Food

Now that I’ve been here almost two months, I feel sufficiently integrated to write about food in Burkina. A traditional Burknabe meal consists of some type of grain with a sauce of meat and vegetables,, depending on what is available. In the large cities you can find grocery stores and restaurants that cater to the western palate, so there’s no danger of me going wit out a cheeseburger for the next two years. Despite the sometimes frustrating lack of variety and meager servings of meat, food here is pretty tasty, and I have no real complaints.

The basic staple of the traditional Burkinabe diet is “to”, a white jell-like blob made from millet. In the US, millet is used in birdseed, but once it is ground up, dissolved, and cooked, it is as edible as any other grain. To has no taste alone, but the Burkinabe add all sorts of sauces to liven up the dish: baobab, spinach, peanut, cabbage, and tomato are among the more popular ingredients. When not eating to, Burkinabe commonly eat rice or couscous with any of the sauces I just mentioned. Pasta with tomato sauce is also popular. As for drinks, Coca-Cola brand products (Coke, Sprite, and Fanta) are everywhere. There are four or five main types of beer, and tons of overwhelmingly sweet juices.

Most food and all sorts of gadgets can be found at the market places, which exist in most large towns and all big cities. As you get into the smaller towns and villages, markets become less regular and have a smaller variety of foods, but the Ouahigouya market place is the bustling center of the city. Shops are crowded in on top of each other, each shop getting a 12 foot by 12 foot room, some of which appear to have locking garage doors. Merchandize fills each shop, spilling out onto tables in the alleyways. This part of the market is basically African Walmart; you can find any plastic gizmo, cheap radio, machete, or kid’s toy you could desire. There are also people selling fabric for clothing; tailors found separately. Fabric is draped over the alleyways as a shield from the scorching sun, so this part of the market feels very enclosed, especially at the peak of its busy hours. Food is sold in a separate, open air part of the market. Women sell vegetables, dry grains, and spices, all arranged in neat piles on the ground. You buy spices buy the bag (about a palm full), and vegetables by the pile or individually. Depending on the season, you can find bell peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, eggs, fresh herbs, egg plant…very easily. If you can’t find something, you simply ask. If the vendor you approach isn’t selling it, she probably knows someone on the other side of the market who is and will gladly take you there herself. You don’t get this kind of service at Albertson’s. Animals, however, roam freely, so don’t ask about cleanliness.

I had my first grocery shopping trip in the Ouaghiouya market a few days ago. We had a nutritional practical as part of our training, so each group was given time and money to plan and prepare a full meal. Our group decided to go all out; we wanted to make onion rings, macaroni and cheese, tamale casserole, and crepes. We were able to get most of our ingredients at the market, for about five American dollars total. As you could imagine, a group of white people walking through the market attracts a bit of a crowd. Shopping was therefore an exercise in multi-tasking: speaking French, finding food, and fending off small children asking for a handshake or money. “Wend na kon loca” means “God will provide” in More and is an eternally useful phrase. We went to the supermarket (don’t get too excited…think gas station groceries) for cold milk, cheese, and baking powder.

Back at our instructor’s house, the PC medical officer and her PCV helpers rolled up with their portable kitchen. They had all the pots, pans, dishes, and utensils we would need; they also brought the propane-fuelled stove top and Dutch oven. Not even Rachel Ray could complain about this setup. L and C got to work on the onion rings and macaroni while G and I chopped veggies for the tamale pie. Unfortunately we forgot that beans take hours to cook, so we improvised and made vegetable surprise instead: thank you Spruce House cooking class. If only KFRC and Dusti Roads were here.

Everything turned out delicious. The onion rings were amazing, and the mac n cheese gave me hope for survival in this country (pasta = Zach staple). Veggie surprise was…interesting, but the crepes with a little mango jelly…wow. Basically I can’t wait to get to my village and cook for myself. The PC gave us a cookbook full of recipes we can make in village with (mostly) ingredients we can find here. I’m going to make a desert fridge and try drying some fruit and vegetables. I can’t wait to get started! I took a few pictures of our culinary adventure and showed them to my host family. They thought it hilarious to see me cooking and doing dishes. They still think I’m going to break here. Doubtful.

