The Spaces Between

On September 3, 2014, I ended my service as a Community Health Development Agent in Burkina Faso.  The past couple months have been tumultuous to say the least, and I decided it was time for me to come home.  Before fully explaining my reasons for leaving two months earlier than expected, let me backtrack to my return from vacation in mid-August. 

I returned to Ouagadougou from Benin the day before the Close of Service Conference for my training group (G27) began.  The conference was held to review the tedious process of completing our service, to prepare us for life after Peace Corps (aka the "real world"), and to offer us an opportunity to provide feedback to the office.  All in all, it was a really helpful three days, although it was extremely overwhelming to think about resumes and job interviews after spending so long living and working in a village, which is about the polar opposite of what most Americans consider "work." 

G27 at staging in Philadelphia October 2012 (top) and G27 at COS conference in Ouagadougou August 2014 (bottom)

After the conference, I traveled to Bobo to begin last minute preparations for the five-day Girls Soccer and Well-Being Camp.  I had worked extremely hard to procure grant funding for the project: a frustrating process that is made even more infuriating by the snail's pace internet of Burkina Faso.  In the end, though, the grant was approved and we received the money just in time.  The camp brought 54 young women together from PCV's villages in the region to participate in the Grassroot Soccer SKILLZ HIV/AIDS education program and develop leadership skills necessary to become agents of change in their communities.  As I've mentioned before, women are constantly marginalized in Burkinabe society.  Soccer is a symbol of male entitlement here, as it is a sport that women can clearly participate in but are never given the opportunity as youth.  Using soccer as a symbol of gender equality was our starting point, and we structured the lessons of the camp around that idea.  It goes without saying that we also included a lot of time on the field playing soccer!  My friend Hallie and a third-year volunteer, Elisabeth, did an amazing job directing the camp, which featured lessons on family planning from Marie Stopes International, an introductory first aid class from Red Cross Burkina Faso, and even a self defense class!

Condom water balloon toss

Self defense class

Closing ceremony celebration with live music!

This camp was the culmination of my work with Grassroot Soccer during my service, and I was extremely proud that we were able to implement their 10 session HIV/AIDS education program.  The camp also allowed my best friend in village, Ibrahim, to show off his amazing facilitation skills.  Due to the project he was involved with in Banfora for the entirety of my service, I rarely got to work on projects with him.  He always wanted more resources for village education events that neither myself or anyone else in the village could provide.  This camp, however, gave him the resources he felt he needed to do his work, and he did an amazing job.  His background in theater was especially useful when we asked the girls to come up with skits to demonstrate what they had learned.

Camp photo (Ibrahim in front of the sign)

On the last day of the camp, I got a phone call from the head nurse of Peace Corps.  She informed me that my request to COS (Completion of Service) early had been denied, as the office was no longer accepting medical reasons as an excuse to leave 90 days early as opposed to the normal 30 days. 

What medical reasons, you ask?  For those of you who don't know, I've struggled with back problems since playing water polo in high school.  While my back bothered me on and off throughout college, I was able to manage it with exercise.  The same was true for most of my Peace Corps service, but in April, the accumulated stress of living in Burkina Faso caught up with me.  Between sleeping on bad mattresses or the floor, using horrible, jarring transport, playing soccer in bad shoes, biking with heavy backpacks, not having access to ice.......the list could go on for a while  But I had committed to serve for two years and wanted to see the soccer camp through to completion.

On that Friday, I was given a choice to either deal with my back issues until November 14 and officially complete my service, or medically separate from Peace Corps, see an orthopedic doctor, and get some good ol' physical therapy.  I chose the latter, primarily because I had determined my back problems would never be resolved in Burkina after developing my own stretching and physical therapy routine which I did twice a day for 3 months.  As Burkinabe like to say "Sante avant tout" (Health before everything).  At the end of the day, there's no practical difference between what I wanted and what I ended up getting, except for the fact that I left Burkina two weeks earlier than I had planned and it says I "ended" instead of "completed" my service on my DOS (Description of Service).  

It's hard to believe that I began this journey over 23 months ago.  It's safe to say that it was one of the most difficult and transformative experiences of my life.  There's a Peace Corps advertisement that claims "Leaving is the hardest part," which I always thought was a cruel joke, similar to the dark humor of the sign in the transit house in Ouaga that says "Just Another Day in Paradise."  But saying goodbye to the people I truly cared about in village was much more difficult than I expected.  I didn't entirely realize who had made a positive impact on my experience until I looked them in the eyes and told them I was leaving.

Wish Burkinabe smiled in pictures so you could see Lucien's!

