Arly National Park

See the pictures!

Over the first part of our trimester break two friends and I went on a bike trip to and through Arly National Park, in the South of Burkina. We spent three days in the bush, saw some neat wild animals, and did a lot of biking. A lot of biking. Because no Burkina trip is complete without a little randomness, we also were given wine by a regional forester from Ouaga, learned why the 1969 moon landing was staged in Nevada, and met up with (though were not allowed to socialize with) rich Europeans vacationing and paying up to $10000 to hunt Burkina’s big game.

Our trip started with a Christmas celebration in Caleb’s village, east of Fada. We had a nice dinner of guinea fowl, pasta, rice, and watermelon with his family, and folded paper airplanes with his little neighbors. Around dusk the party started to get going at the church. They had a drum set set-up outside, and people were dancing a bit and mingling. A few hours later they started a movie about Jesus; the movie was European-made, but dubbed over in Gourmanche, the language spoken in Caleb’s village. We had no idea what was going on, but we did get to see Jesus raise a girl from the dead and fill the fishermen’s nets with fish. Go Jesus! We hung around after the movie waiting for the dancing to start, but when nothing had happened by 11:30, we decided to go to bed.

The next day we took transport east and south from Caleb’s village to Diapaga, the last large town before hitting the national parks system. Nothing too exciting about transport- only broke down twice, lost one tire, two babies threw up, another kid screamed the whole time. But we made it. Saturday morning we took off on our bikes into the bush. We biked about 75km past very small villages, some gorgeous cliffs, and lots of sand. At the entrance to Arly National Park, there’s a hunting lodge, and we stopped there for lunch. The place was gorgeous- pool, bar, restaurant, bungalows (see picture)- and after our initial shock wore off, we started to feel a little out of place. Sure enough just after we finished eating, “the clients” showed up in their 4×4’s with three suitcases a piece and several guns. As we were (quite literally) shuffled off to the side by the staff, we quickly decided that this place was out of our price range for the night. We asked the staff if there was somewhere else to stay, and they kind of laughed at us as they told us we could continue 15km into the park and try to stay with the forester. So we did.

We figured that the forester’s would be located at a village of some type, and since we had camping gear, we weren’t too concerned. Well, we got to our “village” to find that it was literally one family plus the forester. There was an old abandoned hotel that the family worked to keep in minimum (and I do mean minimum) inhabiting condition, and that was it. The hotel was built in the 1950’s and had apparently been THE spot for hunters from around West Africa and Europe; there was a pool, dance floor, bar…it clearly used to be gorgeous. Due to new hunting laws however, the big game hunters are now staying elsewhere, and the hotel is slightly rundown. Soon after “checking in” to our room, we went over to the forester’s to find some dinner. As luck would have it, the Park Forester was hosting a regional higher-up in the Forestry Department that night. And we were invited! While we waited for dinner to be prepared, Peter, the man from the Forestry Dept, busted out his laptop and showed us a movie entitled “Why No One Has Ever Been to the Moon”. Conspiracy theory and that stuff. I must say, the flag blowing in the atmosphere-less environment is pretty convincing. But I digress. Dinner included watermelon and wine. Ah, life with the Forestry Department.

Sunday morning we got up crazy early and went on a guided bike tour of Arly. We saw some baboons, gazelles, elephants, deer-type animals, and hippos. We were kind of hoping to see lions, but we were kind of glad we didn’t get eaten by lions. (Despite numerous reassurances that “they won’t attack you if you don’t attack them”, we were a little scared.) We also got to visit a fishing village where they smoke their catches, then ship them off to Ouaga. Talk about living in the middle of nowhere. This village was probably 15km from the place we stayed, which was itself not really a village. The nearest primary school was probably 60km away. After our bike excursion in the morning, we were pretty exhausted, so we decided to take Peter up on his offer of a ride to the next town. We loaded up in his pick-up, and set off. When we got to the campgrounds, we quickly realized that it was another place for high-paying European tourists, and once again we were not quite in our element. Luckily the manager was very nice and let us set up our tents in the back by the staff quarters.

I must say, I believe we had it better that night. We spent the night trading card games with the staff and trying to figure out magic tricks. For those of you who have never played cards with Burkinabe before, you’re in for a treat. The suits are called tomatoes, peanuts, diamonds, and spades. They play a game sort of like “Uno”, but the rules seem to change each hand. We also watched them cut up one of the water buffalo that had been killed that day. After quartering it, it still took two men to carry over a single leg to the butcher’s table. Then they went at it with knives, hatchets, and axes. It seriously sounded like they were trying to chop up a piece of rock, the bones were that hard. While watching them work, we got the inside story on the hunting trips: rich people pay to come to Burkina to kill a certain type of animal; they stay for a couple of weeks and almost always get their kill. Once the animals are killed, the heads go home to Europe, the neck meat goes to the staff, one quarter goes to the government, one quarter to the hunters, and the other half goes to the villagers. The villagers sell the meat and use the money to buy communal things like water pumps and schools. This made us feel much better about their trips- at first we had though they were just coming to Burkina to exploit the land, people, and animals. And though the rich tourists refused to even return our greetings, at least they were doing something for the people here.

Monday morning we said goodbye to our lodge staff friends, and took off by bike on the last 40km of our trip. It was a pretty easy day since the last 15km was on a paved road, but I was still exhausted as we reached Pama. Luckily there was a bush taxi ready to go, so we got on and next thing we know (OK, lots of stops, about ten 100kg bags of beans…but no breakdowns!), we were 100km north in the capital city of Fada. Ah civilization.

And now I must run. I’m meeting Mom, Dad, Nick and Chelsea at the airport in just a couple of hours! I can’t wait to see them! Happy New Year to all!

Tobaskie (Eid ul-Adha) in Village

Last Monday was the Muslim holiday Eid ul-Adha; this is the Muslim holiday of sacrifice, celebrated in honor of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son to show his loyalty to God. What this translates to in village is eating. A lot of eating sheep.

I started the day off at one of my colleague’s house. I got over there around 8:30, and hung out with his family for a while. Then everyone got all dressed up in their celebration garb: long, flowing outfits for both the men and women. Once we were all ready and pictures had been taken, we went over to the morning prayer session. Yup, I prayed with the Muslims. Prayers are normally held in the mosque, but because just about everyone in village shows up for special occasions, this morning the prayers were at the big soccer field across from the school. We walked over there, and my colleague set out the prayer shawl for the two of us, continuing one of many lines of people set up to pray facing Mecca in the East. We had arrived fairly early, so we sat for a while on our shawl, chatting with people and listening to the Arabic music. They had one megaphone set up, and music played for about an hour before the Imam arrived. Not surprisingly, he arrived in typical Burkinabe style- in the front seat of the ‘Blue Express’ village bush taxi. (That’s the newest addition to our bush taxi fleet…or it may just be newly painted.) I had to chuckle a bit when they opened the back door and 25 of the Imam’s closest friends piled out. The prayer itself lasted only about 15 mintues. The Imam spoke for a bit, all in Arabic, then we all kneeled to pray. I had been nervous that I’d feel out of place or not know what to do, but I didn’t feel any more neon than I do any other time in village, and I don’t think I screwed anything up religiously. I have to admit, it was very peaceful and meditative. I couldn’t help but thinking how wrong so many people are to be scared of the Islamic religion.

After the prayers were done the Imam was presented with a sheep, which he ceremonially slaughtered, as is tradition. I couldn’t see anything, so no video this time. Sorry Amy. Also during this time, the Koranic school boys roamed throughout the crowd asking for donations. These are usually kids whose parents can’t afford to send them to (the supposedly free) public schools, so they attend the Koranic schools at the mosque instead. They learn about Islam and the Koran, but have no one to provide food for them. So they ask for donations; they walk around with tomato paste cans and take what people offer, usually giving you a quick blessing and thank you in return. I think this was the “asking for money” portion of the prayer service, because many women with young children walked around the crowd and asked for money and or food as well. Also, a photographer roamed throughout the crowd taking photos for the mosque’s collection.

