Thanksgiving in Burkina

 Thanksgiving in Burkina was amazing!  Among my fellow Peace Corps Trainees there are some amazing cooks that made excellent food with limited ingredients.  Among the highlights were turkey (of course), garlic bread, mac n cheese, and SALAD.  We never get fresh vegetables at meals with our host families, so it was exciting to have a salad.  Desserts included carrot cake, pumpkin pie, and cookies.  I puked after the meal because I ate so much.

 My host family!  I told my host dad  that I wanted to take a picture of the family last night.  This morning, the family got dressed up in their nice clothes for the picture.  I'd like to claim that I haven't taken off my UCLA shirt since the win over USC, but I'd be lying.

The trainees in my language class along with our language teacher, Saliou.  I managed to test into a higher class and reach the level of French I need to become a trainee.  That means I'm starting to learn the local language of my area, Jula.

Hope everyone  had as good of a Thanksgiving as me!

Burkinabe Cuisine

Le Tö – The most consumed food  in all of Burkina.  It is usually made by mashing millet or corn for an extended period of time until it is ground into a fine grain.  Then water and heat are slowly added until it resembles a dough type substance.  Tö can be served with a wide variety of oily sauces or soups.  The sauce will definitely determine the quality of the meal because tö is relatively tasteless.  Red sauce is typically made with tomatoes and fish, beef, chicken, sheep, or goat meat.  Green sauce is made with okra or other types of leaves.  Peanut sauce is made with Burkina style peanut butter, which is basically a peanut paste without added sugar or preservatives (tastes similar to organic peanut butter.

Riz Sauce – Another one of the most common dishes in Burkina.  Riz Sauce (rice with sauce) is served as a bowl of white rice and a separate bowl of sauce.   Usually the choice of sauce (if there is one) is between peanut sauce and vegetable sauce

Riz Gras- Rice cooked with tomato paste and oil.  It tastes vaguely similar to Mexican style rice.  Usually served with meat on top.

Benga- Mixture of rice and arrico (black eyed peas….taste similar to kidney beans).  Benga is typically served with one of the sauces described above.

Ragu d’ingyam-  a broth soup made with  ingyam, a legume that is very similar to a potato

Spaghetti/Macaroni- Pasta with a n oily tomato  sauce, usually made from palm oil and tomato paste

Kous Kous – Once in a blue moon, my host family makes kous-kous.  It serves as a base for a  variety of sauces, but most of them are  tomato based with onions and peppers

Never eat with your left hand in Burkina!  In Africa, your left hand is the “dirty hand” because most people use it to splash water on their under region after using the latrine….the hole in the ground that functions as a toilet (they don’t use toilet paper much here…).  It follows that greeting someone with your left hand is offensive.  In traditional Burkina society, left handed kids would be punished by their mothers until they learned to do most things with their right hands.

Price Breakdown:

Weekly Peace Corps Trainee Allowance – 10,000-12,000 CFA ($20-$24)

Our host families serve us breakfast and dinner. Breakfast consists of coffee or tea and “gato”  which  is basically bread dough fried in palm oil.  It’s actually really tasty when it’s served fresh, but unless you can find the lady making it and buy it on the spot, you usually receive it semi stale.  We’re on our own for lunch.

Riz Sauce / Riz Gras / Omelette- 300-400 CFA ($0.60-0.80)

Goat Meat Brochette – 500 CFA ($1)

Coke/Sprite/Fanta – 450 CFA ($0.90)

22oz Brakina (the equivalent of Bud Light) – 650 CFA ($1.30)

22oz Beaufort (the equivalent of Heineken) – 800 CFA ($1.60)

Hotel Sissilis

22oz Brakina – 850 CFA

22oz Beaufort – 1200 CFA

Hamburger – 2000 CFA

Cheeseburger – 2500 CFA

Fries – 1000 CFA

It’s important to understand that I eat separately from the family every night, as do most PCTs, because the food they serve me has been prepared separately from the food for the rest of the family.  Peace Corps supplies my host family with money to pay for my meals, but the family generally cannot afford to serve themselves the same meal.  Most nights the family eats to, riz sauce, benga, or potates/ingyams  if it’s a harvest day.  I never finish my meal, though, and my host brothers and sisters finish off  the rest of my food.