There was the yogurt man in the market village, Lucien, who always had cold, sweet yogurt when I arrived, drenched with sweat from the bike ride.  He had one of those big, warm smiles that immediately puts you at ease.  He would always offer to charge my electronics, as he knew that I didn't have electricity in my village.  He always invited me to watch soccer: an invitation that I didn't get to accept as often as I liked because it was dangerous/impossible to bike back to my village at night.  He was a truly kind man and never asked for anything from me, content to just be my friend.  He was blown away when I offered to give him a flash drive of American music the last time we saw each other.  Unfortunately, he didn't have email so I have no way to stay in contact with him.  I imagine he's listening to some of that music on his stereo system, probably skipping 90% of the tracks.

There was Madame Zerbo, the owner of the store where I purchased all of the essentials to cook food for myself.  She was the nicest lady, and one of the only people I met who was actually good at teaching Djula, the regional language.  Even though I never got very good at it, she still lit up every time I asked for something in Djula instead of French.

And of course, saying goodbye to Ibrahim was not easy.  He was really the only person in village I felt close with.  He was extremely intelligent and had developed an ability to empathize, a rare and valuable quality among Burkinabe.  While he was working in Banfora for most of my service, he was an amazing counterpart when I did do projects with him.  It was pretty heartbreaking when he asked when I would be coming back.  The truth is I won't be back to Burkina Faso for a while.  Fortunately, he has an email address and access to internet cafes in Banfora, so we should be able to stay in contact

During my last week in Ouaga, I also had to say goodbye to some of the best friends I've ever had.  These people (not all pictured) are the main reason I was able to serve in the Peace Corps for as long as I did.  We shared our successes and (mostly) our frustrations, somehow comforted by the fact that we were all struggling through similar circumstances.

How do I feel about the end of my service?  A couple months ago, I read an article in the New Yorker during which Sasha Frere-Jones interviews Ag Leche, the bassist of the West African Tuareg band Tinariwen (I highly recommend their album Emmaar).  The interviewer tried to get Ag Leche to explain the underlying emotion of Tinariwen's music, and ran into some linguistic complications, but eventually arrived at a beautiful conclusion.

"The term he used to describe Tinariwen's music was 'assouf' which our translator rendered as 'nostalgia.'  Something seemed off with this word, and after several minutes of wrangling we arrived at the Portuguese 'saudade' and he lit up.  He described meeting a Portuguese musician and having roughly the same conversation.  He described the feeling as being 'between happiness and sadness,' and 'it is the sound of having endured something acutely unpleasant, leaving the person to bask in the complex joy of having survived, even though further hardships lie ahead.'"

While I wouldn't necessarily describe Peace Corps service as "acutely unpleasant," the type of complex feeling Ag Leche described was very familiar to me.  His insight inspired me to keep track of the emotional spaces and feelings that characterized my time in Burkina.  After returning, I've narrowed the list down and tried to cut out the cheesy metaphors, even though at times I was literally having to navigate "the space between two banks of a stream," or deal with the consequences of "the space between what you remember about last night and what you don't."  Anywho, here's what I came up with: 




Spaces Between

Somewhere between happiness                 and                         sadness

Somewhere between living in the moment       

                        and                             wishing you were somewhere else

The space between who you are                  and                                who you want to be

The space between where you are now                 and                           your destination

The space between you                           and                               the people you love

The space between the beginning of a journey                      and                         the end.


The feeling of being entirely alone even though you are surrounded by people

                         The feeling of understanding nothing even though you are expected to know

          The feeling of utter frustration with something you cannot change

The feeling of having endured something extremely challenging, 

                               leaving you to bask in the complex joy of having survived, 

                                                                                 even though further hardships lie ahead

Home, Sweet Home

Ok, I'm done waxing poetic.  From the bottom of my heart, thank you for keeping up with during my Peace Corps service.  I hope these posts made you laugh a little, think a little, and understand a little bit about another part of the world.   

Mormons and Strawberries

After the hike to the waterfall on the Togo/Ghana border, we enjoyed a last meal of chicken and fried rice in Ghana, knowing we may never consume such delicacies again. The same Togolaise guide who hiked with us to Upper Wli Falls walked us to the border, which was 200 meters out of town. On the Ghana side, three uniformed officials studied our passports for 15 minutes, searched our bags, and made us fill out some paperwork. On the Togo side, we had to wake the border official up from a nap and he dutifully copied our information into a giant ledger of border crossings, while waving any car that passed through the checkpoint without a second thought. Welcome back to the hot mess of Francophone West Africa.

We hopped into a shared taxi, the most common form of transport between cities in Togo, and started a 2 hour journey on a crazy, crappy mountain road. It's standard practice to cram 7 people into a car meant for 5, so someone has the unfortunate position of sitting between the driver and the passenger, contorting their body to avoid the gear shifts of the driver. Every pothole jarred the bones in our body and we were left wondering how the car was still in one piece after making that trip multiple times each day. Once we made it to a bigger city, we took another shared taxi to Kpalime, Togo, this time on a beautiful paved road. Alright, it was just black with a white stripe down the center, but it was nice and smooth.