After prayers we went back to my colleague’s house where he killed not one, but two sheep. I hung out with his kids for awhile, teaching his youngest daughter (about 3 years old) English. Her older brothers have just started to learn English in school this year, and she is eager to learn as well. We also chased chickens away from the sheep carcasses and grilled the heads for eating the next day. After a couple of hours, my colleague brought out he first round- liver! He and I shared this while his wife continued to prepare the feast. A little later my other colleagues came over, and we all ate the rest of the sheep together. Good stuff. Then we went over to the school headmaster’s house…and ate again. This time sheep and POPCORN! Yup, apparently popcorn is one of the special holiday foods. Then we went over to another one of my colleagues houses. And ate yet again. Chicken this time. All three meals were delicious, and I could barely walk afterwards. Key word: barely. We then went to one of the village bars where all the non-Muslims and less strict Muslims continued the festivities. When I got home my neighbors shared with me some of their feast as well. Yum yum!

Lesson learned: holidays mean lots of food. Really, it’s kind of like Thanksgiving. In Arabic.

SIDA Fighting to the Max

Hello hello out there.

December 1st is World AIDS Day, and this year my school took part in a pretty significant way. Two colleagues and I attended a Peace Corps HIV/AIDS and Life Skills workshop last spring in Ouahigouya, a city in the north of Burkina. There we learned all sorts of activities, games, and other teaching strategies to use with students at school. At the end of the workshop we came up with the goal to do a series of three HIV/AIDS sensibilizations with every class at our school. I must admit, at the time I thought we were aiming way too high to have any chance of success. But I was wrong.

Throughout the month of November, the three of us took one class per week and put on a crash course in HIV/AIDS. We talked about myths and realities surrounding the disease; modes of transmission of HIV; and prevention. The highlight of every class was without a doubt the condom demonstration. The Peace Corps lent us wooden penises, and at the end of each class we used them to demonstrate how to properly use a condom. As you can imagine, the mere sight of a wooden penis causes a class of 15 year olds to go completely nuts- screaming with laughter and practically rolling down the aisles. However, once they calmed down, they were dead silent, and the room usually took on an air of “Oh, so that’s how you do it. I never knew…”

This past Thursday (while all of you in the US were muching on turkey and watching the pathetic Lions), we gave a longer, more in depth presentation for the entire student body. We touched on subjects we had already addressed in the classrooms (you can never hear about condoms too many times, right?) but also talked about HIV history, stigmatisation, and the affect of HIV/AIDS on our village community. To celebrate after the presentation, the administration bought us lunch- a huge pile of goat meat. Nick, you’re going to feel right at home here, uh, sort of.

All in all I think our sensibilisations went really well. Though we got a lot of questions from students that seemed completely irrelevant to their lives (Can monkies get HIV? What about dogs?), we also got to address a lot of practical questions such as: Can I use two condoms? (No!) Can I use the same condom twice? (No, again!) Can you get HIV by eating with someone? (Third no in a row.) And since it was probably the only time most of the students have ever talked about sex with grownups, I think it was very beneficial for them. If nothing else it provided them with ample opportunity for snickering at wooden penises.

School Daze

Howdy howdy. The past few weeks have been all about school, so I thought I’d take a minute and tell you a little more about our school. Needless to say, it’s a little different than the typical American middle school.

The school day starts each morning at 7am. On Mondays one of the class presidents raises the national flag, while everyone else watches in respectful silence. Classes go from 7am to noon, with a 15 minute break at 10:00. Lunch lasts until 3pm, when everyone comes back to school for two more hours of class. Though each class’s schedule is different, no one has class Thursday afternoon- reserved for tests. The other popular test time is Saturday mornings; most weeks most classes have tests at either or both of those times. Saturday afternoon the kids who don’t live in our village can go home to visit their families for the rest of the weekend, before biking or walking back (sometimes as far as 20km) to my village for school on Monday morning.

Our school has about 600 students in six classes (two each of 6th and 7th grade, one 8th grade and one 9th grade). The smallest class is the 9th grade with about 85 students; eighth grade is the largest with 125 students. I polled the students in my 6th and 7th grade classes on the first day of school and found that their average ages were, respectively, 14 and 15 years. The challenge in teaching, however, comes from their age range: my youngest 8th grader is 11 years old, while the oldest is 19.

Our school administration consists of a school principal (who also teaches 25-30 hours per week), an accountant, a disciplinarian (who helps with everything from proctoring tests to handing out punishments), and a secretary. The secretary types all official school documents on her typewriter, and makes copies using an old-school carbon-copy machine whose name I don’t know…in French or English. It’s got a big crank on the side and is a very messy thing to use. But it gets the job done. We have four full-time teachers: me and one other math/science teacher, an English teacher and a history/civics teacher. We also have two part-time community members who come in to help with physical education classes and one English class. I’ve never done the math on the student-to-staff ratio, but I’m sure it’s a little on the high side.

One other big difference between our school and an American school comes at the end of the trimester, when we calculate grades. After the official end of classes and tests, there are still a couple of weeks of work left for the teachers. Once grading papers is finished, it’s time to face the students. Each teacher goes into each of his or her classes and reads off the grades of every student, verifying their marks and calculating their overall grade for the course. Then the teachers go back and fill in the report cards (manually you silly goose…MS Excel doesn’t exist in village). Once the report cards are filled out, the classes are divided up, with each teacher in charge of one class. Back to the classroom. Now we verify each student’s grades in each course, and calculate their overall grade point average for the trimester. And fill that in on their report card. With all the GPAs calculated, we can now rank the students, calculate a class average and write out a list of students- twice: once in alphabetical order, once by class rank. Finally, at the end of each trimester, we have a full staff meeting and give the statistiques for each class- how many kids passed, how many failed, etc. It’s a lot of work, but I don’t mind the math and have some sick fascination with calculating grades, ranking students, and filling out report cards. Call it the curse of being organizationally excitable.

And that’s school in a nutshell.

Happy Halloween to all.

PS Hi Mrs. C. Hope all is well in Maryland!

School St-St-St-Starts

School came to a stuttering start a couple of weeks ago. The official “rentrée scolaire” is October first, however, that was the day my village decided to celebrate the Muslim holiday Ramadan. Ramadan is the end of the month of fasting and is supposed to coincide with the new moon. The new moon was the last day of September, and so most of the world celebrated then. For some reason our village chief decided to wait a day.

The Ramadan celebration was pretty neat to see. Everyone dressed up in their finest traditional clothes- long, flowing dresses for the women and similar traditional outfits for the men. Even the kids got all snazzed up…it was weird to see some of them wearing any clothes at all, much less fancy ones. Everyone went out to the soccer field by the main road and had a prayer service, then went home to eat. I was invited to eat with one of my colleagues and one of my neighbors. Both families had chicken, and both meals were delicious. I did think it kind of strange, though: when I went over to my neighbor’s house, neither his wife (who clearly had prepared the meal) nor his kids were there. It was just him, me, and several of his male friends. I didn’t ask, but maybe celebrating Muslim holidays is like praying in that men and women do it separately. Anyone know?

Over at the school, about half the kids had shown up, despite the holiday. They sat around for a while, then the Vice Principal installed them in their classrooms. This involved him reading roll, bringing them one-by-one into the classroom, and choosing the table they will sit at for the year. After he finished he had them stay in class for another hour or so, then he told them to go home. I’m not sure what the point of all that was. Due to the holiday, most kids hadn’t come, so he did the same exact thing the next day. That takes us to day number three, a Friday. Needless to say we did nothing. Classes finally started Monday, sort of. Since we don’t have copy services here, the first day of class is typically reserved for giving students the syllabus for the year. The teacher writes the list of chapters on the board, and the students write them down in their notebooks. So I gave my first real lessons the next day, almost a week after the official first day back. Thing is, after having seen the same thing last year, I knew exactly what to expect. I was in complete accordance with the other teachers in not wanting to do anything the previous Friday. I think I’m going to go into shock when I go back to America and something actually starts when it’s supposed to.

We just finished the second week of school. So far, I’m teaching a sixth grade math class and two seventh grade math classes. One of our other math/science teachers is leaving at the end of the month, so I’m probably going to be picking up one of his classes, which I’m excited about because he teaches the older students. There’s only so many times discussing properties of a line (”It goes on forever! It doesn’t even stop at the end of your piece of paper!”) with sixth graders is intellectually stimulating. That said, our next unit is about the order of operations; PMDAS returns. And wait ’til they find out that PMDAS is coming to village, live and in person. She’ll be the biggest celebrity this side of Michael Jackson.

