One Year Later

In about a week, it'll be one year since I left my village early in the morning with my now-wife/then-girlfriend McKenna, and my two best friends from village, Pascal and Dayamba. They agreed to meet me at my house at 4am while it was still pitch black so that it would be easier for us to leave. I did my best to say goodbye to everyone for the four days that McKenna spent in my village. On the night before I left, I had so many people come by to talk and say goodbye that I had to put off packing until about midnight, and by the time I had everything ready I only had about an hour to sleep. When I got up I realized I had a few last minute things that I couldn't bring with me so I woke my neighbors, Fidel and Colette, and gave them the random assortment of vegetables that would have gone bad and some toys for their baby, and so the nice, long goodbye from the night before was replaced by this awkward-4:00 in the morning exchange. For some reason, the way Colette looked at me when she said thank you and goodbye a second time made me emotional, and I felt a lump forming in my throat as we started biking away. We struggled to stay on our bikes as we balanced all of my belongings along with McKenna's luggage on the four bikes in the dark.

It wasn't too long after we arrived at the main road that a hurried bush taxi arrived, and so I said a last goodbye more quickly than I wanted to my two best friends, exchanged awkward hugs (because hugging isn't usually done in their culture), and I was gone.

I guess it's the fact that the village is so far away that the goodbye felt so permanent. Or maybe it's that most of the people thought they'd never see me again, even though I tried to reassure them that I planned to come back to visit. Whatever it was, it still lingers in my thoughts nearly every day. I find myself wondering what my friends from village think about me now. Do they really think I don't want to come back? Do the people I call and talk to on occasion tell my other friends that I've been keeping in touch? Do they know that most of the time I try to call I hear a recording of a lady talking in French saying that the friend's phone is either off or doesn't have service? Do they know that I think about them and miss them?

As time goes on, I get less and less questions about my Peace Corps experience. So many things have happened since I got back a year ago: I had a job for 6 months, I got married to my favorite person in the world, and now I'm living in Baltimore getting ready to start nursing school. My life is so different, and right now it just feels like my time in Burkina Faso was so long ago. Time is hard to comprehend sometimes, and now especially as I remember that only a year ago I was in an African village and I wasn't sure what my future looked like.

The same morning that I left my village, just a few hours later on the ride to the capital I got a call from Dayamba who excitedly told me that his wife gave birth to a son not long after I left, and they named him after me (my village name, Yentema). The lump in my throat (psh, I don't cry...) returned and I started to think about how cool it was to be honored in that way. And maybe it was a reminder I needed in that moment to know that life is going to change, and it is going to be good.

Something I posted on Facebook a couple months after end of service

While I was in Burkina Faso, I blamed not updating my Peace Corps blog on having limited internet time. But now that I have internet access every day, I still haven't been able to write about my experience. Since I've been home, I've had a lot of people ask me, "So how was Africa?"...and I don't really know how to respond. Part of me wants to answer, "I can't really speak for all of Africa...kind of a big place." The part of me that actually answers says, "Um. I don't know...It was good." But in reality it was more than good. It was life-changing and eye-opening and awesome and at times, really really hard and lonely. It's not easy to try to describe in a short conversation the overwhelming variety of people I met and experiences I had. BUT I will try now to give a little insight into my life during the 27 month service.

I made a lot of really good friends while I was there (both Peace Corps volunteers and Burkinabé friends, neighbors, colleagues). My closest Peace Corps neighbor was Joanna who became an amazing friend. Like me, she had a long-distance relationship, and was going through some of the same struggles as I was with work, and so once a week I would bike to her town and over a cold Fanta (and for her a Coke), we'd talk about what we missed about home and what made us laugh about Burkina's culture and how seemingly impossible it was to "implement" our project plan. We worked together and with the help of friends, family, and my church, we were able to finance two computer training centers to teach people basic computer skills.