In the process of looking for our hotel in Kpalime, we saw a foreigner biking with a helmet, the unmistakable sign of a Peace Corps Volunteer. We flagged her down and talked, finding out that hidden in this beautiful city was the training site for Peace Corps Togo. Over 30 people were still in training, so we made plans to meet up later that night. We had also planned to meet up with Burkina volunteers in Togo, so we had plenty of friends for the entirety of our three night stay in Kpalime.

During that stay, we hung out at another waterfall, hiked up the tallest mountain in Ghana/Togo (more of a tall hill), sampled coffee grown in the region, and found a restaurant owned by a Belgian couple that served authentic trappist ales! I was beside myself with happiness.

More waterfalls!

Beligan beer in West Africa.  A dream come true.

 After a couple days, we said a reluctant goodbye to Kpalime and headed to Lome, the capital of Togo. From there, we took a taxi to the Togo/Benin border, which only took 45 min because Togo is such a narrow country. Once crossing over into Benin, we headed to Grand Popo, a beach resort town. After our brief stint inland, it was nice to be back at the beach. We spent the rest of the day alternating between searching out seafood and relaxing.

The next day, we headed further down the coast to Ouidah. We ended up being dropped off really far outside of town, so we had to find a way to get ourselves and all of our baggage to a hotel that was apparently not very well known. After multiple people tried to rip us off, we just started walking in the direction we thought we were supposed to go. Unfortunately, we chose a terrible road that quickly turned into a series of puddles of mud. After about 30 min of slugging through ankle deep slop, a car stopped and a man asked in English if we needed help. He was traveling further past Ouidah, but offered to take us into town and help us find our hotel. Being a group of hardened, proud, Burkina Peace Corps Volunteers, our first instinct was to refuse. However, none of us had any idea where we were, we were tired, covered in mud, and pissed off, so we decided to accept the offer of help.

This angel of a man had his driver make room for the five of us and after some circular searching, found our hotel.  During the ride, we were casually tipped off that our savior was Mormon, as he had graduated from BYU and ran a business training program on behalf of the "LDS" church. Sometime earlier in our travels, a guy we met had said that Mormons were by far the nicest people he'd ever met while traveling. I wasn't sold on his assertion until the Mormons rescued me from a hot, muddy, hellish road that was 5 km from where I needed to go. Never again will I make jokes at the expense of the Church of Latter Day Saints. But I may still laugh at them.

The next day, we checked out a museum that documented the history of the slave trade in Benin and the exportation of Beninois culture to the Americas. Then we walked down the 6 km “Route d'Esclaves” that captured men and women marched down before being loaded onto ships and transported as slaves to the New World. The path ended at the “Point of No Return Monument,” which memorialized the hundreds of thousands of slaves that were exported from the shores of West Africa.

Point of No Return - Ouidah, Benin

 Ouidah is also supposedly the “capital” of Beninois voodoo culture, but clearly not the most authentic representation of it. While voodoo is depicted as a dark, doll worshiping magic in the United States, it's actually pretty similar to other polytheistic religions. Voodoo practitioners believe that there is a balance between light (good) and dark (bad) in the world. They believe in a “mother” of the earth and many other gods that control life as we know it. Animal sacrifices are a manner of showing respect to the gods and are extremely important to the practice of the religion.  Considering the frequency that animals are sacrificed in my village in Burkina, I wouldn't say it's a practice unique to voodoo.

Where most people start getting creeped out is the fetish practices of the voodoo religion. Various portions of dead animals are used to create objects that are “imbued” with certain spiritual powers by a priest. Priests can also be possessed by certain gods and deliver messages from the spiritual world. Although voodoo dolls are probably the best known symbol of the religion in the states, they are almost never used. All in all, it was extremely difficult to discern what parts of the voodoo religion and history were authentic and what parts were exaggerated for the sake of tourism, but the “fetish” section of the Cotonou market felt pretty damn real.

Voodoo fetishes in the Cotonou market

After Ouidah, we headed to Cotonou, the economic capital of Benin. It was a huge city, but we got tipped off to stay in a district of the city called “Haie Vive.” This little slice of paradise had pubs, clubs, and everything in between. A highlight of the stay was finding a grocery store that sold wine that I had actually tried during my Cape Town trip a year ago! It was a crazy coincidence We met up with more volunteers and had a couple of really fun nights.