One more quick thing. The US Election. I’m sure you are all sick to death of hearing about it, but I want to point out that everyone here is paying attention. Well, the educated people anyways. Even some of my students know who Barack Obama is. For the rest of them, when I tell them a black man might be the next POTUS, they pretty much think it’s a bad joke. Most of them don’t believe that black people can have money or a solid education, certainly not enough to be in charge of the US. I hope for nothing more than to be able to come into class the day after the election and tell them that America elected a president who is intelligent, cares about people, is willing to listen to viewpoints from around the world, who will continue to provide American aid to poor countries…and who happens to be black.

PS For those of you not in San Franciso…I sent in my absentee ballot recently, happily voting to change the name of the “SF Oceanside Water Treatment Facility” to the “George W. Bush Sewage Center”. Go Bears!

Benin and Togo

See the pictures!

Cross another two of Burkina’s neighbors off the list; our trip to Benin and Togo was wet, wild, and messy! Everything that a good time should be. (That’s dirty.)

We got our five-country VISA at the Burkinabe National Passport Office. I kid you not: it is a garage with two guys working at two desks, each with a fan and a large book of names.

We left Ouaga on a beautiful Sunday morning right around sun-up. Oh wait. After a bus reservation mix up, a flat tire (in downtown Ouaga), and a four hour delay at the Ouaga tollbooth, we actually got out of the city proper around noon. Good start.

If the border crossing into Ghana was like taking an elevator 10 floors up in the socioeconomic skyscraper, crossing into Benin was more like ascending in a slow moving escalator a few stories. The Beninese countryside is full of forests and hills (very different from the majority of Burkina), and I noticed a lot more permanent-looking buildings than I’m used to seeing- more concrete walls and metal roofs. Cotonou (Benin’s capital, located on the coast) is a busy, bustling city of almost a million people. It felt bigger, more active, and dirtier than Ouaga. The streets were clogged with motos with hardly a bike to be seen. We found a hotel and went out on the town for dinner. We found a place that grilled chicken, and, still in our Burkina mindsets, we each ordered a whole bird. Apparently Beninese chickens come with more meat on them than Burkinabe birds, so we ended up feeding a family of five hungry Beninese folks as well.

From Cotonou we made our way to Ganvie, a village built in 1717 when Beninese natives rode on a crocodile’s back to the middle of Lake Nokoue to escape the slave traders. Think Venice in Africa. All the buildings are built on stilts a couple of meters above the water level, and the locals use pirogues (like canoes) powered by oar, sail (made out of rice sacks) or motor to get around. They even have a floating market! The village is gorgeous, but I got mixed feelings being there- there were several kids whose sole job seemed to be paddling after tourists and demanding presents. I didn’t like paying a tour company to exploit their lifestyle. We almost created an international incident when we refused to pay for the overpriced food (3500cfa for a plate of rice that normally costs 200cfa), but luckily we were able to escape with only a few bruised egos.

The next day we took a cab 150km or so north to the city of Abomey, ancient capital of the Dahomey kingdom. I’ll get to the Dahomeys in a second, but first, the trip up. An hour into the trip, we came across a police check point. When the driver turned around, pulled over, and told us to get out, we were a little nervous. No problem, though, he explained. The police were just checking for working headlights, so he was going to replace one of his. Well it turns out he replaced both headlights…and both tail lights. The delay gave us time, however, to check out the local hardware shack and sample some palm wine in the midst of its distillation process. Tasted like the strongest tequila I’ve ever had. Back on the road, we immediately pulled off the road and onto a detour around the police checkpoint. (You might ask why we replaced the lights in the middle of the morning if we were just going to go around anyways. That’s a stupid question. Don’t ask questions.) The detour was through the cornfields, and we almost got stuck going through a neighboring village (which just appeared from the fields) as they had decided to put a local tax on their village detour- apparently a lot of people were using their road that morning. No problems, though, and a few hours later we were in Abomey.

As I mentioned, Abomey was the capital of the Dahomey kingdom. The Dahomeys were a tribe of natives who waged war on their neighbors then sold their POWs to the Europeans and into the slave trade. One of their king’s throne is mounted on the skulls of four of his enemies. Enticing jobs in the Dahomey palaces include spinning the king’s umbrella (for which you could be decapitated if you spun counterclockwise), guarding his 3000 wives (castration required), and burying the king after his death (requiring decapitation after completing the job). Nice folks. But the city is cute now- they’re building a gorgeous new marketplace, and there’s even a couple of town parks- and we had a good time relaxing in our hotel with some French friends.

From Abomey, we headed to the beach. Again, our cab was…let’s say well-used. The car had no shocks, and the glove compartment fell into Julia’s lap every time we went over a bump. It had no internal paneling, you could see the road through the floorboards, they kept the extra gas in a plastic bottle on the floor, and the door opened if sneezed on. To top it off, I don’t think we hit 20mph at any point in the 100 mile journey. At least we each had our own seats- a point we insisted upon for the long journey, and which we almost didn’t get. (The car had exactly enough seats for us plus the driver. We made the driver’s friend sit on his lap. He could have stayed home if he wanted.) But the beach was worth it! We stayed at a place in Grand Popo called Lion Bar, a hotel/restaurant/bar owned by a rasta man and located right on the beach. The whole place was rasta themed- the rooms were named after Bob Marley and other icons, the play list was strictly reggae, and there were quotes on every wall. I loved it! I only wish I had had my rasta wig. We spent the next few days in the hammocks, playing in the sand, reading books (I finished Harry Potter 5!), and playing poker. We met the PCV stationed there and probably wore her ears off with site jealousy. We also met a guy who lived literally two blocks from me in San Francisco. “It’s a small world after all…” Good times!

We dragged ourselves from the beach for an afternoon trip to Ouidah, the historical home of the voodoo religion. We didn’t see a whole lot of voodoo stuff, but we did get a neat tour of the old fort the Portuguese then French had used during the 18th-20th centuries.

Sadly, all beach time must come to an end. We made our way into Togo and spent a night in its capital, Lome. It’s going to sound crazy, but Lome kind of reminds me of Los Angeles. There’s a gorgeous beach running the length of the city- wide, white sand, palm trees. If you add white people, volleyballs, and Rollerblades, you could be in Santa Monica or Malibou. Until you look on the other side of the street- the slums of Lome. That part of the city is more South Central LA: wide boulevards, tons of cars, dilapidated old buildings. But despite this homey, LA feeling, I really liked the city. The market sprawls out over most of downtown, and the place is very walkable.

The next day we packed up and went north a bit to Kpalime, a large town in the mountains. The place is amazing. Mac decided the ride was probably the most beautiful transport he’s had in West Africa, and I agree. We were traveling through dense greenery that often came right up to the edge of the road. When we hit the hills, the greenery turned into jungle, and the villages we drove past seemed like they could be in the Caribbean. Dirt paths cut into the trees, disappearing from sight after just a few meters. Kpalime itself is a thriving town with a plentiful market and tropical fruits everywhere. We had pineapple, guava, papaya, star fruit, oranges, bananas, some green thing we had never seen before, and more.

Friday morning we took a hike to the waterfalls. Our driver took us out of town a ways, and just after the turn off from the main road, a group of early 20’s young men were hanging around. We slowed down, and two guys jumped into the van, welcoming us to the waterfalls and announcing that they would be our guides. We explained that we didn’t want guides, and that we wouldn’t pay them, and they promptly told us we could not enter the park. We pointed out that they weren’t officials, had no papers, and that there was no sign. They showed us some graffitti on the entrance which said, in German supposedly, that we had to pay to enter. Ha! They insisted that they were legit, but when we mentioned going back to the authorities, their prices started falling like bricks. Go figure. In the end, we ended up paying the price we had heard was legitimately required to get into park (directly to our new guides though) in exchange for them to take us to the second, hidden, natural waterfalls. Turned out to be well worth the money. The first falls, visible from the road, were neat, but not all that exciting, especially since they are man-made. The second falls, however, were beautiful, and we even got to take a dip in the cold, clear mountain water. And I need to say it again: gorgeous countryside!