We all can’t wait to be sworn in as volunteers for a variety of reasons, one of them being the fact that our living allowance as volunteers is WAY MORE than our living allowance as trainees.  Of course, in terms of dollars that means about $10-$20 more per week, but to us it’s a lot!

Demystification

Here's an excellent blog post from a fellow volunteer that I went on "Demystification" with a couple weeks ago.  Basically Demyst was a 3 day vacation at a current health volunteer's site to see how they lived and interacted with their community.   We also  got to see some of the projects that they had  worked on during their service:

"This past week my language teacher told me my French homework was to make a family tree of my host family.  I knew this was going to be challenging for several reasons.  First of all, most of the family doesn't speak French.  Second, my family seems huge and it's very hard to figure out who everyone is.  However, I went back to my courtyard and attempted to do the homework.  I showed my host dad a family tree of my family and then tried to explain that I need to do one of his family.  He called over one of my sisters and we sat on the floor with some flashlights trying to do the assignment.  She was able to write the name of her dad and the names of his three wives.  Then she began to write the names of her 13 brothers and sisters.  After, we were supposed to write the ages of everyone.  My host dad went into his house and a few minutes later came out with a bunch of papers.  The papers were the hand written birth certificates of the kids.  It took me a minute but I realized nobody in my courtyard knew how old they were, the dad included.  After calculating the age of everyone I was able to finish my family tree.  My family has 14 kids, all under the age of 15 and 3 wives.  My host dad is 49 and he is a farmer.  The next day we presented our family trees in class.  Most of the other people in my language group had between 5-8 kids.  I now understand why my courtyard is always loud, busy, and full with kids!

     For lunch this week we found a place that makes omelets.  Everyone was so excited because usually there is just rice with some different sauces.  After lunch I began to feel really sick.  I thought I might be dehydrated but it got progressively worse during the afternoon.  Eventually I threw up and got a ride home to my village.  I tried to explain to the wives that I was sick and that I had thrown up.  I got a pillow and sat outside on a chair.  Later, my host dad came home.  I could tell all of the people in my courtyard were telling him I'm sick.  He said hello and then went to sit on his chair over by his house.  A few minutes later he gets up and brings over his chair.  His chair is more like a lounge chair.  It looks like a pool chair but it's wood.  He brought it over so I would be more comfortable.  This was an incredibly nice gesture because all the women and kids in my courtyard sit and sleep on the floor.  He wanted me to have the chair for the night since I was sick. It made me realize that even if you can't communicate with words, there are other ways to communicate.  I lounged on the chair for a while and then went to bed.  Luckily, I woke up feeling better the next day.  I also spoke to a current volunteer who said that some Americans are allergic to pintar eggs, which are eggs produced by guinea fowl.  So now I know I can avoid omelets that aren't made with chicken eggs. 

     On Wednesday afternoon we traveled to Ouaga, the capital, for the night.  We stayed at our transit house which is basically a hostel for only us Peace Corps volunteers.  It has fans, wifi, a real kitchen, a bunch donated books, clothes up for grab and some beds.  We went out for dinner to a shwarma place and then found a bar with one beer on tap!!!  We drank beers and stayed up late meeting current volunteers who were in Ouaga.  
  
     The next morning we got up at 5 to head out for "Demyst".  Demyst is when we split into our language groups and visit a current volunteer for the weekend.  My language group traveled to Sabce, a village 2 hours North of Ouagadougou.  We are staying with a volunteer named Wendy.  Wendy is a volunteer in her 60's and her site has electricity.  She was a lawyer in the states and decided to do the Peace Corps because she felt her life was too predictable.  She is also a health volunteer and she has been here for two years.  She lives right by the CSPS (health clinic) and her site has about 3,000 people.  She is really cool and it was nice to learn about the projects she has done.  One of the projects I found most interesting was her project with the village elders.  She held a lot of sessions with them about getting older, menopause, dental care, and staying active.  I found this interesting because a lot of the younger volunteers work mainly with youth so hearing about her projects with the elders was so new and different!  Wendy has also had a girls group of about 28 teenage girls.  She talked to the girls about menstruation and safe sex.  In Burkina it is very taboo for mothers and daughters to talk about these types of things.  Prostitution is becoming a problem in this village so she talked to them about that as well.  The reason prostitution is increasing in Sabce is because they recently opened a mine close by.  Men from all over the country come have been coming to work here.  This has caused a lot of problems and Wendy said her village has changed a lot in the two years since she has been here.    
 