I had lots of other Peace Corps volunteer friends who I'd meet up with in the country's capital, Ouagadougou, or in the regional capital, Fada. After living alone in a culture where you're the odd one, these people become instant friends and an outlet to talk about everything you're dealing with...and they speak your native language! I had a really good friend named Elsa who I visited in village and who visited me, and we were able to collaborate on several occasions. She's Hispanic and would get mad when the Burkinabé people called her white like me. I call her my Mexican sister.

I had two best friends in village, Pascal and Dayamba. Pascal is a tailor who works too hard and was far too generous to me. Every day around lunch time I would go to his workshop. He'd pay the equivalent of 25 cents and buy me beans and rice, and we'd talk and laugh while he worked.

Dayamba is about my age. He dropped out of high school because he ran out of money for tuition and he needed to support his family. He balanced his time between working in his fields and helping me with projects. He helped me start up a theater troupe of 4th grade girls and we wrote skits together about girls' education and health, and later performed them at events we'd organized. He also helped in every aspect of organizing a trash can project/collection service, building a well, and planting Moringa trees and holding awareness trainings where he'd translate my french into local languages.

My official Peace Corps counterpart was an old man named Bouba who took me to meet with the chief whenever I wanted to start a project and needed to pass before him. Bouba answered questions for me, helped me find whoever I needed, and always gave me advice and ideas. When my roof leaked, he found a guy to fix it. When I didn't know who to invite to a rice production training, he made a list for me of the biggest rice producers in the area and took his worn out Peugeot moped around all the surrounding villages to inform them. He was wise and funny and genuine.

All three Burkinabe men teared up (and men don't cry unless someone close to them dies) when it was time to say goodbye. Joanna bawled at the airport.

Needless to say, I miss them (and all the other friends I didn't mention).

Besides the people, I miss the slow-paced lifestyle, and more than anything I miss the community that surrounded me, that grew to love me. At first I thought it was overwhelming when people would come to my house all the time just to talk and hang out. Other times I think I actually enjoyed being with a friend in market and getting all of the attention. When I first got to my village, I felt like I would be some sort of outcast because I was so different. Who could possibly imagine me as the most popular person around? People I'd never seen before knew my name and where I lived. People who know me well would probably agree that I'm pretty shy and not that outgoing. But being in this new place I often found myself taking on a new personality where I wasn't so shy, where I'd talk to a hundred people at a meeting and not be nervous, teach students or a large group of women about nutrition and enjoy it. I was smart and funny to people there, and it was good.

But I did go through those hard times too. I met people who didn't really care about being my friend, but about what I could give them. And that's true anywhere you go, but as the rich, white guy surrounded by a village of mostly really poor people, it made me question almost all of my relationships. I made some mistakes and trusted people to follow through with projects who weren't reliable. In the end, I figured out who was responsible and trustworthy, and most important, who really wanted to do good for good's sake, and not for their own.

Even harder than that was being without the person I love most. McKenna and I had several ways to communicate, but they were all complicated. We had phones, but we were either 5 or 6 hours apart, so we'd have to make sure we weren't calling at a bad time or waking the other up. Calling was expensive, so we usually made a "one call per week" rule. But I only had service in one spot in my house, so if I wasn't there she couldn't get through. When she did get through, sometimes we'd lose the connection so many times that it was more frustrating than fun. We also had texts, but they were often unreliable. I could send a text and not get a response (and vice-versa) and wonder why she was upset with me when she never got mine in the first place.

We wrote letters, but they took at least a month to get to me. When I sent a letter, I would be so excited for her to get it, but by the time she got it, I'd usually forgotten what I'd written. Don't get me wrong, we loved our letters, it was just inconvenient that it took so long.

I'm not going to go too much into what it was like sending emails and chatting, but just imagine all the interruptions from unstable electricity and really slow internet while trying to have a meaningful conversation.