Burkinabe Transport

Transport in this country is so much fun that it deserves its own special entry.

There are several respectable and reliable bus companies, the kind that we are used to in the US…sort of. The garages are places of bustling excitement. The workers take luggage from passengers, storing it for the voyage. “Luggage” includes suitcases, bikes, packages of sandals to sell in village, wrapped fish, beds, and goats. Whatever doesn’t fit below is delicately balanced and tied on top of the bus. Buses like to stop for random reasons. We stopped to get gas and pick up passengers on the side of the road several times before leaving our starting city. I have no idea how passengers know where the “bus stops” are; they certainly aren’t marked. During the trip, the most common stop is for bathroom breaks. We’d pull to the side of the road, and the men all line up and take care of business while the women run into the fields a ways. The driver has very little patience during these stops, and he usually pulls away well before all the passengers are back on the bus. It’s quite an amusing sight to see a dozen people pulling up their pants while chasing after a departing bus.

The bus I took to my village was not nearly as nice as the one we took to Ouaga. This bus looked to be about 50 years old, with the seats torn and the overhead compartments threatening to fall on us with every bump in the road. The road to my site is unpaved and very bumpy, so I kept an eye on it most of the time. The bus was crammed full of people and their belongings, but luckily the windows provided excellent AC.

The van I took to visit J is yet another story. This was a full-sized van, with five or six rows of seats, five people per row. At one point in the trip a piece of luggage started to fall off the roof. One of the guys who worked for the transport company climbed out of the passenger side window, up over the pile of luggage, and saved the slipping garment bag- all while the bus was traveling full speed down the bumpy, unpaved road. This would certainly violate a million laws and safety regulations in the US. Oh well.

My favorite type of transportation; however, is the cabs we took in Ouaga. The drivers love to rip Americans off. Thus, every cab trip starts with a lengthy discussion of the fare. The drivers also like to cram as many people as possible into their cabs. I think they were nice to us because we are Americans because the most I had in one cab was four people, our bags for the week-long trip, and our four bikes. That’s nothing though. The condition of the actual cabs make cabs in the US look like luxury limos. One of our cabs had no interior paneling. My door sagged about an inch below the latch; also there was no door handle on the inside. There was no seating upholstery, and the dashboard was torn to shreds. Once we were all situated, the driver started the car by rubbing together two wires hanging from the steering column down to his knees. Pulling into traffic, the cab light on the roof of the car fell off; I noticed that it was powered via two wires coming in through the window and disappearing beneath the dashboard. It was raining and there were no windshield wipers. But the driver was as good as any other in Ouaga, and since we didn’t have far to go, I felt “safe”.

Intermission: Un Petit Tour du Faso

(Disclaimer: MTV moment about to unfold.) This is Zach from Minneapolis. I’d like to give a big shout out to Julia’s mom and all the other family and friends of fellow PC trainees who may be reading this. You guys rock! Especially Julia’s mom!

Training is halfway through! To celebrate, we had a week off from what had become our normal routine. We took a trip to Ouaga, met our Burkinabe counterparts, and travelled to our future sites. It was a great break from Ouahigouya. I love my site and can’t wait to move in after training. Also, after being in OHG for the past six weeks, Ouaga is a little slice of Heaven.

The week started off with a group excursion to Ouaga; it was our first attempt to master the Burkinabe transport system on our own. Transport here is a riot. I’ll spare you the details (see the next blog entry), but I’ll just say that after making four stops on the side of the road in OHG to pick up passengers, we found ourselves barreling through the Burkinabe countryside in a decent bus, windows open, reggae music blaring at full volume. What a trip. The driver made it in just over two hours.