With heavy hearts, we made our way up through Togo the next day. Of all the countries I’ve been to in West Africa (OK, only four), this was definitely my favorite. Forests, rivers, trees, villages with electricity, stocked markets. Even the corner convenience stores were full of merchandise. Additionally, the Togolese government seems to be spending a ton of money on public awareness campaigns. Our hotel room had a informational flier about the transmission of and protection against HIV. Billboards with pictures depicting proper condom techniques were everywhere. As were billboards with messages against having sex with minors: “You wouldn’t let this old man sleep with your daughter, so why are you sleeping with his?” was my favorite. Trash cans lined the streets of Lome and every other town we stopped in. There were signs every 20 meters along the river in Kpalime warning against littering and public defecation. There were even public bathrooms along the roadside. What a country!

What a trip!

Burkina in the News

Burkina Faso has been in US and world news several times recently. While not all of the news is positive, it does serve to remind that Burkina is moving in the right direction.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation is a United States Government organization that provides poor countries with funds for roads, sanitation, energy, agriculture, education, and healthcare. In order to be eligible to receive these funds, a country must demonstrate just governance, investment in their people, and the encouragement of economic freedom. Burkina recently became eligible for the MCC Threshold Programs, which are smaller grants intended for use in specific sectors. In Burkina, the money will be used for much needed development in primary school education of girls. 132 schools have already been constructed, and this summer a Compact agreement was signed for up to $520 million in additional education and infrastructure aid.

On a less serious note, as many of you may have seen, the popular television show “The Amazing Race” was filmed in Burkina Faso last winter. Participants milked camels, taught Moore (the main tribal language), and had some adventures in the marketplace. If Burkina while you’re awake isn’t enough, you can now cover yourself in Burkina while you sleep! Yup, Victoria’s Secret recently signed on for an order of 600 tons of Burkinabe organic cotton. Aside from that “soft, cozy and warm” feel you’ve always loved from your Vicky’s unmentionables, this fair trade deal has the added benefit of directly benefiting village women. Now there’s something to think about the next time you “slip into something a little more comfortable!”

Finally, two articles (here and here) recently appeared in the Wall Street Journal regarding the affects the rising cost of food has had on Burkina’s poorest people. Specifically, they outline the ways and reasons women have been hit hardest by the ever-increasing cost of feeding a family. After living amongst the well-off in Ouaga for the past month, reading these articles was a reminder about the average Burkinabe’s life. To be sure, the articles’ content was not surprising or new to me: I see the “Green Brigade” of women street sweepers every morning; I stopped asking my village students how lunch was once I realized the most common answer was “I didn’t eat”; and I play card games on Sunday afternoons with my male students while my female students are doing their housework. Thing is, all that has become normal in the past year. The meals of “bland cornmeal mush” aren’t nutritious, but they don’t taste that bad. My garbage may not make the most sanitary toys for my kid neighbors, but at least they are reusing. While some of these aspects of life are certainly not life-threatening, the articles were a good reminder that “normal” sometimes needs to change.

Well, there you have it. Burkina may not be beating China or India (or Sarah Palin’s pregnant daughter?!) to the top of the newscast everyday, but look closely. Every once in a while we’re there, plugging away one step at a time.

English Camp Winds Down

My time in Ouaga is quickly coming to an end. Last week was the final week of English Camp/Classes at the Embassy, and I’m going back to village tomorrow. It was a great experience teaching at the Embassy and living in Ouaga, but I’m excited to get back home…even though I’ll only be there for three days.

The last week of English Camp was quite exciting. One of the Peace Corps senior staff members got her start speaking English a number of years ago at the camp. She’s now a doctor, and we invited her to the Language Center to talk about HIV/AIDS with the students. She gave one presentation in French for the beginning students, and one presentation in English for the advanced students. Though both sessions were well-received, the highlight of the week was definitely our Olympic-style track and field day. Think elementary school field day meets Beijing meets family reunion. We had an egg race, 3-legged race, and water balloon toss. The kids were a little hesitant at first, but by the end even the older ones were cheering and having a great time. Yesterday we had a closing ceremony and open house for the parents. Each class got to do a performance, and they sang songs and performed skits. All in English. It was great to see their confidence and creativity coming out in their second…actually third or fourth language. Pictures from the month are here.

Tomorrow I’m headed back to village for the first time in two months. I loved living in Ouaga with electricity and running water, but I’m excited to go home. Excited and nervous. I hope no animals have moved into my house! It’ll be a quick stay in village- just enough time to say hi- then I’ll be back in Ouaga next weekend. We leave for Benin and Togo a week from today, and I can’t wait for the beach!

Cheers!

Ouagadougou Love

Ouagadougou…knows how to party.
We keep it rockin’! We keep it rockin’!

OK, so maybe that’s not quite how the song goes, but I feel it’s pretty applicable to my life for the past couple of weeks. I’ve been in Ouaga teaching English, and have definitely grown accustomed to the city lifestyle. Ouaga maybe isn’t the flashy, cosmopolitan city of New York or Paris, but as far as I’m concerned it is definitely not bad.

Every summer the American Language Center puts on two month-long sessions of English classes for middle and high school students in Ouaga. In an effort to make things a little spicy (”Kick it up a notch!”…Emeril, anyone?), they’ve organized the schedule so that the students have two hours of classroom learning, followed by two hours of fun activities. And that’s where I come in. The ALC wants the fun activity time to be a little like a day camp, and they brought in PCV “experts” to help out with that. My application listed my numerous qualifications from my days at the Lair, including (but certainly not limited to): marshmallow snot rockets, Capture the Flag, whale hunting, and inner tube water polo. I don’t like to brag, but I can see how they couldn’t pass me up. There’s unfortunately no pool at the ALC, but together with three other PCV friends, we’ve planned four weeks of arts and crafts, class competitions, music, and athletic events that should keep the students at least mildly entertained. Either that or they’ll go home thinking we’re nuts.

The most interesting aspect of camp is the contrast between these students and my students in village. These kids, the older ones at least, drive to class on motos. They are well-informed about national and international events, and they have a good grasp on pop life and culture outside of Burkina. My village students walk up to 10km to get to school (the lucky ones bike); a few of them have a battery-powered light bulb at home; almost none have ever used a computer. Tellingly, one class at the ALC got in an argument over some routine aspect of life in village, and it was my PCV friend who had to step in and correct them as none of them truly knew what goes on in small villages. It’s reassuring to know that it is possible to get an education and lead a healthy life in Burkina, but it’s very frustrating to see more evidence of the enormous education, financial, and lifestyle differences that exist here. As Burkina is by no means alone on the list of countries combating poverty, I know I could see the same gap (if not a bigger one) between rich and poor students in America, but it has been eye-opening to work with the other half after living in village for the past year.

As for myself, I’ve more or less re-adapted to city life. Running water. Toilets. Electricity. Air conditioning. There are several small grocery stores near the PCV house; internet is everywhere; and restaurants serve cold drinks. I’ve also enjoyed feeling caught up with the rest of the world. (Brett Favre is in New York?!) I saw pictures from the Opening Ceremonies, and we got to watch the US soccer and basketball games yesterday. Being here has also highlighted the changes I’ve undergone having lived in village the past year. Despite the cool weather, I can’t force myself to take a hot shower. It feels weird and steamy and I don’t like it, so I leave the water cold. The other night we went down the street to get dinner. When describing the source of food to my friend, I explained that “It’s a little alleyway where four or five women set up carts every night at dusk. They have rice (good for carbs), beans (for protein), and spaghetti (for oil). If you mix them all together, it’s a really good meal.” She heartily agreed. Even better: the cost of meal was 25 cents. Beat that, Paris!

Old Places; New Faces

I’ve spent the last two weeks helping to train the group of new volunteers who arrived last month. Their training is in the same city mine was last year, so it was fun to see my host family and re-visit old hang-out spots. It was also neat to see how much the city has grown in the past year, and after hanging out with the new arrivals, how much I’ve grown as well.

My host family is hosting another volunteer this summer. I must admit that my first reaction upon hearing that news was, “Oh no! What if they like him more than me?” It was a very made-for-TV moment- when the only child finds out that Mom is pregnant- but I think I handled it pretty well. No temper tantrums, screaming, or reverting to baby behavior. I met their new volunteer (who seems pretty cool and will coincidentally be my closest new neighbor), and went home with him for dinner one night. My host siblings (two brothers and a sister) were very excited to see me, and we chatted about school and soccer. The younger brother shared with me his newfound obsession with the game of marbles, and the older brother showed me last year’s report cards. Bragging moment: he’s entering his senior year in high school ranked number one in his class! He wants to go to University and study science. I’m crazy excited for him.