So it was obviously wonderful to be reunited with her, and to be back with my family, and back to America, the land of plenty. But I can't help but miss my life there, so rich with relationships and meaningful work. Now that I'm home, I'm having to readjust to a culture that isn't so community-centered but job-oriented, where people don't look at me like I'm a rock star, where everyone is watching t.v. or checking Facebook, and where we all have so much stuff. I do miss the simplicity of life there, and now that I've seen what life is like without it, I'm afraid of the way technology is taking over our lives.

With that said, I do appreciate America for a lot of reasons, and I am glad to be here. I appreciate: the way way we treat women and children, our healthcare and schools (despite their complexities), not having the same president since 1987, good food, toilets, but also those addicting things i mentioned earlier, t.v. and Facebook. Right when I got back I was kind of harsh towards our culture. Now that I've spent some more time here I've realized that I had the "grass is always greener..." mindset, and I need to appreciate what I have here and now. There is so much to be thankful for.

A lot of people have asked me about the Peace Corps and shared that they've thought about doing it. I would encourage anyone, young and old, to seriously consider it. Everyone has a different experience, but for almost everyone I know who's been a volunteer, it's been truly rewarding. I think its good for us to experience what life is like without electricity and running water and all the other comforts we have here. Life can be pretty interesting if you're willing to get out of your comfort zone and explore, and maybe like me, you'll realize that you have a lot to offer others if you do.

what? it's only been 10 months.