Relaxing with South African wine in the Haie Vive District of Coutounou, Benin

 We were also able to check out a village that is built entirely on stilts located on a lake outside of Cotonou. It was actually more of a city, complete with a mosque and a church (both on stilts). People originally built the village to escape from the slave trade. The ethnic group in Benin that captured most of the slaves was forbidden from entering water, so they would never attack a village on a lake. When we asked our guide why people still live there when it seems harder than living on land, we got a very typical West African answer: “Because they're used to it.”

Stilt city on a lake outside of Cotonou, Benin

Everything goes in the lake......

 From Cotonou, we headed 12 hours north to the city of Natitingou, which came highly recommended by Benin volunteers. We spent a couple days relaxing and hiking around the area, which was very picturesque. Our last night of vacation, we got drinks and food at a bar on a hill that overlooks the city while the sun set. It was a beautiful end to an amazing trip.

View of Natitingou

Getting out of Burkina and seeing the rest of West Africa was one of the best decisions I've made during my Peace Corps service. It put my Burkina experience in perspective and confirmed my suspicions that the Faso is an extremely difficult place to live. From socializing with other volunteers, however, I realized that because the Peace Corps experience is universally challenging in West Africa, it tends to breed a negative perspective on your country of service and a idealization of life in surrounding countries. Nearly every volunteer I talked to, from the ones chilling on the beach in Cape Coast to the ones watching the sun set over the mountains in Natitingou, complained bitterly about their country of service. Not only that, volunteers in every country had heard ridiculous rumors about life in Burkina Faso. My personal favorite was the “strawberry myth,” which was recounted to us by volunteers in all three of the countries that we visited.

The myth: Burkina Faso has strawberries year-round. As soon as you cross the border, you start to see strawberry fields as far as the eye can see.  

Depending on who we heard the myth from, the explanation for this phenomenon was:

a) Burkina has cold, seasonal winds that produce frost in the mornings, which is necessary for strawberries to grow

b) The soil in Burkina is more fertile than surrounding countries

c) Burkinabe farmers are more resourceful than farmers in surrounding countries

d) NONE OF THE ABOVE 

That's right! The answer is d) NONE OF THE ABOVE!  The idea that frost exists anywhere in Burkina is laughable. The seasonal winds are hot and dry. Not to mention strawberries DO NOT need frost to grow. With less rainfall that Ghana, Togo, and Benin, Burkina's soil is dry, dusty, and not fertile for most of the year. Clearly there is one farmer growing strawberries who is more resourceful than the rest of farmers in the country, but to make the generalization that all of the farmers are that resourceful is ridiculous.

The truth:  Burkina Faso has strawberries for 1.5 months out of the year. They are only available in the capital, Ouagadougou, and I have no idea where they come from. I'll take 12 months of having the option of going to the beach over 1.5 months of strawberries any day.

In conclusion, it's easy to get narrow minded and negative when you're stuck in a difficult situation for a long period of time. Just the fact that I was experiencing new things during my vacation did wonders for my emotional health. And honestly, when I returned to Burkina, I tried a little harder to keep an open mind and appreciate the positive experiences I do have here. Because those are the experiences that will make it worth spending the last two years here.

West Africa for Beginners

Like all of my vacations, my most recent trip was a much needed break from the challenges of living and working in Burkina Faso. Up to this point, I hadn't explored the rest of West Africa, partially due to the assumption that it was better than Burkina and I didn't really want to know how much better. Before the end of my service, however, I had promised myself that I would expose myself to whatever lay in the lands bordering Burkina that are still open to Peace Corps travel. Peace Corps ruled out Mali, Cote d'Ivoire, and Niger, leaving Ghana, Togo, and Benin. Luckily, a friend in my training group, Jonathan Joa, had been planning to do a similar trip around the same time, so we decided to travel together.

We began our trip with a 30 hour bus journey to Busua Beach, Ghana. Busua is a little slice of paradise in a decidedly unparadisal region of the world. I knew I had to get to Busua because it's home to one of the only surf shops in West Africa. Joa hadn't surfed before, but the legends of beautiful beaches and amazing freshly caught seafood were enough to sway him. Once arriving in Busua, we got a room at the Alaska Beach Resort, a set of huts right on the beach apparently owned by some guy from Alaska. He's currently trying to sell the place for $250,000 so if you're looking for some beachfront property in Ghana, get in touch with him. We got beers and dinner on the roof of this hotel near ours and it was pretty phenomenal. It was only 4 stories up but that was as far up on a building both of us had been since our respective trips stateside.

Ghana Flag in Busua

The next morning was cloudy and raining on and off, but 70 degree weather was a welcome respite from the stifling heat of Burkina. The surf looked pretty bad so I held off on renting a board. Around 10am, though, it seemed to be getting better so I rented a board for the day and got a couple hours of fun waves. The lineup was completely empty, which I always find creepy but awesome.

