After
spending 10 months in Burkina Faso, I was definitely at a low point of my
service. From June through September is
the “rainy season” in Burkina Faso, during which it is close to impossible to
accomplish anything meaningful in village.
School is out for the summer, but every able bodied adult and child in
rural Burkina spends most of their time in the fields, planting and cultivating
their livelihood. During these months, I
didn’t feel like I had any work to do at site that would make any difference. I helped out at Camp G2LOW, which was a great
experience, but it also reminded me of the difficulties and frustrations of
organizing projects with Burkinabe counterparts. I helped out at the mosquito net
distribution, but I didn’t really do anything that the Burkinabe health center
staff couldn’t accomplish without me.
I
felt trapped in Burkina and it was difficult to see light at the end of the
tunnel of my service. My only solace was
that the other volunteers in my training group were feeling exactly the same
way, although the “collective suffering” trope only goes so far when you aren’t
seeing the fruits of your labor and don’t have much to take your mind off it. The one thing that kept me going was the
knowledge that on August 19, I was finally leaving the country of Burkina and
traveling to one of the best cities in the world, Cape Town.
I
arrived in Ouaga two days before my flight just to be safe. After a fun night with my good friend Liz and
her visiting boyfriend, I woke up with a nasty Burkina hangover (yes these
hangovers are WAY worse than American ones).
That morning, I heard no less than five horror stories about volunteers
being screwed over by the very airline I was taking. Needless to say, I freaked out a little bit. Ok fine, I had a minor panic attack. I knew that if I didn’t get on that flight
out of Burkina at 6am the next morning, I would be devastated. As such, I thought the best idea was to show
up at the airport ridiculously early and make sure there was absolutely nothing
I could do to improve my chances of making it on that flight. How early is ridiculously early? 16 hours.
I don’t think I’ve made it a secret that this country makes you do
insane things.
But
sure enough, at 4am I made it past
security, got my ticket, and boarded the flight with a huge smile on my face. To
get to Cape Town from Burkina, I flew north to Morocco, boarded a flight to
London, and then flew London to Cape Town nonstop. If you look at a map, you can see that this
is a ridiculous flight path, but flying between countries in Africa often
requires at least a stop in Ethiopia, if not Europe. In the past, I did not enjoy airlines or
airline food. After 10 months in
Burkina, I couldn’t have been happier.
I
arrived on a gorgeous morning in Cape Town, which I was to learn isn’t the norm
for the winter months. Immediately after
getting to the hostel and storing my bags, I searched for a breakfast
place. At 8am, I sat down and enjoyed a
classic South African bacon-egg roll (one fried egg, bacon, tomato, on a
delicious roll), an amazing cappuccino (one of the ones where the foamed milk
on top is a work of art), and a milkshake.
I then proceeded to take a cab directly to the closest beach and spent a
couple hours walking on the sand and admiring the ocean.
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| First Beach in 10 Months |
You
may accuse me of being a sap, but there was an emptiness inside me for the past
10 months that I could never fill. I’m
lucky enough that my village is near a stream, so I get to see running water
pretty frequently, but it definitely doesn’t give me the same feelings as the
ocean. The only thing that came close filling
the void was my visit to the waterfalls of Banfora, but it still wasn’t the
same. I know my love for the ocean has something to do with its vastness: how
it extends to the horizon and you can never see the other side. It’s humbling and comforting in a “Don’t let
the little things bother you,” and a “That one annoying kid/coworker who pisses
you off every day would probably have to be rescued by a lifeguard,” kind of
way. I also know that the power of waves
has something to do with it, because I love surfing and have never been
particularly impressed by beaches without waves. However I also like the color blue, I’m a big
fan of water, and I’m generally partial to reflective substances, so it
might be nothing deeper than that.
One
of my favorite teachers at UCLA was an amazing man named Teo Ruiz. His specialty was medieval history of Spain
and Portugal, which I honestly didn’t really care for. I’m pretty sure the only worthwhile things to
come out of Medieval Europe were the centralization of human government and a
society on which the Game of Thrones
could be based on. However I was
addicted to his passion for teaching, his sense of humor, and his habit of
having profound revelations in the middle of his lectures. One such revelation came while he was
discussing the geography of Spain and how it influenced the development of the
vastly different cultural groups the country.