The big news from their neighborhood is the continued keenness for Ultimate Frisbee. I introduced my host siblings to Frisbee last summer. They seemed to really like it, so I gave them a disc as a going away/thank you present. Fast forward a year. My 13 year-old host brother invited me to play with him before dinner one night. Him and all the kids in the neighborhood! We went down to the field by their house, and I quickly found out he wasn’t exaggerating. The disc I had given them was…well-loved, to say the least. And we had a group of kids at the field that could really play well. They told me they play every morning and are thinking of organizing a tournament before school starts! Frisbee hasn’t yet replaced soccer as their sport of choice (they still play soccer in the evenings), but morning games? A possible tournament? How’s that for cultural integration?

It was also very fun to meet the new trainees. They’re in the middle of their training now, have just found out where they’ll be living for the next two years, and are about to start teaching in summer school. They’re all excited about being here, but a little nervous about moving into their villages in a couple of weeks. Hearing their thoughts on training, their questions, and their excitements really put the last year in perspective for me. I look back and see the same thoughts, anxieties, and excitements in myself a year ago. But hey: my French is more-or-less passable; I’ve successfully kept a class of 95 students under control (OK…sort of); and I’ve gotten used to not having ice cold drinks in 110 degree village heat. Not bad! However, my time with the trainees also reminded me of the things I still want to accomplish in my service- I’m hoping to do HIV/AIDS sensibilisations before Christmas, strengthen my math/science club, and possibly collaborate with a Girls’ Education volunteer for a girls’ camp in my village next spring.

I think the best thing I’ve realized this summer is that I’ve been here just over a year, and I love my life. And that’s a pretty satisfying thing to be able to say.

Help Fight Malaria in Burkina

Malaria is one of the most common infectious disease in Burkina Faso, killing more than 25,000 people (mostly children under the age of 5) each year. If you’re sitting at home asking yourself “What can I do?”, I have an answer.

One of my volunteer friends is working with SOS Enfants in Orodara, Burkina Faso. She has helped set them up to be a new distribution site for insecticide-treated mosquito nets through the Against Malaria Foundation. This means that if they raise enough funds, 5000 mosquito nets will be distributed free of charge to orphans, vulnerable children, and pregnant women. Donations are done online and are tax-deductable. Better yet, this British NGO receives private donations for all of their administrative costs, so 100% of your money goes towards the mosquito nets. At only $5 per net, a little bit goes a long ways. Though often associated with poverty, malaria is also a cause of poverty and a huge hindrance to economic development. Check out this link, and help a PCV out in her work. Thanks!

On the Road...or at Least Not at Home

It’s been quite the week or so since I left village. I’ve seen friends in several parts of the country, had a killer barbecue, did some biking, and am currently in town working with a PCV group organizing HIV/AIDS awareness activities.

My first stop was in Koudougou, the nearest big city to my site. I met up with some friends for lunch and surprisingly had the most delicious steak I’ve had since leaving Minnesota last spring. Luckily we knew that service at this restaurant is notoriously slow, so we ordered about an hour and a half before we wanted to eat, and the timing was perfect. I spoke with several friends who have recently attended an informational workshop regarding the Morenga tree. Morenga is kind of the magical, do-everything tree of Africa: its leaves are rich in nutrients, and powder from its seeds can even sanitize dirty village well water. I’m really excited about the possibility of doing a Morenga project in my village.

For the Fourth of July we ended up going out on the town in Ouaga. It was quite the night with dinner and dancing. We even lit sparklers and sang that “Proud to be an American” song that is a requirement of every fireworks display across the good old US of A. (Don’t worry, we sang at our house before leaving so as not to embarrass ourselves too much.) It was a fun evening, but the Fifth of July was the real party, though. We were completely intent on having a barbecue at our house; the only problem was the barbecue. Our guard tried to acquire a grill from one of his friends, but when that fell through, we had to “grill” the burgers on a frying pan on the stove top. Not quite the same, but still good. We had homemade french fries and even lemon bars. The only thing missing was beer-marinated brats. I guess I’ll have to tailgate in Madison when I get home next fall.

I took a trip out to see one of my friends in the East of Burkina for a few days after the Fourth. We went on a nice bike ride and helped his neighbors plant corn one day. Both were fun, but as the Burkinabe were quick to tell us, “We have no machines here! Planting makes your back hurt!” What do you know? They’re right! I did learn several interesting things though: it’s illegal to let your animals roam freely through village after planting starts because they’ll eat the crops; peanuts are planted about 10cm apart…making a large field a lot of work; and sesame seeds are so tiny and difficult to plant that people mix the seeds with 3 parts sand in order to spread out the seeds enough. And not a single tractor in sight! (Yes, I’m a wimp.)

I’m in Ouaga now, and between helping with the new group of trainees and teaching English here in August, I’ll be in large cities with internet the rest of the summer. I’ll try to update my blog more regularly. And hopefully I’ll get some pictures up soon. All the best!

Somewhere South of the Sun

I blinked and the school year was over. Sure, it helps that the third trimester was barely five weeks of teaching, and that the heat has melted my brain. But I can still hardly believe that summer is already upon us. (Check out my last day of school pictures!)

As I mentioned in one of my previous blogs, a French family visited our village a couple of months ago. (You can test out your French on their blog.) They donated several sets of math and science text books, and I’ve been anxiously awaiting an opportunity to use them with my students. The last unit in my 7th grade class was three dimensional objects: prisms, cylinders, pyramids and cones. Perfect. They’re a pain to draw on the blackboard and the books have great illustrations and lots of practice problems.

Before assigning the students reading and problems, I smartly gave them time to look through the books. Colors, glossy pages, and cartoon learning aids were all new. So was the realization that math in France is pretty much the same as math in Burkina Faso. “Monsieur, we studied this, too!” Then disaster struck. Most of the kids had never used a textbook, and so they didn’t know how to use a textbook.

Things that I took for granted after a lifetime of daily math readings and homework were completely foreign to them: the table of contents, the glossary, the idea of reading to learn, example problems and chapter summaries. Every single group had their hand up with questions the entire class period. Being just one person against their 60, I was completely outnumbered. When I wasn’t helping a group, they were chatting with their friends, wandering outside, or complaining about not understanding. Even once they knew the answer to a question, they didn’t know what to do: I literally had to tell one group to write the answer on a piece of paper. We accomplished nothing.

I went home that afternoon and just stared at the wall. I wasn’t able to understand how I had been beaten so badly by what was supposed to be a fun lesson. What had I not explained well? Why were they unable or unwilling to use the books as I had expected? I finally realized that because textbook use in class was a brand new concept, I had to start from the very beginning. The next day I gave them a crash course in book use and a cheesy speech about how we were trying a new learning method. They were used to copying and memorizing a teacher’s notes, but today they were going to have to search out the answers on their own. It worked for about ten minutes. I eventually threatened a test the next day, and when some kid ran out of the room, another threw a pencil, and several others had a yelling contest, I made good on my threat. I wasn’t happy; they weren’t happy; and their grade averages certainly weren’t happy. It wasn’t a good way to end the year in my favorite class, but I’m glad I tried. Seeing their reaction to a new learning style and different problems makes me want to provide all the more variety in my classes next year. And the textbooks will certainly be back.

The second crazy experience of the trimester was much more positive.

Outside of classes, the last three weeks of school were consumed by the first annual Headmaster’s Cup, a school-wide soccer tournament, complete with jerseys, a trophy, and monetary prizes for the winning classes. As the head teacher for one of the sixth grade classes, I found myself as the coach and number one fan of what would undoubtedly be the underdog team in all of our games. I took the (apparently unusual) step of deciding to have fun with the kids, and we organized a practice game for our team. Most of the boys in the class showed up (and a bunch of kids from other classes), and we had a great three-hour game. (”Young Africans never get tired, monsieur.” OK, play on!) Everyone- the team, the substitutes and the other students- got as much playing time as they wanted. That makes it sound too formal. Let me try again.

There were 30-40 kids on the field at all times. Cartwheels were performed anytime someone touched the ball. With all the team-switching, I have no idea how they kept track of who was going which direction. The field had no out-of-bounds lines, so we played until the cows got in the way or until someone decided to throw the ball in. One small speedy kid got stuck playing goalie for a while (no crossbar on the goal…which is two large branches dug into the ground). After making some amazing saves, he took to yelling “Small but dangerous!” every so often from the goal box. He was so adament about it, that we adopted his saying for the team’s slogan and never looked back.