Chilling in a hammock in Busua

Around noon I started getting hungry on account of the fact that I only had and a chocolate pancake for breakfast. Yes, Ghanians have learned to make pancakes, even chocolate ones. This is entirely for tourists, but still, point Ghana. We went to this cheap street restaurant for lunch and the lobster with fried rice that I ordered was unreal. The local fishermen catch lobster and shrimp daily off the coast and while they aren't as big as Maine lobsters, they're damn good.

The waves were even better when I got back from lunch, so I took out a different board for a couple hours. I surfed until I couldn't paddle anymore, then finally called it a day. In the evening, we ordered a kilogram of lobsters for dinner from a local fisherman. It cost a whopping $3. Somewhere between the beachside hammocks, the surfing, the pancakes, and the lobster, I started to get this feeling I'd found a part of west Africa that I loved. I couldn't stop smiling all day and night.

2 kg of freshly caught lobster

The next day involved similar activities, namely surfing, eating fresh seafood, and laying in beachside hammocks. We ran into some German volunteers who were staying at the same hotel and some American study abroad students who were staying at the much nicer beach resort in town. We all met up at a bonfire that night that the local surf shop organized. It was interesting to hear their perspectives on living and working in West Africa. The Germans had spent about 3 months volunteering and loved it, expressing jealousy that I was here for 2 years. Most of the Americans were already sick of West Africa after one month, and I recommended that they never do Peace Corps.

The next day, we reluctantly gathered our things and said good bye to paradise, lured onward to Cape Coast by the promise of more beaches and amazing food. We were actually able to find a Peace Corps volunteer in the region on Facebook and he informed us that there was a meeting in Cape Coast while we were there! We got to meet 10 volunteers from Ghana and hang out with them all night. Our hotel was right on the beach, again, and threw awesome weekend parties, drawing a ton of foreign volunteers and expats. It was hard not to tell the Ghana volunteers how lucky they are! So we told them. Repeatedly.

View from our hotel in Cape Coast

Fort in Cape Coast

 During the next couple days, we relaxed, ate, did a rainforest canopy walk, and toured the fort in Cape Coast, learning about the impact of the slave trade on the region. We discovered that street vendors on every corner of the city sell fried chicken and fried rice, a fantastic $2 dish that tasted of glorious cheap Chinese food. We pondered the absence of fried rice in Burkina, even though all of the ingredients are available and they fry just about everything else, eventually concluding that  it was either tourism or dumb luck.

View from the governor's room in the Cape Coast Fort

Rainforest Canopy Wall

Then we moved on to the capital of Ghana, Accra. The first night we decided to check out a sports bar nearby. We walked into what would be considered an upscale sports bar even in the states! They were beaming in the LA Galaxy game on huge screens. Turns out American soccer is still pretty ugly even on big beautiful TV screens. The bar also had an extremely impressive mixed drink list. I got a whiskey sour that was on par with some of the best I've had in the states, complete with an egg white. Sipping on that drink and playing pool, it was hard for me to remember that I was still in West Africa.

Double Cheeseburger nomm

Upon returning to our hostel, we found that we had acquired some roommates, one of which proceeded to snore like a bear for the entire night. Luckily my experience sleeping through funerals in my village served me well and I got a decent amount of sleep. The next morning we walked to the upscale district of Accra and found the lengendary KFC of Accra, a place we had thought only existed in Peace Corps Burkina folklore. Unfortunately, they didn't serve mashed potatoes and gravy, so we moved on to a fast food joint named Frankie's. We proceeded to consume way too much American style fast food. I don't think my body was entirely prepared for the giant double cheeseburger that I ordered.

The next day, we headed north in Ghana to the Volta region, chasing a waterfall right on the border with Togo. After a day of rough travel that included crossing the Volta River on a ferry, we found a guesthouse in the village of Wli. After discovering that the family who owned the place was Togolese, we began our transition back to speaking French in West Africa. One of the craziest things about Ghana was the prevalence of English. In Burkina, we often use English as a “secret code” to discuss things in public, comforted by the knowledge that less than 0.1% of the population speaks the language proficiently. In Ghana, this was definitely not the case. You could approach almost anyone on the street and ask them directions in English. You could order food and drinks in English. I even had a conversation with a Ghanian whose favorite music artist was Nas, and we discussed the rivalry between Nas and Jay Z, as well as the present day hip hop scene in Los Angeles. There are still a ton of local languages in Ghana, and Ghanians speak those languages to each other way more than English, but still, point Ghana.

