Notes from Africa

The days that followed were considerably more positive than that first afternoon. There have been some rough moments, but on the whole, things are looking good as I adjust to life in my new ‘hood.

My house is mostly cleaned out. I’ve converted the second bedroom into a yoga/meditation/music studio, and the living room/kitchen is going for the “beach house without the water” look. As the fourth volunteer to live in my house, I’ve inherited a lot of crap, some useful, and some useless. Tops on the list include old lesson plans, a Peace Corps health manual from 2005, about 30 novels, and a slightly used tent. I also have a ton of my village’s famous pottery. The only thing I don’t have yet is electricity. After sunset I usually play the guitar in the dark before going to bed around 8 or 8:30. I don’t think I went to bed that early when I was five years old, but that’s life in Burkina.

It’s rained everyday except one that I’ve been in village. Most of the time this keeps the temperature pleasantly in the mid-70’s. I don’t know if this is a bad omen for what awaits me in the hot season, but the Burkinabe are now wearing winter coats. Yikes! They make San Diegans look tough. The rain has also allowed me to make an important discovery about my new house: the floor isn’t level. Usually the storms come from the south, the back of the house, so this isn’t a problem. One day, however, we got a storm from the front of the house, and the rain blew right in under my front door. It collected in a nice little…large actually puddle across the living room from the front door. Fortunately the living room is also the garage, so it wasn’t too tough to sweep the water out again.

The other unfortunate affect of the rain is the toll it takes on the roads. The nearest paved road is about 100km away, and all the dirt roads have been transformed into Swiss cheese. Despite this, I’ve taken several bike rides to neighboring villages. Between potholes, I’ve managed to make several observations. One, there are a lot of potholes. Two, add a little water and the Burkinabe countryside is actually quite beautiful. Three, kids are given a lot of responsibility here. It’s not unusual to have to steer around a herd of cattle being led to graze by a set of three year olds. Four, people walk a long ways to get to market. Check that, women and girls walk a longs ways to get to market; men and boys ride bikes, motos, or donkey carts. Not only do they walk it, but the women carry all their goods to sell on their heads.

Most days, town is pretty quiet. The bus stop on the main road sees four buses a day, two in each direction. We have a buvette and one or two restaurants. We also have a medical clinic which employs a doctor and nurse. The only person over there the day I stopped by was the mayor’s daughter and a friend, just hanging out. Town comes alive on market days though. Two big trucks bring in goods from the nearest big city. You can find everything from eating utensils to plastic sandals. Also: Britney Spears t-shirts and “real” Rolexes. Villagers bring in their crops, and there’s a huge meat section. With all the people and goods crowded into a small area in the center of town, sanitation is largely ignored. I walked by a cow head hanging out on the ground in front of the butcher’s stand.

All in all, life isn’t too bad out here. Since school hasn’t started yet, I have very little to do. Most days I take a bike ride, go for a walk around town, and do a lot of reading. There’s also the humorous half conversation with the servant/daughter of the family next door. She speaks less French than I do. There’s also plenty of time to watch the endless parade of animals that comes through my yard: cows, goats, pigs, sheep, chickens, roosters, dogs, cats, donkeys…As long as they don’t poo on my porch, I’m happy.