First stop: Ouaga. When I first got to Burkina six weeks ago, my impression of Ouaga was that of a run-down city with few amenities. Wrong! We lived the good life when we were there. Our hotel had electricity, air conditioning, sit-down toilets that flushed reliably, and a pool. We were within walking distance of several good restaurants, including a wine and cheese bar (cheddar and jack only, but the wine was plentiful), and the American Embassy. Ah, the Embassy. There’s a honor-system library, TV with ESPN, and pool. The best part is that the restaurant serves cheeseburgers, bad burritos, and delicious milkshakes. It is definitely going to be a regular stop on my Ouaga excursions.

We had a counterpart workshop Monday and Tuesday. During this time, we met one of our future coworkers and discussed our future sites, the surrounding community, and workplace communication. My counterpart S is a history and geography teacher at my school. The school has 400 students in the equivalent of American grades 6 through 9. With me, there are four teachers, maybe five. 5Lengthy discussion in French that I did not fully understand.) Yup. Wow. I think I will have as many math and science classes as I could possibly want. The closest high school is 50km away in Dedougou, the regional capital. I saw a list of 29 students (including 9 girls) from my school who had passed the national exam required for high school entrance. I don’t know how many of those students will actually attend high school, as their families would be forced to pay not only for books, but also for lodging in Dedougou, food in the city (more expensive than in village), and weekly transport back and forth. Not to mention their parents would lose their daily help around the house and in the fields. I still don’t understand: I get cell phone reception in village, but there’s no high school.

My village, which we’ll call Yosemite so I don’t get any weird stalkers, is an unpaved road in the West of Burkina. Once we got there, after a five-hour bus ride from Ouaga, S took me on a five minute bike ride to my future house. It’s gorgeous. As we pulled up I could only think, “Wow, this has to be some sort of cruel joke.” I have two bedrooms, and indoor shower (bucket baths only), and a large living room/kitchen area. The house is well-furnished and decorated as I am the fourth volunteer to live there. The interior is painted a nice blue-green, and that combined with the high ceilings makes it feel very much like an airy beach house…without the beach. But don’t worry, it’s still Burkina. The town has no running water or electricity. We have a market every fifth day, where I’ll do most of my basic shopping. For more complicated things (and the Internet), I’ll have to take transit to Dedougou or Koudougou, stay overnight, and return the next day (one bus per day). I love it though. There are tons of trees, and the river is within biking distance. I can’t wait to move in.

Thursday morning I took a van a few towns over to visit J, a current PCV. We hung out in his village, and I got a glimpse of the lifestyle that lies ahead. The biggest benefit I see is that I’ll be able to control my food. The food hasn’t been bad with my host family, but I’m excited to be able to eat what I want when I want it. Friday morning we decided to bike into Koudougou. It was a pretty quick ride, but J realized halfway through it that he had left something at his house in village. He decided to go get it, and I decided to sit on the side of the road and read. Well-traveled road, middle of the day, lots of people, no problem right? Wrong. The only book I had was Stephen King’s masterpiece “The Shining”, and I was about halfway through. All I could think about was Jack Nicholson in the movie version. Jack and the axe that very closely resembles the hoe that every other person walking by me is carrying to the fields. Several people stopped to see if I was OK, and I was only able to manage a quick response, my eyes glued to their hoe.

Once in Koudougou, we decided to spend the afternoon at the pool. Are you noticing a pattern? We had a few beers, ate lunch, and basically chilled all afternoon. After that, we walked around town, saw the market and supermarket, and found our hotel. The next morning we took a bus to Ouaga, and I met up with some other trainees and headed back to OHG. As we pulled into the garage in OHG, the rain that had been threatening for the entire trip began to fall. By the time we got our bikes and luggage, it was pouring. I was mud-stained, soaked, and tired from four straight days of traveling. However, biking home I was happy. Most people were huddled in their houses or under overhangs on the side of the road. The only ones actually going anywhere were me and and a couple of kids herding four cattle through the streets near my house. And that’s life in Burkina Faso.