We caught a couple of lucky breaks in our first two games, and at the end of the round found ourselves advancing with the older teams. In a fantastic game, we won our semi-final match against the 7th grade team, and the superiour 8th grade team lost to the lucky 9th graders.

And just like that we were in the finals. The day of the final match was cool and cloudy- perfect for playing soccer. The school had invited the mayor, prefet, school inspector, and all the other important people in the village to the game. And most of the villagers showed up as well. Why not, right? Before the match everyone was talking about how the 9th graders were going to stomp all over my 6th graders. By halftime, we had made fans out of every one of the naysayers. Though the score remained 0-0, we had played very well with the older, bigger, and stronger kids; our goalie had made some fantastic saves; and our offense had several near misses. Midway through the second half, our legs started to give out, and the 9th graders took advantage of our fatigue. They won 3-0, but the damage had been done. They had not creamed the little kids, and we deflated their egos, if only just barely.

What was our prize? A new soccer ball and the equivalent of about $25! Yup! $25. How crazy is that? The next day I talked to the class president and we decided to buy candy and peanuts and crackers for the entire class. Even though they are almost 100 strong, $25 can provide quite the sugar high for a bunch of sixth graders. It was chaos. Candy candy candy. They loved it. I had problems with class control, but it wasn’t too bad…after all, it was a party. Watch out for us next year. We’ll be a little less small, but still very dangerous.

Now that summer is upon us, I find myself staring at a void with quite a bit of downtime. I’m going to be helping with the training of the new volunteers who are arriving in a couple of weeks. I’m really excited to meet the new people and help them get ready for their service. It will also be nice to see my former host family in Ouahigouya, where our training was last year and where the training will be this summer. Additionally, I hope to do some traveling- possibly to Togo and Benin- later in the summer. Despite my excitement, however, I will definitely miss my students, and am extremely glad that I’m coming back for another year in the fall.

Sweating it Out in Village

My latest “I’m not in Kansas anymore” moment came a couple of weeks ago during my afternoon math class with 95 6th graders. We’re in the middle of our hot season, and the temperature in the classroom was easily 110 degrees. With the glare from the sun, the blackboard is hard to see from the front corners of the room, so I had to close the door while writing at the edge of the board. This cut off basically all airflow to the room. In the time it took me to write the definition of a histogram, almost every student had taken off his or her uniform shirt (for some unfathomable reason, they almost all wear undershirts) and were using them as fans. I looked out to see a sea of swirling shirts and sweating students.

My first thought was, “Huh, this looks a lot like Homer Hankie time at a Minnesota Twins game.” Now, I’m sure the school has a rule somewhere about kids being required to actually wear their school uniforms, but at the time I was sweating buckets, and I knew the temperature in the back of the classroom- where the older, bigger kids sit- was probably 10 degrees hotter. I decided to let the rule slide.Needless to say, we finished class early that day.

Sweating has become a recreational activity for me. On a cool day, if I sit in one spot in the shade fanning myself and there’s a breeze I can almost stop sweating. The slightest activity however, such as turning the page of my book, brings back the perspiration with full force. On a hot day I feel like I just got out of the swimming pool.

Constantly. I’m never more than five feet from a water bottle, and when I drink I immediately see an increase in my sweat production.

It’s like the water doesn’t even bother to go down my throat. My front porch gets sun pretty much all day; it heats up so much that I can’t even walk barefoot on it in the middle of the night.

I have two saving graces. One, my cannery. This is a large clay pot full of water that I keep sitting on moist sand. Magically the water stays cool. It’s not exactly a refrigerator, but it works pretty darn well. My second saving grace are mangoes. Mango season coincides with the hot season, and there’s nothing quite as refreshing as eating a juicy mango after a long day chasing kids…uh, I mean teaching kids.

The hot season is almost over now though…I think. We’ve gotten several rain showers and one decent storm in the past couple of weeks.

The first rain storm kept the temperatures under 95 degrees for almost 12 hours, but the subsequent storms have done better. Last week we had two days that actually felt comfortable. Of course, I’m not quite sure what that translates to in terms of degrees. I was talking to my mom on the phone last week and told her- honestly- that it didn’t feel too bad at the moment. Then I looked at my thermometer: 98 degrees. What am I going to do when I have to go back to a Minnesota winter?

One more thing. Last week I gave a series of lessons on the Beatles to my English class. They had never heard of them, and I thought that was an atrocity. I talked about their music, their importance to music history, and their influence on the culture of the 1960’s in America and Europe. I brought in my iPod and some speakers I borrowed from a friend, and we listened to several songs. The favorite: “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. For the grand finale, I busted out my guitar and taught them “Let it Be”. If you have ever questioned the importance of arts education, question no more. I’m not a very good guitarist, and my vocal skills are…decidedly sub-par. But they loved it. We had a great time, and they demanded lyrics to more songs. They also wanted to dance. “Let it Be” isn’t exactly a dancing kind of tune, but luckily my iPod has plenty of songs from one of the most popular American artists they do know: Micheal Jackson.

(Why do they know him? Remember “We are the World”?) “Thriller” was a big hit, as was “Billy Jean”. I think they think I’m crazy- what teacher plays music and sings and lets them dance during class?- but that’s OK once in a while. Now I have to somehow write a test on what we learned.
Hope all is well.

Happy Easter

I celebrated Easter at a friend’s house in East of Burkina Faso. We went to Church, played baseball, and had a bonfire (kind of regretted that decision on such a hot night). Check out this video of me preparing the Easter feast. The butcher is also the janitor at my friend’s school. The student helping is known affectionately as “The Kid Who Does Everything” because, well, he does everything. Happy Easter!

***The Amy Warning: Do not click on the above link if you are a vegetarian, a person who doesn’t like blood, an animal rights activist, just coming back from your lunch break, or are unable to fight off nausea when you get a paper cut. If those things apply to you, click here instead.

Anything is Possible; Nothing is Certain

I’m borrowing the title for my blog today from a French couple staying in my village. They left France a few months ago and are in the process of touring west Africa by van, having driven down through Spain, Morocco, Mauritania, Mali, and into Burkina. They’ve had a fantastic journey, and talking with them has given me a fresh perspective on my work in Burkina. In Africa, anything is possible; nothing is certain. That’s the fun of it.

Our second trimester of school ended this week with what seemed like a mad sprint of grading exams, calculating averages, and ranking students. At our end-of-the-trimester meeting, we discussed the fact that only 3 students in the class of 65 ninth graders have a passing overall grade average. Ninth graders take a national high school entrance exam at the end of the year, and teachers demand a lot of the students in order to prepare them for this very difficult and important test. Hence the low grades. If a neon warning sign is going off in your head, I’m with you. However, though concerned, none of my colleagues declared “catastrophe” at the meeting, so we’ll just keep plugging away.

A few weeks ago one of our two English teachers was assigned to a new school. (I know. It’s the middle of the school year.) Guess who her replacement is. While I’m not thrilled about teaching English, I managed to squirm my way into having only one class, so it shouldn’t be too bad. The difficult part is remembering/learning all the technical aspects of the language. What the heck is the present perfect progressive form of an irregular verb? The neat aspect of the English program, especially compared to the math curriculum, is that it is much less of a straight line- you don’t have to know adverbs to use the future tense, and vice versa- so I can pick and choose what I want to cover. The kids love learning song lyrics, so I’m going to do a couple of lessons on the Beatles after spring break- history, fame, and (of course) lyrics. Can you believe that none of them has heard of the most listened to group in music history!? Anyone want to come sing back-up?

The big event of the past few weeks has been the school soccer tournament. The sports season opened in mid-February with a day-long ceremony that included a speech by the mayor, an Olympic Opening Ceremony-style parade, two games, and the signature of a Burkinabe special event- meat and bottled drinks. Last week in the final, after barely beating the 6th graders in the semis, the 9th grade team got a chance to revenge a previous upset loss against the 8th graders. And what a final it was! 8th grade scored first, but 9th grade quickly responded. As the sun began to set, the referee (whose salary I maintain is paid by the 9th grade class) ended regulation (sort of at his discretion, there is no time keeper for these games) on a 1-1 tie. And then we went to penalty shots. The 9th grade goalie earned hero’s status when he blocked a shot by the 8th grade class president, sealing a 6-5 victory. Let the celebrations begin! Cartwheels. Back-flips. Singing and cheering. The winning goalie was paraded around the field on his teammates’ shoulders. The scene was amazingly similar to that seen in Anytown, USA after a big high school football victory, and it got me to thinking.