If you haven’t heard, I’m in the infirmary for the second time since I’ve gotten back from America. I’m pretty much trying to set the peace corps record for most nights in the air-conditioned infirmary, most movies watched, and biggest medical file. I’d say I’m doing alright, especially lately, but down the stretch this last year I’m really gonna have to eat a lot of shady street food, forget to take my medicine, and search for scorpions (none of that is true in case my peace corps doctors are reading this OR my mom who doesn’t like those kinds of jokes but who will surely read this).
*Side note: It might seem as if I am trying to set the record for most blood drawn, but that is simply not true. I hate that record. I’d much rather set the “most times pooped in a cup” record. That means a stool sample when you have diarrhea. I don’t poop in cups for fun.
So first I was plagued with mono which I brought back with me from America. Yes, evidence points to my girlfriend McKenna who kissed me once or so in July. I spent about two weeks in the infirmary and watched 26 movies (It’s true. I have a list). I also had access to the internet and was able to chat with friends back home (thanks babe).
It reminds me of elementary school days when you wanted to be sick so you could stay home with the goal of doing nothing all day. I always loved having a little cold and an excuse to not go to school, so I could sit around and watch TV, drinking ginger ale and munching on saltines while the rest of my friends were suffering at school.
But the situations are also kind of completely different…Last week I was in my village (compared to school), and it was really, really hot, and I think if someone would’ve asked me while I was sitting in the shade and literally dripping sweat if I would rather be sick, but in air-conditioning watching TV, it would’ve been a no-brainer.
But when I actually had to come because of my high fevers and splitting headaches, I wasn’t excited about it. And the reason is transportation in Burkina Faso. I won’t get into that now, but it’s a pain.
However, now that I’m here (besides the recurrent feelings of laziness), I am pretty darn content sitting in the AC. When I arrived I had my blood tested, and though it came up negative, it could’ve been a mild case of malaria (my sickness went away fairly soon after I took the medicine for malaria). Or maybe it was just some other viral illness carried by mosquitoes that ran its course and is done. Either way, I’m feeling fine now. But I’m kind of disappointed in myself…I’ve only watched 4 movies in 4 days.
What’s going on in village: When I was back home my church donated money to help two young, motivated youth build Moringa gardens in my village. You’d be surprised how many complications one could have building gardens with limited resources in Burkina Faso. But finally the two gardens are supposedly ready (we were finishing them when I got sick), and the seeds are being planted. I was hoping that it all could have been done sooner, but I got mono, and then like seventeen hundred other unpredictable little things happened to delay finishing so that we missed the last good month of rain. Ce n’est pas facile. But fear not, we planned for the insanely long dry season and chose to place the gardens in spots where water is always available by digging wells. Donc, ça va aller.
I had two English classes this last month, one for all the students going into their first year of high school, and one for the older high school students. I explained from the start that I wanted girls and not just boys. So the first day when the first year class was composed of 13 boys, I was a little confused. I told them at the end of the class that to teach the next day, I needed a girl. So the next day the 13 boys sat down, and I asked them if they had looked for girls, and they didn’t say anything, but I could tell they hadn’t, and I realized they thought I was joking the day before. So I said I wasn't going to start class until I have at least one girl here (and this wasn’t a ridiculous demand. There were about 20 girls who passed the exam to go to high school in and around my village). So the boys walked out of class annoyed and started searching. They came back saying all the girls were busy and refused. I gave in and taught the class.
For over a week we did this. They would arrive on time, wait a couple minutes in case by a miracle a girl would show up, then I gave them a nod…a nod that to them perhaps meant, yes, the whitey is still crazy and refuses to teach class until they go out and ask the same girls to do something they already refused to do several times. But before they went out one day, one asked, “Why do we have to do this? Now they are mocking us and ask why we keep coming back.” I felt kind of bad at that moment, and then I said, “Tell them you keep coming back because you think the education of a girl is just as important as a boy’s.” I really doubt that’s what they thought, and maybe they didn’t even say that to the girls, but at least the idea is out there now. At the end of the class I explained that my job at the school is to promote girl’s education, and that teaching English to a class of only boys isn’t really doing that job.
Finally, after two weeks a girl showed up. She had been in the fields and hadn’t heard about the class. She was obviously way behind in the material, so I tried to teach her some of what she missed at my house a couple of mornings. A week passed and then I gave the exam (as incentive, i told them that the best score gets an English-French dictionary…kind of a big deal here). I was pretty proud of two boys who nearly aced the exam, and I gave them both a dictionary. Everyone who got at least half of the questions right got some other sort of prize. The girl also did really well. Everything she learned she got right on the exam, but she missed so much material that she wasn’t able to score very high. She actually did much better than about 5 or 6 boys who came from the start.
Moral of the story? High school Burkinabé girls are scared of me unless they are courageous and named Balkissa and were working in the fields. Get this…in the older class, I had one girl. What was her name? Balkissa. Hm. I bet she worked in the fields too. Oh, and the other moral of the story? Girls’ education is super important whether or not people in my village realize it. I am so good at finding morals in stories.
Other news: My older brother, Eric, is coming to visit in November. We’re going to go hiking in Dogon country in Mali, and then if all goes according to plan, he will get to see my village. Then not even a month after he leaves, I will meet my parents and younger brother Jay, in Ghana. We plan on touring Accra and Cape Coast and then spending Christmas on the beach. Then, for New Year’s, we will bus back to Ouaga, and then they will also come see my village. Needless to say, I am looking forward to having them all come visit.
I currently have a non-working camera or I would post pictures. I will make sure that when the family comes (esp the photographer) that we share lots of cool photos of trips and my village.

Steven

Remember me??

So it's kind of been awhile. I've been in my village for 3 months now, and I am very happy to be here. I get a lot of emails asking what I am doing exactly...because the name of the program "Girls Education and Empowerment" doesn't really explain what I'm doing. First, I should say that I just finished assessing the needs of my community, so I haven't started very many projects yet. The "etude de milieu" is the time to assess needs and get to know the community. So I have lots of ideas, but what's more important are the things that the village wants (because they know what they need better than I do). For example, there is a village close to mine with a school that doesn't function very well because there is no water pump. That means that girls are sent away from class to walk to the nearest pump and they miss some of the lesson. It also means a school garden is impossible and that there is no way food can be prepared for students, and many go without lunch. So...basically the things that I wanted to do here, planting trees at this school for example, was not the most pressing need, and I changed my plans. Now I am in the process of looking for ways to bring a pump to this school, before it can be improved in lots of other ways.
The school in my village does have a pump, and it does have a garden. So with one of my classes I am going to plant Moringa trees (http://www.treesforlife.org/our-work/our-initiatives/moringa) that can help fight against the malnutrition in the village.
At this school I am also going to start a reading/studying club with girls so that they have a better chance of passing the test to move on to high school (this is a GEE activity). Right now, there are a lot more boys than girls who get to go to high school. There are a lot of reasons for this: girls are needed more at home to work, sometimes they get forced to marry early or get impregnated, but really their education just isn't seen as important as the boy's.
I have lots of other activities...weighing babies at the health clinic, trying to start a preschool, adding books to the library (which is a trunk of 70 books, some of which are torn), teaching about AIDS and other STDs, and probably other things I'm forgetting.
I hope that clears up some of the mystery behind what I do here. It's kind of a lot of random work, but I really like it, and I love the people here.