     In the mornings we got to go with her to the clinic to weigh babies and watch the nurse and Wendy give vaccinations.  The mothers who came to the clinic today are involved with the Plumpy Nut Program.  This program is for babies who are severely malnourished.  They come in for weekly weigh-ins and if the babies aren't gaining weight, they have to pay to visit the Head Nurse.  Babies usually gain weight from the program and are able to get on a more healthy track.  Wendy says the Plumpy Nut is really popular and tastes like chocolate peanut butter.  Apparently it is a hot commodity and sometimes parents will give it to other kids or eat it themselves, which is why some babies don't gain enough weight.  We saw one 4 month old baby that was 6 pounds.  It was devastating and the baby looked like an alien.  It was completely deformed and unbelievably tiny. 

     Later in the day we got to see the school and attend a session on family planning.  The session was put on by the Head Nurse and it was given to about 70 kids all around 14 and 15 years old.  It was really fun to see their reaction to the different family planning options.  I was surprised that so many kids showed up to listen!  At night Wendy made us spaghetti and salad!  It was delicious and it felt like we were back in the states.  We listened to music and drank some beers and then went to bed outside in our tents.  The rest of the weekend should be fun because today is a Muslim holiday called Tabaski.  They eat a lot of goat on this holiday and the men wear all white.  We are invited to celebrate the holiday with one of Wendy's friends.  She is 13 and Wendy said she is an incredible person.  Wendy has been paying for this girl's schooling because recently her parents cut off the funding.  I'm excited to see how they celebrate Tabaski and will write more soon when I'm back in Leo.  Hope all is well with everyone!  I'm excited to hear about Halloween celebrations!"

-From the blog "NATWORTHY" by Natalie Moore    

And here's a picture that made Todd happy:

Bad News or Good News First?

The bad news: Our bus careened off the side of the road on Monday during a journey from Leo to Ouaga. Don't worry, no one was hurt!!!!

The good news: My site announcement!  Here's the information I've been given so far (which I'm hesitant to develop too many expectations about)

"Congratulations you are going to the village of Takaledougou!  60km from Bobo and 15km from Banfora, the village of Takaledougou is surrounded by acres of sugarcane fields beneath mountain cliffs.  Mangos are seasonal and the community is thrilled to be  receiving their first volunteer.  There are women's groups, youth groups, theater troupes, mango and shea  producers, and musicians who are eager to collaborate and share longstanding cultural traditions, such as an annual festival at the village waterfalls.  Your house has 5 spacious rooms! It is located in the councilor's compound.  You gave a small private courtyard and gardening space."

Sounds like I won some sort of game show right?  Anyhow, I feel very fortunate with my site placement, considering I only requested not to be in the North of the country.  You can find the approximate location of my site using the map below.  (Hint: SW)

Homestay

Living with a family of a completely different cultural has been extremely difficult at times, but also extremely rewarding.  My family consists of my host dad, Abdoulaye, my host mom Mariam, three host brothers and two host sisters.  The oldest is 12 years old. Embarrassingly enough, it took me two weeks to figure this out.   The terms cousin, uncle, aunt, niece, and nephew for all practical purposes do not exist in village life.  The terms son, daughter, brother, and sister are used liberally and not in a literal sense.  Village men refer to all of their male friends as “brothers.”  The kids of a sibling are still considered “my kids.”  To make things even more confusing, families are large and often live in the same area of the village, so the chances that you are actually meeting family members is high.  For example, my friend Natalie is hosted by the chief of Sanga, who has three wives and five kids per wife.  Clearly she has difficultly determining how everyone in her courtyard is related.

Coming into the homestay, I was expecting a similar experience to my homestays with families in Santa Rosalia, Baja California Sur during an exchange program I was involved with during high school.  As everyone learns during Peace Corps service, expectations are more of a curse than a blessing. 

