Life in Burkina

Hey Everyone! Jamm nyaali!

I hope you are all well, I have been in Burkina Faso for about 10 days now. So far life is good! (but HOT!) I've stopped trying to determine the temperature, because I probably don't really want to know. We spent the first 2 days in a small corner of Ouagadougou (the capital), the next two in Ouahigouya-a regional city in the north, and for the past few days I have been living in a village about 7-10 km outside Ouahigouya.

Before going to our villages, we met the head chief of the region. This was a necessary step to formally get his authorization to work in the villages under his influence for the next few months. We brought him traditional gifts of a live chicken, 50kg of rice, and kola nuts. As we were leaving, he gave us a sheep! We were the first group the chief has given a gift too (and I think his gift to us was better than our gift to him.)

When we arrived in our village, a group of 4 semi-nervous Americans sat in front of the village chief and 4 very large, anticipating families eager to know which foreign face they will see every morning. The Peace Corps trainers gave a brief speech indicating the Peace Corps faith in this community. When he stated that to the Peace Corps, this village was no longer a village, but was our village, the community burst into applause, their pride at being respected as avillage that was a welcoming training ground to foreigners about toserve their country was very evident.

When I travel, I am always amazed and humbled by the hospitality of others. I'm living with the Diallo family in a very small village. The family is part of the Peulh ethnic group, a previously (and current to some degree) nomadic/semi nomadic group that raises livestock. This family has welcomed me into their home and taken care of me to a degree that I didn't expect. I truly enjoy the interactions I have with my host family (many of them non-verbal or in my nascent Fulfulde-the language I am learning) and look forward to learning more Fulfulde to develop better relationships with them. It is always interesting how you evaluate personalities even when very few words are exchanged successfully.

I am beginning to learn Fulfulde, but most of Burkina Faso speaks Moore (the most dominant ethnic group is the Mossi). Fulfulde is great in my home and will be helpful throughout West Africa (Peulhs have settled throughout the region) but is almost useless in many parts of Burkina. My attempts to speak Moore to Mossis are quickly rewarded with grins and new vocabulary words by most people I encounter. My favorite Moore tutors thus far are the village chief who teachers me new words when I greet him every day and the random guy who rode his bike next to me into town for 5k teaching me Moore along the way. In general, my language skills are improving, but certain days and moments my brain shuts off and refuses to allow me to tap into the Moore, Fulfulde and French that I'm accumulating. I've of course had my JFK-esque "ich bin ein Berliner" moments. My most recent blooper wasat the local bar in the field. I was proud to try out my new Moore vocab words and promptly ordered a beer when the waiter came over. He gave me a puzzled look, but left anyways. I soon realized that rather than saying "I want a beer" I said " Hi, my name is beer"… eh, atleast got the beer anyways :)

Our training is supposed to put us in real situations that are similar to what we may encounter in the field. As a PCV, I will need to learn to separate my project ideas/what I want to do, from the community ideas and what is best for the community. I'm practicing this every night as I ignore the goats making babies very loudly a few feet from me as I attempt to sleep. What I want (sleep) conflicts with what is best for the community and my host family (more sheep). I acknowledgethat the more goats my family has, the better…however the f#$%inggoats are preventing me from sleeping (literally!) (Update: I started writing this email a week ago, since then I have learned to distinguish between the sounds of goats who are mating, those who are being rambunctious, and those that are lost and looking for their families. …also, my family has built me a thatched patio and moved the 40 goats to the other side of the compound at night…I'm definitely sleeping better now.)

That's all for now, my internet and computer time is really limited. I'll try to put some photos up soon!

Hugs from Burkina ( the land of upright people!)