I keep writing of our students as kids, but the 9th graders are 18-25 years old- about the age of an American university undergraduate. The collective focus of the American undergraduate, and indeed much of the country, has undoubtedly recently turned to brackets: the NCAA Basketball Tournament. In a few weeks America will crown the champion of a tournament that annually eats up millions of dollars in advertising, scholarships, salaries, and professional contracts. The prize money for our school tournament was seven dollars. Despite the difference in monetary value, the heart of each tournament is theoretically the same: athletes playing for fun, camaraderie, and bragging rights. Why does the American tournament hide those intangible prizes under millions of dollars? How much does that dilute what competition is really about? Does all of the money make the American tournament more important? Does the lack of money and fancy equipment (like shoes and shin guards) make the Burkinabe tournament less important? Whose society is really richer? All interesting questions that I ponder while sitting on my front porch.

A couple of weeks ago, Dedougou, the nearest big city to my village, hosted the annual West African mask festival. The US Ambassador stopped in my village on her way to the festival and invited me to join her for the weekend. (Yeah, it’s a small country.) I must say, we travelled in style: air-conditioned SUV; best restaurants in town; and accommodations at the private corporate villas of Sofitex, a major cotton harvesting company. My room had AC and a bathroom! Ah, life with the Ambassador. When I asked if we could call Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, “just to say hi”, the Ambassador almost choked on her water. Apparently they haven’t even met. It went without saying that calling King George was out of the question. To my relief, however, she does have Sec. Rice’s phone number. (Hey, I had to ask. If we ever have to do a Saigon-style evacuation from the Embassy rooftop, you want to know that the Ambassador is talking to the Secretary, not some State Department lackey, right?)

The festival itself was pretty neat. Though we saw masks from Burkina, Benin and Senegal, all the performances had a similar theme: the masked dancers, representing spirits, were controlled by various types of music. Their every action- waking, dancing, and dying- came as the result of a change in music provided by guitarists, drummers, and vocalists. The Burkinabe dancers were wrapped head-to-toe in tree leaves; some costumes were form-fitting, others resembled a dancing Christmas tree. Not that this is hard to do, but they all made the Stanfurd mascot look pathetically amateur. The Beninese had the most elaborate show, with music, fire, and spooky metaphors for the devil. I’ll try to get pictures posted soon.

So that’s what I’ve been up to the past month or so. I’m on spring break right now, and though I’m ready for a little break, I must say I’m going to miss my village. The students are always at my house, and we have a great time hanging out- playing Uno and Dominoes and looking at magazines. Popular questions include: Do you have Coca-Cola in America? Do mini-vans really come with TV screens? Is Matel your brother? Why did he write his name on all your playing cards? I taught Cribbage to a few of my students, and after a few games one of my best math students challenged me to a one-on-one match. I kicked his butt. Twice. Call it revenge for finding two errors on the last math test I gave him. Little punk.

Happy Spring Break!

Seventh Grade Math and Science Club Comes to Life

One of my biggest challenges as a teacher in Burkina is incorporating interesting activities into my daily math lessons. The national curriculum is packed full of topics, and with class sizes of 60-100 students, there isn’t much room for deviation from the norm. Unfortunately the norm involves the teacher writing on the blackboard, the students arguing over which arrangement of doors/windows open/closed allows the majority of them to see, and very little time for personal interaction with the students. I try to get my students up to the board to do problems and did a couple of full-class activities last semester, but that was pretty much it. My idea for a remedy to this situation is to have an after-school math and science club for the students. I want to have math/science themes each meeting, but really to use it as a time to get to know a smaller group of students and introduce them to different styles of hands-on learning. Basically, to have fun. Marshmallow snot rockets and capture the flag are probably out of the question, but science and math are so important to the development of Burkina, that I want to try to convince at least a few students that they can be fun as well as useful.

I decided to make the club an honors-type deal; I invited the top 10 boys and 10 girls from each of the two seventh grade classes. When I read the list to the students Wednesday morning, I just about had a mutiny on my hands. The kids who weren’t invited were mad because they thought the smart kids were going to get extra homework help. The kids who were invited were mad because they thought it was going to be just another class. Luckily after explaining things several times, I managed to pacify the non-invited kids and excite the invited ones. But it was a close call.

For the first lesson, I wanted to really emphasize my two goals: learning science and having fun. I decided to do a lesson about the brain. For obvious reasons (my limited French neuro-anatomy vocabulary and the student’s age), the lesson was extremely cursory. I told them about the differences between the right and left brains and taught about the main lobes of the brain. I also gave them a huge list of the brain’s functions; the only functions they came up with were “thoughts” and “something with reflexes”. They were shocked to learn that there are more; the most discussed function was a signal when it is time to urinate. I also managed to successfully embarrass a boy when I told him (in front of everyone) that his brain tells his heart to speed up when he sees a pretty girl. That brought down the house.

As for the “fun” part of the lesson: we drew pictures! I handed them each a sheet of blank paper and told them to draw something. I refused to give any ideas about what they could draw, and they were completely lost for about five minutes. “I don’t understand?” “What am I supposed to draw?” “Is it OK if I draw a _______?” When I finally managed to convince them that they could really draw ANYTHING they wanted, that there was no right answer, they went straight to work. Then I made a big mistake. I had told them to bring colored pencils, and I held up four or five packs of new colored pencils, asking if anyone had forgotten theirs. Despite them being Burkinabe colored pencils that are available at our weekly market, the kids went nuts. Every hand shot up as they had all suddenly forgotten their pencils. It should be no surprise, then, that they literally jumped over tables when I held up two packages of American-made markers. Complete chaos: markers flying through the air, being stolen from hands, screaming, yelling, complaining, fighting, accusing…I thought the club was going to have to disband right then and there. I finally managed to convince them that they each only have one hand and can therefore only use one marker/pencil at a time. They were still a bit punchy but generally settled down.

Seeing their choices of drawings was probably the most fun I’ve had in a classroom. It was really interesting to compare what they produced to what I was expecting from my experiences with American middle school kids. I was thinking the girls would draw flowers or butterflies and the boys would draw cars or guns. Yes and no. True to their Burkinabe school upbringing, many of them made practice drawings on a second piece of paper. I saw a lot of houses and motos- meticulously drawn using straightedges for the walls and compasses for the wheels. A lot of the kids drew maps of Burkina; they started by making a grid on the paper then placing certain key points in the border and connecting the dots. All of the maps were exactly the same and it was obvious that they had studied this extensively somewhere along the line. Between the maps and houses, there was very little winging it, but we did get a couple of really creative drawings- some traditional Burkinabe masks- based on a local festival- and some pottery- for which my village is famous.

All in all, our first meeting was a huge success, and I can’t wait to get everyone together again. Hopefully I’ll learn from my mistakes: schedule the fun activity for the end of class, and count the markers before the kids leave (apparently three of them have legs). Next week I think I’m going to introduce them to Sudoku, and the week after we might do a health lesson. Wish me luck!

Trip to Ghana

Careful, this one is long. If you get tired of reading, I’ve posted pictures; as the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

We had been talking about and looking forward to our trip to Ghana pretty much since we arrived in Burkina last June. And by “we”, I mean our whole training group. With that much hype, you might think that the trip wouldn’t be able to live up to the nirvana it had become in our minds.

You’d be wrong.

Most of us were in Ouaga for a Peace Corps training session the week before the trip and were able to use the time to get visas and arrange transport, which turned out to be surprisingly challenging. After several trips to the bus garage, we finally managed to find someone going to Ghana on Saturday morning. It was kind of sketchy because apparently Saturday is not the normal day to go to Ghana; this guy came up to us in the garage and said he’d take us and that we should show up Saturday morning ready to go. Um, OK? Not knowing what to expect, we foolishly hoped for the best: a private van for the 16 of us. Nope. Four hours after he promised we’d leave, a nearly full bus pulled into the garage. Great. Just the way we wanted to spend the next 16 hours. Sometime around 3:00am the next morning we switched buses in Kumasi and took a nice large van/small bus the rest of the way to Accra. Our entertainment for the trip? Listening to the Ghanaian election officials counting the ballots. Seriously. “One, two, three…four hundred eighty-seven…” This was definitely the first time I had ever heard democracy in action.