First of all, I was more capable of communicating in Spanish before my homestays in Baja California.  As I mentioned in earlier posts, my host dad is the only person living in my courtyard who speaks passable French. I use the term “passable” because I get this feeling from our short morning/evening conversations that I am slowly surpassing his French capabilities.  Luckily his younger brother, Akim, lives in the courtyard next to us and speaks much better French.  He is patient enough to work through my choppy and grammatically horrific French.  This has helped immensely, although our conversations are all too infrequent.

If not all Burkinabe speak French, what do they speak?  The answer is complicated.  Although there are five main languages (besides French) associated with different regions of Burkina Faso, there are also many languages that are unique to areas as small as 10 square kilometers.  For example, the inhabitants of my host village, Sanga, and most of the villages surrounding Leo speak Nunni, a language that is unique to the region. I have only recently mastered the morning greeting process, which consists of a long hand shake and a scripted conversation of how I’m doing, how the person I’m greeting is doing, how I slept, how they slept, how my family is doing, how their family is doing, and eventually laughter when it becomes obvious that I barely understand what they are saying to me.  

My experience with language in my host community is completely normal in Burkina Faso.  In rural villages, there are often only a limited number of community members that speak French well, and most people communicate entirely in the local language.  Children are taught French in school from an early age, but the children may not retain the language for a variety of reasons. Parents may communicate with their kids in local language instead of French.  Children that do not have aspirations outside of the community may not see the point of taking French studies seriously.  The style of education in Burkina is also not well suited to language learning, as most classes consist of repetition and copying from the board.  However, all government employees must speak French in order to accomplish the administrative aspects of their jobs.  This includes the nurses and other employees of the CSPS (Centre de Sante et Promotion Social), or village health clinics.

Besides language, there are a variety of other cultural differences between Burkina Faso and the US. Here’s a quick list:

-In village, it is important to individually greet everyone that you see, ask how they are doing, etc.  Not doing so is mildly offensive

-In the morning, it is impolite to greet someone who has not yet washed their face (or taken a bucket bath, although Burkinabe find it strange that I take a bucket bath in the morning)

-At first I considered it ridiculous that we had to bring our own bike helmet to Burkina, but now I realize that they don’t sell them here. Most families in village have bikes and motorcycles instead of cars.  No one wears a helmet.  Burkinabe find it extremely comical that Peace Corps volunteers/employees are required to wear helmets

-Babies are often tied straddling their mother’s backs using a 2 m x 1 m piece of colorful fabric called “pagne.”  With babies on their backs, women go about all of their daily tasks, including riding bikes, working in the fields, selling things at the market, and cooking

-Life is considered difficult.  Happiness and sadness, sickness and health, work and rest, life and death: all accepted parts of the life cycle.  There is a belief that people can’t do much to change their situation, they can only make do with what they have.  In French: “C’est la vie” (That’s life)

Some notes on being American in Burkina….

-Anything that an American says/does is considered high quality entertainment, even if they are saying/doing the right thing.  If you can’t laugh at yourself, you are doomed to an extremely unhappy existence.  As such, any self-conscious individuals should avoid Burkinabe villages altogether

-Burkinabe are extremely hospitable and respectful of guests, almost to the extreme from an American point of view.  They insist on carrying my bike and backpack to home when I get back from training, they grow concerned if I only consume half of the two pounds of spaghetti they made me for dinner, and they won’t allow me to do my own laundry.  For an ordinary American, obviously this is quite unusual and most volunteers find it uncomfortable.  I let it happen for the most part, though, because Burkinabe are genuinely happy to help us in any way that they can.  The families that are hosting volunteers are proud to have Americans in their homes and I am positive that we are the subject of constant village gossip.

As I write this post, my young host brothers are seated near my computer, alternating between staring at me and dancing to the music that I’m playing.  Reggae, especially Bob Marley, is extremely popular here, as the music style has important roots in Western Africa. Any American hip hop is also popular here about 6 months after it is released in the states.  Anyhow, it's still way too hot here, but things are going well.  Site assignments are announced on Wednesday, so everyone is pretty excited and nervous.  Internet is in scarce supply, but I'll keep posting when I can.

Todd