Glorious Ghana street food

The next morning, we woke up early to hike to Upper Wli Falls. It was supposedly a 4 hour hike, but since we were planning to cross over into Togo the same day, we wanted to hurry. After paying the official fees to access the waterfalls, some local men tried to charge us a ridiculous amount to guide us there. They refused to negotiate, and the leader of them ended up getting an older Togolese man from our hotel to explain to us that the price was non-negotiable. What he didn't realize is that we had made friends with the man the evening previously and he was extremely excited that we were visiting his country. Without demanding any money, he motioned for us to follow and started a rapid pace towards the mountains.

Sporting a pair of cheap African flip flops, the man led us up a steep, slippery, uphill climb, giving us his family history on the way. He was from a village 200 meters from the Ghana border, and his father had made a living smuggling cocoa fruit from Togo to Ghana using trails very similar to this one. Due to the fact that Ghana has the industrial capacity to process cocoa, farmers can get a higher price for the fruit in Ghana than in Togo. He had no official visa to live in Ghana, but the border police allowed him to move freely across the border once he agreed to give up smuggling.

Needless to say, this man was an amazing hiker and set a breakneck pace to the upper falls. After two hot, sweaty, and exhausting hours, we arrived at the breathtaking waterfall. At 40 meters high, the waterfall was extremely powerful. All three of us jumped into the waterfall pool and got as close as we dared to the impact zone. The force of impact of water on water from 40 meters up felt like bricks on cement. After hanging out for a while, we hiked back down to the lower falls, then headed back to the hotel to eat and pack for Togo.

Upper Wli Falls

Under the waterfall!

The Lonely Planet guidebook called Ghana “West Africa for Beginners,” and after this trip, I couldn't agree more. While I'm sure rural village life is very similar across the board in West Africa, Ghana is much more accessible to Americans and Germans than other countries in the region. It seemed like the country was overrun with American missionaries, short-term German volunteers, short-term American volunteers, and study abroad students. As far as traveling was concerned, this resulted in a much more developed tourist industry (complete with surfing) and made it extremely easy to meet people. However, I could also see how it would be difficult to do meaningful development work with so many short-term visitors and a significant portion of the economy dedicated to tourism. But on my personal scoreboard, Ghana kills Burkina by at least 20 points. Stories from Togo and Benin to follow.

The World Cup and Unsportsmanlike Conduct

I love sports. I love playing them, watching them, and following them. Of the many hardships of life in Burkina, I'd rank my inability to watch and follow sports in the top 10, with lack of running water and electricity ranking above and lack of peanut butter ranking below. While the Lakers have had a couple abysmal seasons while I've been gone, UCLA football has grown from a struggling program to a regional powerhouse and the LA Kings recently completed an unbelievable playoff run to win the Stanley Cup. Nothing quite makes me miss home like pictures of my brother and his wife at a Kings game, one of my best friends with the Stanley Cup, or my UCLA friends at a football game.

While I suffer from an obsession with all sports, soccer used to be close to baseball in the “I'd rather just see highlights if I can't go to a game” section of the list. However, living in Africa has forced me to come to terms with the fact that soccer is the world's most popular sport. It is the only sport that can be consistently followed on TV here (if you have electricity and a satellite dish) and it's the only sport that people care about. Portraits of famous soccer players such as Ronaldo and Drogba are painted on bars and bush taxis throughout Burkina. Cheap soccer jerseys make up a significant percentage of Burkinabe menswear and can be purchased at markets in even the most isolated villages. When the national team plays, the entire country shuts down and tunes in.

Soccer's popularity in the developing world makes a lot of sense. It requires a minimal amount of equipment (a ball of some sort and a pair of feet), the rules are fairly simple (don't touch the ball with your hands), and it can be played anywhere there is a field. A ball can be as simple as a wad of plastic bags held together by twine. A goal can be as simple as a couple of sticks stuck in the ground. A field can be as simple as a broad expanse of dirt. And in a village with 100's of kids, there are always enough players.

Being deprived of playing and watching other sports has made me a soccer fan, at least for now. Thus, I was extremely excited for the World Cup to start. Finally I would have consistent competitive sports to stimulate my mind. My daily schedule became highly influenced by the times of the soccer games, most of which were in the afternoon and night. I was able to watch the first couple days of matches in Ouaga, most notably Brazil's win over Croatia and the Netherlands' destruction of Spain. My daily demeanor improved noticeably and I became highly motivated to finish my work before the matches. I couldn't help but smile every time I sat down, drank a beer, and watched a game. The World Cup was a welcome reminder of how important sports are to my emotional happiness.

Competitive sports tend to bring out the best and worst in people, and spectators are no exception to the rule. While I suspected that Burkinabe would not be the best crowd to watch competitive sports with, I had no idea what I was in for. I first realized how bad things could get during the USA vs. Ghana game. At the time, I was working at a girls camp in a fellow volunteer's village with 3-4 other friends. We were extremely excited to be able to watch the match with other Americans, especially because half of us weren't going to be able to watch the second USA match. So we giddily headed down to the bar early to get front row seats and drink some sports spectating beverages (beer).