Some of the reasons why:

They are accepting. There is an old deaf man in my village who walks around, greeting people every day in the market. Everyone greets him happily and seems to have his own sign language messages with him. I feel like this man might’ve been ignored on the streets of a market in most places, or thought of as crazy, but here, the people make him feel special.

They are giving/unselfish: My neighbor Collette is probably the best example I know. Her husband is a teacher at that neighboring village I mentioned without a pump. Each morning she gets up early to cook. She gives food to the neighbor kids who aren’t as well-off. Then she goes to school with her husband and when the kids have breaks for recreation and from noon to 3 for lunch, she sits outside the school and sells rice for a really cheap price (I’m pretty sure she doesn’t make a profit). The schools here are supposed to have “cantines” or lunch provided for the students, but most in this region don’t have them. Usually though, women sit outside the school and sell food, but since the women in this village don’t and many of the children have no other way to eat, she has taken the responsibility.

The more well-off people in village are called functionnaires--in my village they are just the teachers and health care workers. It is normal for them to have a young/teenage girl who does house chores for them. Most of them are treated very poorly, yelled at, as they do all the work (kind of like Cinderella)…Anyway, sometimes there is a girl that helps Collette and her husband, especially now that she’s pregnant. But Collette treats the girl as a friend, and after they finish the work together, they sit around and talk and laugh. She is such a great example of how someone who has privilege can love and serve others. She is a great example for me.

Some reasons why I get frustrated:

One of my biggest frustrations is being called Nassara, Bonpieno, or la blanche—different ways of calling me a white stranger. And I can understand why the people would call me those names if I really was a stranger, or if they didn’t know my name. But now I’ve lived in my village nearly 3 months. Most people do call me by my local name, “Yentema,” and I even have a few good friends who call me by my real name ("steven" is very difficult to pronounce here). But even some of my best friends will refer to me as nassara (stranger) or bonpieno (the white person/stranger), or sometimes a similar word that translate as “white thing” when talking with others. And it’s not behind my back, which I would be more okay with. It is right in front of my face. Sometimes I sit with a group of friends talking in French, when suddenly the conversation switches to a local language, and I know they are talking about me because I hear nassara or bonpieno, and if that’s not enough of a clue, they start staring at me. I figure they might as well joke about me with the name they gave me. I don’t know. It’s just one of those things that happens here, and I just can’t help but wonder how they don’t realize that it’s frustrating for me.

Another frustration I have is learning the languages. A lot of people don’t realize that French isn’t my first language and expect that I should already know more of the local language by now. But in a village where four or five languages are spoken, it’s really hard to learn just one, and to learn it well.

Sometimes I feel stupid, like I haven’t been trying hard enough-people say when you’re immersed in a new language, you pick it up really quick-like Julian, a Colombian who stayed with my family. It didn’t take him long at all to speak English well (and even dream in English). The difference, and the difficulty here is that I am immersed in four languages. I go around talking to people-for my work, and also just to learn French, but the conversation usually switches to a different language if I am not talking to just one person. The French is only spoken when I am being spoken to directly. This is not always the case—like with teachers or other good french speakers--but when it does happen, it's a little annoying.