To illustrate a point he made about the coastal regions of Spain, he
mentioned a year long period he had spent living in the middle of rural Spain. While he admitted that he loved the beautiful
rural countryside, he would get extremely restless and ill-tempered every month
or so. When this occurred, he would rent a car and drive 7 hours to the nearest
coast just to see the ocean. The ocean
calmed him, reminded him of where he came from, and the happy uncertainty of
where he might be going. It seemed
logical to me at the time. I, too, love
the ocean. But the significance of his story didn’t completely hit me until
moving to Burkina. A year later he received
an award for accomplishments in the Humanities from President Obama. I realized
I should probably take this guy seriously.
I
could write short novel about my experience in Cape Town, but in the interests
of time (and your sanity) I’ll stick with the highlights. Just keep in mind that anything as marginal
as consistent electricity, a cool climate, and running water were pretty
groundbreakingly awesome for me.
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| Taking a break halfway up Lion's Head hike |
The
geography of Cape Town is, to put it lightly, incredible. The city is on a peninsula, maximizing the
amount of ocean front property and beautiful coastline. The city itself is
dwarfed by a large plateau called Table Mountain and a large rock outcropping
called Lion’s Head. The hike up Lion’s
Head was precarious, but the views from the top were absolutely incredible,
with steep cliff drop offs to the coast below.
The hike up Table Mountain was much longer, but the views from the top
were arguably more incredible (if possible) due to its higher altitude. My first hike up Table Mountain was on an
incredibly clear day, which afforded amazing visibility. My second hike was prompted
by a call from my Cape Townian friend, Tom on a cloudy morning during which he
informed me that there was snow on top of Table Mountain and he was picking me
up in 10 minutes. As we were hiking up
the rain eventually turned to snow and Tom was blown away. It seems that the only natural beauty that
Cape Townians lack is snow. To be fair, seeing snow on the top of Table
Mountain along with amazing coastal views was incredible. We built a small snowman and had a snowball
fight until we couldn’t feel our hands. Simply put, the existence of such a beautiful
city is a point on the scoreboard for the existence of a higher power. I think the pictures speak for themselves.
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| View from the top of Lion's Head |
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| Pondering the mysteries of life on top of Lion's Head. How did this particular lion get lucky enough to watch over Cape Town? Why is he facing away from the ocean? If a lion and a shark got in shallow water fight, who would win? |
If
the city of Cape Town isn’t amazing enough, you can always get out of town and visit
some of the hundreds of wineries in the region.
I was privileged enough to go on two wine tasting trips, the first with
my friends from the hostel and the second with my parents. For someone living in the Burkina for the
past 10 months, wine tasting is a mind blowing luxury. The amazing wines of South Africa paired with
homemade cheeses and chocolate were nothing short of orgasmic. During lunch of the first wine tasting, which
consisted of butternut squash soup and a South African braii (barbeque) meal of
honey mustard chicken and a delicious sausage, I noticed that some of the tour
members were feeding their leftovers to the Great Dane puppy (if you can call a
dog that big a puppy) and the two wiener dogs.
It occurred to me that those dogs had most likely been eating better
than me for the past 10 months. This
moment of self-pity was quickly erased when our football linebacker of a tour
guide claimed to be on a diet and gave me his honey mustard chicken
skewer. The second wine tour was pretty
rainy, but at one of the wineries I happened to taste the best champagne of my
life. I proceeded to coerce my parents
into buying me a bottle (it was only $10) and upon our return to the hotel I
chilled the bottle and drank it while soaking in a warm bubble bath. In that moment of clarity, I realized that
the question “Why does living in Burkina Faso suck so much?” can be answered
with the philosophical concepts associated with “chilled champagne” and “bubble
baths.”
I
was also lucky enough to go on two surfing day trips. The region around Cape Town is littered with
incredible surfing spots. The peninsula
on which the city sits gets hit by just about every crazy storm swell coming
out of Antarctica and the Indian Ocean.