Girls Camp in Moussoudougou

Taught kids tug of war.  Challenged kids to tug of war.  Lost.

Teaching kids soccer skillz

To provide some context, Burkina Faso didn't qualify for the World Cup after they split a series of international friendly matches with Algeria and came up on the wrong end of a goal differential. However, Africans like to think of themselves as all on the same “team,” at least when they aren't playing each other. A win by one African country is a win for the entire continent. Thus, even though Burkinabe were cursing Ghana throughout the Africa Cup of Nations last year, they suddenly became diehard Ghana fans when the World Cup rolled around. And diehard Cote d'Ivoire fans. And diehard Cameroon fans. You get the picture.

Back at the USA vs. Ghana game, the Burkinabe at the bar seemed to find our rendition of the Star Spangled Banner amusing, but we had made the fatal mistake of exposing how much we actually cared about the game. Tension was high as the game started, and within 3 minutes the US miraculously scored a goal, resulting in many high fives, cheers, and applause from the Americans in attendance, but cold hard looks from most Burkinabe. As the game progressed, we ignored snide remarks of “it's right” and “it's good” every time the US messed up (which was a lot), content to be ahead on the scoreboard. That all changed once Ghana scored their first goal. The Burkinabe erupted in wild yells, cheers, and applause. The Burkinabe directly behind Hallie and I leaned forward and began yelling in our ears niceties such as “IT'S GOOD!” “IT'S RIGHT!” and “THIS IS AFRICA!” The Burkinabe in front of us turned around and began yelling similar things in our faces.

Hallie and I cheering on the US.  Before Burkinabe started yelling in our faces.

Cheering for a goal is one thing, but yelling in someone's face crosses a line of sports fan etiquette, and general sportsmanship, that Burkinabe are apparently unaware of. It seemed like a gift from a higher power when the US scored again later in the game. We cheered and high fived once again, much to the dismay of the 30 Burkinabe present. Their disparaging comments to the US grew more common, and began to stray from the subject of soccer to Americans in general. Any foul against Ghana “wasn't fair” and any foul against the US “was right.” The game finally ended. We all breathed a sigh of relief because we knew if Ghana had scored again we all would have chosen a loud mouthed Burkinabe to punch in the face.

Once I returned to village, I was only able to watch matches if I biked 5km to the adjacent village with electricity. When I watched games in the adjacent village, however, I had to be back before dark, as the bike across the ravine between villages is dangerous at night. Fortunately, I'm good friends with the man who runs the yogurt shop in the adjacent village and he owns a TV with a satellite. He also happens to be a huge soccer fan, so I knew that he'd be watching every single game. Those matches were some of the most enjoyable of the entire tournament. The yogurt man is an incredibly nice guy. We'd often have friendly arguments the merits of one team against another, just like I like to do with my friends in the states. The crowd watching the games was also very calm, and often included kids I play soccer with in my village. It was cool to see that the kids cared enough to make the trek over to this village.

One of my favorite memories of this period was the Netherlands vs. Mexico match. In discussions before the match, the yogurt man and I had agreed that Netherlands was the favorite. During the first half, however, Mexico scored first. There was a larger crowd than usual watching the game, and they quickly became Mexico fans as the momentum shifted. One of the men got cocky and jokingly offered the yogurt man a wager on the match. The yogurt man responded that he'd make a 500 CFA bet with anyone who thought Mexico was going to win. After his friend talked some reason into him, he lowered the wager to 200 CFA, which five of the “Mexico fans” were all to happy to agree to. Later in the game, the Netherlands equalized. On a questionable penalty call, the Netherlands scored again and ended up winning the game. The yogurt man was overjoyed, gave me multiple high fives, and collected his money from the complaining men. After things died down, the yogurt man shook my hand and said “Thank you,” to which I replied “I wouldn't have made that bet.” We had a good laugh.

Watching the match on the yogurt man's 12"

A week later, I was working another camp with volunteers in Niangoloko (60km south of Banfora) and was once again able to watch a USA match with other Americans. After somehow managing to advance out of the “group of death,” we were playing Belgium in the Round of 16. We found a bar that had a small TV, cold beer, and outdoor seating: the perfect combination. As there was no one else at the bar besides us, we quickly became comfortable, happily cheered on the USA, and worked to create a match-related drinking game to keep things interesting. 30 minutes into the game, our America fan utopia was disrupted by a group of Burkinabe men who rode past on motorcycles, circled back to see what was going on, and decided to sit behind us and watch the game.