A Day in the Life

Contrary to my previous 24 years of life, my days in Burkina Faso end around 9:30pm and begin around 5:30am. If I sleep outside, as I do most nights, the resident rooster mercilessly wakes me around 3:30, two hours before sunrise.

Mornings, like much of my non-Peace Corps-run life, are quite relaxing given my early wake-up. I bring my bedding back to my bedroom and prepare for my bucket bath. This involves getting water from either a large basin or what appears to have formerly been an 80L gasoline barrel. We have a hose, but water rarely runs from it. I eat breakfast in silence with my host father while the kids watch from the patio or start their chores. Classes don’t start until 8:00, so I kill time by reading or writing in my journal.

The Peace Corps training headquarters is a conference facility five minutes by bike from my house. My immediate neighbors know my name and greet me with “Bon jour, Jacques” (close enough), but to the rest of the city, I’m just another “nasara” (foreigner) biking with a strange piece of plastic on his head.

We have four classes per day, a mixture of language, health, safety, cross-cultural, and technical training. Classes are in small (4-5) or large (all 26 of us) groups; the small language classes are often held at a group member’s home or a local restaurant. Full-group class topics from the past couple of weeks include survival Moore (one of Burkina’s 60 local languages), the Burkinabe education system, and how to make a MIF kit (for sending stool samples to the health offices in Ouaga). The heat forces the whole country to shut down from noon to 3pm for naps and lunch, so our 90 minute break seems brutally short, especially on the hot days.

After class, a variety of activities keep me busy until bedtime. Sometimes I go to the cybercafe or out for a beer with my fellow trainees. More often, though, I go home and practice my French or play soccer or Ludo with my host siblings. Ludo is a game similar to the American board game “Sorry”, except simpler, with a single die instead of elaborate cards. And, just like Sorry players, Ludo players take the game very seriously; games end with taunting and promises of future revenge.

I eat dinner with Mom and Dad while the kids and their aunt (who lives with us and does a lot of the housework) eat around the other side of the house. After dinner I watch TV, read, or help my oldest brother with his summer studies. Despite the problems with the Burkinabe education system, the students that manage to stay in school learn some very advanced material in their high school physics, chemistry, and math classes. Bedtime rolls around about 9:30, and I usually fall asleep under the stars listening to my family’s television or the neighbor’s radio, both of which play at full volume until well after midnight.

As I have experienced and observed it, life in Burkina is not particularly glamorous, complex, or technologically advanced. The Burkinabe live simple but happy lives. Unlike most Westerners, the approach daily tasks and problems in a manner that is both humbling and inspiring. A mother carries her child in a single cloth tied to her back. There are no flashy baby billionaire backpacks. Instead, this cloth (called a pagne) performs multiple duties, possibly serving as the next day’s clothing or that night’s towel. When something is dirty, you wash it with your own two hands. If you want to hear about a friend’s day, you walk over to their house. Things are personal and un-rushed.

None of this is to say that life here is perfect. Urban infrastructure, sanitation, health care, and education could all stand serious improvements. There is little industry, so money is scarce. This makes access to the existing social services even more difficult.

Most important is access to education. Nationally, 66 percent of primary school aged children attend classes; the attendance rate is down to 9 percent for high school students. While school is technically free, books, supplies, and household responsibilities all add up to a hefty price tag on a high school education, especially in rural communities. And especially especially for girls. Additionally, the education system is set up to ensure that only the brightest, most dedicated students pass from grade to grade. Unfortunately, there is no system in place that caters to the students who fail to meet the tough requirements. A student who fails twice is forced to attend a private school at substantial personal cost. More likely, however, is that s/he will drop out of school completely and end up working for the family kiosk or in the fields.

The desert-like climate forces life in Burkina to be both difficult and simple. As I adjust to lie here, I am humbled by its marvelous simplicity, and by the joy of its people, and deeply motivated to help provide basic human needs.