Once we made it to Accra, sometime mid-morning on Sunday, we met up with Megan and Andy, our hosts for the first part of the week. The two are studying sea turtles in a small beach town a couple of hours east of Accra, and eleven of us stayed at their house for a few days. What a life! They live in a gorgeous house a couple hundred meters from the beach, and their job is to walk the beach a few nights each week tagging sea turtles who beached to lay their eggs. Megan and Andy took the whole group turtle hunting, and on our second walk we got lucky. We came across a turtle about three feet long who was just finishing laying her eggs. After she had finished and buried the nest, we flipped her over, tagged her, then watched her use the moon’s reflection to guide herself back to the ocean. Absolutely beautiful. And what’s more, Disney and Pixar got it right! Turtles don’t age like other animals and can live well over 100 years!

The village we stayed in is right on the ocean, so its main livelihood is fishing. Each morning before sunrise, the men begin with a line of guys about 100m long on shore holding one end of a gigantic fishing net. A boat pulls the other end of the net over a kilometer into the ocean. About midmorning the boat circles back to the shore, forming a U with the net, and the men begin the laborious task of hauling in the catch. I had watched them fish for several days, and one day I joined in. You hold onto the net and walk backwards up the beach, pulling the net with you. When you get to the end of the beach, you go back to the water and pick up the next segment of net. Let me tell you, that thing is heavy. This is not your ordinary Lake Harriet fishing net. After a couple of hours hauling in the net, the fisherman had their reward: maybe one small fish each.

A few days after Christmas (which we celebrated by feasting at one of the local resorts and watching “It’s A Wonderful Life”), the whole group packed up and headed for Busua, a beach village in the West. We arrived at our guesthouse and were sorely disappointed; they weren’t on the beach, didn’t have running water, and had electricity in only one room. Not exactly what we were hoping for. Luckily we decided to check out our other options and found a great little place right on the beach. Despite its ironic name, The Alaska Inn boasted comfortable cottages, a well-stocked bar, immediate beach access, and a tasty (though painfully slow) restaurant- all for less than $10 per night! We were sold. We spent the next three or four days bumming around the beach and town. Our hotel had boogie boards; the hotel across the street rented kayacks; there was even a surf shop down the beach…and they had BURRITOS! My first burrito since San Francisco. Talk about paradise.

For New Year’s Eve we showered (a notable event for 11 vacationing Peace Corps volunteers), got all dressed up, and had dinner at the REALLY nice resort next door. The food was good, but the atmosphere was a bit snotty; I kid you not they put us in the back corner, out of the main dining area, with no light. The rising tide almost swept away our dinner. Whatever. We ditched the formalities and spent midnight at the Surf Shop, being entertained by Mr. Ghana and Wonder Boy, a street performing duo. Beer and cheesy entertainment is more our style anyways.

A small group of five of us managed to tear ourselves away from the beach to add an educational aspect to the vacation. We started by touring the slave castles in Elmina and Cape Coast. Originally built in the 15th and 17th centuries and used by the Portuguese, Dutch, British and Swedish, both castles have recently been restored by the Ghanaian Historical Society and are completely beautiful. Whitewashed walls. Ancient cannons. Blue skies. Palm trees. Ocean. You could almost forget the heinous acts committed within the walls. Almost. Slaves were taken to the castles from throughout Ghana and West Africa. They were branded and forced to live in dungeons about the size of my living room with hundreds of others. They had little light, food, or water, and disease was rampant. When someone died, they were usually left in the room with everyone else. There were no sewage holes, so the captives lived in lakes 18 inches deep of their own excrement. The “lucky” ones who survived were shackled and brought to boats where they were literally stacked on top of each other like pieces of paper for a couple months’ journey to Europe or the Americas. My mind can’t even fathom the evil that people are capable of inflicting on one another. And this went on for five hundred years.

Leaving the coast, our small group headed up to Kakum National Park. Megan has a friend of a friend living in the village near Kakum’s entrance. We took a cab to the village and asked for directions to his house once we got there. No problem. The first kid we saw jumped into our taxi, on my lap, and took us to the house. I love Africa. We spent the night at “Papa G’s”, and in the morning his son, a Park Ranger, took us into the rainforest. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from our tour guide- he showed up at the house right on time a couple of hours before sunrise decked out in a dark green t-shirt and pants, combat boots…and a semi-automatic rifle. For the lions? Elephants? Angry villagers? My apprehensions were soon abated, and our guide gave us a fantastic personal tour. The park’s signature attraction is a canopy walk- a series of rope bridges connecting six platforms in the trees 30-40 meters above the forest floor. Amazing. Though the only mammalian wildlife we saw were a few monkeys from quite a distance (the elephants generally stay away from parts of the park frequented by tourists), the serenity of the sunrise from above the forest floor made the whole trip worthwhile. It really made me realize what a drastic affect humans can have on wildlife; one road passes through the park, and even at that early hour with little traffic, every car sounded like a freight train disrupting the stillness of the forest morning. No wonder the elephants stay away.

After meeting up with the rest of the group in Busua, we headed up to Kumasi to begin our journey home. And what a journey. Three members of our group ran away from an angry taxi driver…and his 40 friends…threatening police and jail to jump into a moving van as we left Takoradi. In Kumasi, we rolled up to our gorgeous hotel ($10 per person) well after dark. The rooms had air conditioning; the bathrooms had floor mats; and the TV had cable. Royalty. The next morning I went over to the bus station to get tickets for our group of 11; once again we got lucky as there were exactly 11 seats left on the bus that evening.

With the whole day to bum around Kumasi, me and three others decided to visit some museums. Kumasi is the capital of the ancient Ashanti kingdom, and the Ghana has put a lot of time and effort into preserving artifacts and buildings important to their history. We visited the Prempeh II Jubilee Museum; it was disappointingly small (about the size of my Burkinabe house), but had some really interesting artifacts. I also found out that my Ashanti name- based on my birthday- is Kofi…like one of the most famous modern Ashantis, Kofi Anon. The Ashanti Palace was built by the British in 1925 as a “welcome home/we’re sorry” present for Prempeh I, who had previously been kidnapped and forced into slavery. The Palace now houses paintings of Ashanti royalty, their war weaponry, ceremonial relics, and furniture. It was a little like touring the house who had been on vacation for the past 30 years, but cool nonetheless. The highlight of the tour was without question our tour guide’s blatant disrespect for Museum Rule #1: don’t touch anything. He kept rubbing his hands on the paintings, playing with the swords, and swinging around the medals of recognition. At one point a painting resting against a wall actually slid down and crashed to the floor. My art history major friend practically had a heart attack, but the guide barely noticed.

Interesting museum practices aside, I love Ghana. The food is delicious: thick bread, fried rice, “red-red” (spicy beans and rice), fresh fish, and grilled chicken. I could have eaten forever. Almost as importantly, transport in the country is a little slice of Heaven. Through all our trouncing about the country, our total transport wait time was less than 30 minutes. Tro-tros (mini-van taxis) run nonstop on all the major roads, so whenever you want to go anywhere, you just head to a tro-tro stop (or stick out your arm as one passes by) and hop on. The tro-tros and taxis were clean, had most of their parts, and didn’t try to rip us off too badly. Our bus ride home was even air-conditioned.

The trip was an overwhelming success, an outcome I have to admit I was a bit skeptical of in the beginning. Traveling with 11 people made for more than one “hold your breath and hope this works” moment, but everything turned out great. Ghana itself is fantastic. Aside from the obvious (the beach), or maybe because of the obvious (the beach), the country has a lot going for it. Their democratically elected officials are putting money towards education, infrastructure, and historical preservation. Accra smells like the inside of my latrine (environmental standards are lacking), but we had no problems finding our way around or getting things done. Most of the villages we passed through had electricity, and even small things like advertising and village name signs pointed towards progress. The country is one big die hard soccer fan, and appropriately, they are hosting the African Cup of Nations later this month. Most importantly, Ghana seems to be modernizing in a way that is sensitive to its historical background and generally healthy for the population. It may seem surprising to talk about a developing nation in such glowing terms, but Ghana is definitely moving up in the world.

Whew, done. Now get back to work Mimi.