One thing I do appreciate is that even though I'm not great at French, people here are used to the improper grammar and having to translate from French to local languages. There are lots of people in my village who can't even talk to each other because of they don't know the other's language. It's hard to imagine that as an American...not being able to talk to your neighbor or the pharmacist and having to search for someone to translate.

Another hard thing is what a lot of volunteers call "living in a fishbowl." When I walk through the market, I can feel all the eyes on me. No matter what I do, I am stared at and talked about. And if you know me very well, you know I don't really like being the center of attention. I actively avoided it back home. But here, it's not really possible to avoid all the excessive attention unless I hide in my house (which is simply too hot). I have decided that my favorite time of day is night time. It is cooler outside after the sun goes down, and I can walk around and people can't tell it's me, and I am no longer inside a fishbowl (i'm a fish out of water...lame?).

Hmm. So all of my complaining might lead you to believe that I'm not having a good time here. But really, I am. This experience has been eye-opening, humbling (times a million), a chance to share culture, knowledge, resources, love...with so many people. All of that is worth so much more than any of my frustrations, and I am so glad I have the opportunity to be here.

Donc

I apologize to anyone who checks this on a regular basis thinking that I might have an update. I am bad at blogging. Every time I get on the internet I have beaucoup emails to read or I have someone chatting with me, and then blogging seems to be the least important thing to do.
But I guess I should update everyone on the big stuff. I know where I will be living the next two years, and I like it. It's in the southeast...so it's not quite as hot, it's green, and there are supposed to be animals everywhere. Mmmm. I am ready to be done with training so I can start.
Thank you to everyone who has sent me letters or packages. It is pretty exciting to get them. But if you just want to send emails or call me, I would love to hear from you that way too (and I can tell you more about what's going on).

A slightly longer post

I think I should say thank you to everyone for all the comments, nice words, and prayers. I feel so loved!
I am doing well. I really don't have much to complain about. My host family treats me like a king. They cook for me, do my laundry if I don't have time, get my water (I tried to get it myself and they wouldn't let me), took me out to the fields to let me see their work, and I sit around and try to have conversations in broken french and try to understand their moorefrancais. It's good. I am definitely adapting. It's cool to go to bed when the sun goes down (8pm) and wake up with the roosters at 4:30 to 5am. The sunrise is beautiful in the morning. Mmmm....african skies.
I've played soccer two days in a row now, and have completely embarrassed myself two days in a row now. The first night was in my village, and i guess it could be considered the hardcore version of african football. An older brother/uncle (my family is crazy) took me to play. I played like I had never seen a soccer ball in my life. If I am the only american soccer player they ever see, i should apologize to all americans. In my defense, the soccer ball was flat, the ground was dirt (not grass) and full of mounds (prarie dogs would thrive in this field), and I didn't know who was on my team for the first half of the game. And I couldn't understand the Moore instructions being yelled at me. It was definitely a humbling experience. I think there was an extra large crowd to watch the goofy white guy embarrass himself on the soccer field. I fell on the ground more than once. I turned over the ball most of the time I got it. Needless to say, my team lost. I need to practice. I would like to see Jay and Julian compete with these guys. It would be very interesting. African football is not the same game as American soccer. Times a billion.
I have limited internet time, so I better stop here. I will update more later (there is so much more to talk about).
I love and miss you all,
Steven

Training

I'm not a fan of these french keyboards, so this is going to be short and sweet. Burkina Faso is amazing. The people here are so nice and helpful...and all the problems I have experienced (get ready) : the heat, not ever being dry because of the sweat, the GI distress, trying to learn a language using a language that you only sort of know, being laughed at for how I say "ne y yebeoogo", missing friends, family, and McKenna....it's all worth it. And our training staff here is really fun and so good at what they do. The other trainees are pretty cool too.
It's awesome. God is good.
More later.