greatly mistakened my relaxed state for SHEER PANIC! that literally had me frozen. As I was debating on either faking a panic attack so that they would slap the laughing gas mask on my face or bolting out the door and into the busy street below and never showing my face to the Peace Corps again, the dental assistant walked in. Now, for my friends and family back home who know me, I can easily be mesmerized by members of the opposite sex who I find attractive....and not in a cute or "Hey she's adorably gawking at me" kind of way, but in a "I can't remember my name, much less how to formulate a coherent sentence" kind of way.

And so, with my eyes glued on this dark-brown haired, caramel-brown eyed, tall, god of a man, I calmed myself down and submitted to the older and less attractive, kind of smelly and chubby dentist (I called him Chubs in my mind during every appointment in order to humorously relieve some resentment I had towards him) and underwent the whole procedure with local anesthesia. It took about 20 minutes of Chubs digging for the horizontal tooth to give in...lets just say that 20 minutes of digging into my jaw with local anesthesia was not on the top of my bucket list and has probably made my top 10 worst experiences list. Thank goodness for Jack Johnson's mellow voice I jammed to through my headphones (Chubs asked if I was listening to One Direction, I just rolled my eyes).

Oh, I almost forgot, on top of being awake and fully conscious of what was going on in my mouth, I got sent home with just a bottle of TYLENOL. No real hard pain killers, but TYLENOL.

Anyway, this is where this story gets a little better. After Mr. Hot-Stuff-Dental-Assistant so kindly wiped my face clean of the gallons of blood smeared all the way to my ears, I had an internal debate on how I should ask this God-man out...you know as a tour guide for my stay, or something. When we were alone in the surgery room, I opened my mouth to ask if he had plans the rest of his life, or you know just the week would be fine too, and I realized that I couldn't speak. Not the normal, awkward, shy moment where you can't speak when facing a man with the face of an angel, but like, I literally could not open my mouth. All my words came out mumbled and I just sounded, and probably also looked, a bit deranged.

Get it together Zazie!!

I tried again...nothing. The man-god looked up at me from his paperwork and rushed over with a look of concern.

"Do you need me to wipe your face again?" He asked.

Oh no, oh no! He wants to wipe the slober off my face...this isn't sexy, this isn't even cute!!

I shook my head no. He sat back down.

Say something funny, say ANYTHING, c'mon you can do this!

I tried again.

"Wa are yu dooen *suck up slober* dis week?"

There, good job Zaz!

I look at him expectantly. He just kind of stared at me in a perplexed way and I sighed, realizing this wasn't going anywhere. Just as I planned to resort to a form of sign language, old Chubs came back in and gave me after-procedure care and ushered me out the door. I got one more peak at that gorgeous assistant of his and sulked my way back to the Peace Corps car waiting for me.

The ride home I tried focusing on not slobbering all over the front of my shirt and by the time I got back to the medical unit, happy thoughts of the dental assistant were all gone and replaced by searing hot pain through the whole side of my face, radiating from the crater in my mouth. After a few hours of this throbbing pain, the Peace Corps doctor finally drove over in the middle of the night to bring me Codine...so sweet. Made me throw up but I had gone numb by that time so I managed to get a couple hours of sleep.

So the rest of my trip went very well (except they pulled another wisdom tooth a week later, this one was straight forward and took 2 minutes), I met a bunch of volunteers from Senegal, enjoyed the great food & huge, air-conditioned supermarkets, went to an actual MALL (I know, it was shocking for me too) and most of all enjoyed as much time as I could on the beach. I visited an ancient slave island, Ile de Goree, where I almost fell off the side of the ferry in excitement when I spotted the beautiful turquoise waters surrounding the island. I swam with the local kids (who also caught the fish I had for lunch that day) and bought some bracelets that were made from the local artisans on the island. I also picked up on some of the local lang, Wolof, while I was in Dakar.

Dakar was a great mix of a typical West African city with its street vendors, trash strewn everywhere, bush taxis painted in bright colors, women carrying fruit baskets on their heads and a laid-back surfer town with young Senegalese men walking around the streets with their surfboards tucked under their arms. It was definitely a great trip (minus the teeth) and I would love to go back (without further teeth problems) to spend more time there.