Based on swell direction and wind, one can choose from west facing
breaks, east facing breaks, south facing breaks, reef breaks, beach breaks,
point breaks, and everything in between. If I didn’t have a guide to drive me
around and choose the spots, I would never have found the amazing waves that we
surfed. Not to mention I would have been
putting myself in a lot of danger, as each spot had to be surfed in a
particular way and the waves were always twice as big as they seemed from the
beach. What blew me away is that the spots we were surfing were almost always
empty. In California good (and bad)
surfing spots are always incredibly crowded, making surfing a considerably more
frustrating experience. Maybe the sheer
number of surfing spots spreads people out more. Or maybe it’s the cold water, fickle wind
conditions, and sharks that make Cape Town less surfer friendly. Whatever the reason, I was more than happy to
have my pick of the waves coming through.
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| Surfing trip west of Cape Town. Table Mountain in the background |
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| View of Lion's Head from Table Mountain |
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| View of Cape Town from Table Mountain |
The
people I was able to spend time with during my trip were incredible. After my first day, I happened to run into
three girls from Chicago at the hostel, Jacqueline, Charlotte, and April. April happened to be a returned PCV from
Zambia! I ended up having a lot of fun
with them over the next six days and they were incredibly kind, especially
considering I had just met them. I’d
like to think we were pretty good friends by the time they left. The South African who took me on my surf
trips, Tom, was also an amazing guy. He
was a 22 year-old born and raised in Cape Town, spending his youth surfing,
playing water polo, and lifeguarding. It sounded pretty familiar. I think he got sick of me telling him that he
grew up in one of the most amazing places in the world. I was also lucky enough to see my parents for
the last five days of my trip. The
months that we spent apart melted away quickly, especially after they
determined that I was healthy and relatively sane. The amazing food and wine
probably helped also. It was hard to
believe that I had spent so much time away from home and it reminded me how
much I missed the rest of my family and friends.
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| Mom and Dad! My generous vacation sponsors. |
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| Jacqueline, Charlotte, April, and I at the hostel |
I
was also lucky enough to meet with the organization Grassroots Soccer during my
time in Cape Town. The organization is
similar to Coaching for Hope, using soccer as a tool to educate youth about
HIV/AIDS, but GRS is unique in the sense that they have worked with PCVs in
South Africa to develop a program specifically for use by volunteers in their
villages. They have also developed a
malaria education program, which is much more applicable to Burkina Faso because
HIV/AIDS prevalence is lower here than most countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The
health education materials they offered me during this meeting were logically
organized, creative, and….well…amazing.
They were 100x better than any health education materials I had ever
been offered by Peace Corps Burkina
itself, which was both impressing and depressing. Quite possibly the best part about Grassroots
Soccer is that the Director of Peace Corps partnerships is a former volunteer from Zambia and completely
understood all of the difficulties of
getting the Peace Corps country offices to accept anything remotely new or
different. We swapped stories about our Peace
Corps experiences and she admitted that Burkina sounded worse than Zambia,
although they are much more similar than they are different (severely
impoverished, landlocked, in Africa, etc.).
I’ve made it the main goal of my service to implement the GRS programs
in the villages of my site and spread the program to other volunteers in my
region, running a series of camps that we can help each other plan and
implement. For more information on the
program they have developed for PCVs, check out the link below:
Coming
back from vacation, I honestly felt proud of how much time I had spent in
Burkina. Although from a work
perspective I haven’t accomplished much, I’ve also learned more about myself
and grown as a person. After my meeting
with Grassroots Soccer, I felt like I finally had a larger purpose to my
service. My vacation also reminded me
that while living in Burkina is extremely difficult, just being in the
developed world, even in a city as amazing as Cape Town, didn’t automatically make
me happy. In fact, seeing young people out at restaurants and bars having a
good time made me miss my good friends even more than I do in Burkina. It also made me appreciate the friendships
I’ve made with some of the other volunteers in Burkina. These friendships are
the only reason I’ve been able to keep an even keel in a country that gives you
reasons to be annoyed, frustrated, and depressed every single day.
Looking
forward to my next vacation to Ghana in November!