I tried to keep an open mind, reasoning that because it wasn't an African team playing against the US, Burkinabe would have no reason to be disrespectful. Once again, however, we made the fatal mistake of showing national pride and open support for the USA. The Burkinabe capitalized on our mistake and immediately became rowdy, fanatical supporters of Belgium. The disparaging comments came in rapid fire, and after several attempts to get them to stop, we were seething. At one point, we all stood up and blocked the TV, if for no other reason than to get the Burkinabe to complain about something else and stop talking shit. I found it difficult to stand in solidarity, however, as I was resigned to the depressing conclusion that they just wanted to piss us off and we were escalating things. The game went into extra time, Belgium scored, and the Burkinabe went crazy, yelling “IT'S FINISHED!” and “IT'S RIGHT!”

America didn't win the match and that was disappointing. But I was more depressed that Burkinabe had tried so hard to bring us down when all we wanted to do was watch a soccer game and cheer for our country. It was a rare opportunity for us to escape the isolation of Peace Corps service and feel a connection with Americans at home. Those Burkinabe brought us back to reality, communicating through their actions and words that we were not home. We were foreigners: a source of entertainment. When we care passionately about something, it's funny. When we get mad, it's a joke. There was not a shred of empathy or thought paid to how they would react if we acted the same way when Burkina Faso played a match against a team we cared nothing about.

Happily cheering on the US. Before the Burkinabe men showed up. 

A week and a half later, I was back in village and looking forward to watching the semifinal matches. On this particular night, Brazil was to play Germany in what will be remembered as the most embarrassing semifinal match in World Cup history. I got to the village bar early to get a good seat. As it was already nighttime, I couldn't recognize all of the people who showed up to watch the game, but I sat with a couple of my friends from village soccer, so I was content. The bar filled about with around 40 men. Many were arguing about which team was going to win, who was going to score the first goal, and whether or not Neymar was essential to the Brazilian team.

As the match started, the criticism of various players, teams, and referees commenced. Most Burkinabe men consider themselves experts in soccer coaching and theory, and do their best to display this knowledge during the game. For example, the director of the primary school advanced the argument that Germany was fast by repeating it every time they had the ball. After about 20 min, Germany scored their first goal, and the Burkinabe erupted in cheers. While there were still a few Brazil fans who didn't convert to Germany fans on the spot, by the time Germany scored their next goal 2 minutes later, the entire bar had been rooting for Germany all along.

Things started to get ridiculous when Germany scored yet again. Burkinabe jumped up and started dancing. The school director continued to advance his argument that Germany was fast by yelling it directly into my ear. At this point, it was extremely obvious that the match was going to be a blowout, and that the Burkinabe were going to enjoy every second of it. The sports channel began to show footage of distraught Brazil fans, some of them crying. The Burkinabe pointed and laughed at the fans, going crazy with amusement when they showed a female fan crying. The channel showed footage of Brazil's bench, most of the players with their heads hung low. Burkinabe pointed and laughed at their disappointment and humiliation. At halftime the score was 4-0. I had to get out of that mob. I wasn't a Brazil fan, but I couldn't sit through another 45 minutes of people laughing at the disappointment, and humiliation of others.

My experiences with Burkinabe during the World Cup reminded me of the observations I've made while playing and working with soccer in village. As much as soccer has the power to bring people together, imparting the value of teamwork and accomplishment, it often exposes the darker aspects of human nature in the context of village life. Because soccer balls are such a scarce commodity in village, the competition to play is fierce. Groups that are disadvantaged in Burkina society at large, such as women and young children, consistently get excluded from soccer. Age and size make all the difference in the competition to play. Older kids take balls away from younger kids, tell them that they're terrible, and sometimes even hit them until they flee. In the de facto child anarchy of Burkinabe village life, there is often no adult supervision and even if there is, a mentality of “let kids be kids” prevails. Kids aren't taught to share. They aren't taught to empathize or to apologize. The loudest, strongest kid gets his way, unless someone older intervenes. As the kids grow older, they are expected to take on more work and responsibility, eventually leaving soccer to younger ones. They retain the value of competition, but they often fail to adopt the values that make organized sports special, such as teamwork and sportsmanship.

During the World Cup, I was having bad experiences with a segment of the Burkinabe male population that can only be described as “bullies.” These were the strong kids that took the soccer ball from younger, weaker kids. These were the kids that laughed at others when they messed up. These were the kids that yelled “GOAL” until everyone gave up trying to argue that it wasn't. And depressingly enough, there are a lot of these types of kids in my village.  These are the kids that grow up to chastise and belittle women, reinforcing gender inequality in a society that desperately needs to modernize.  These are the kids that grow up and beat their kids, justifying physical punishment on the basis of what was done to them.

I've come to the realization that empathy is a skill that is taught, not something inherent to human nature. Throughout my upbringing, I was consistently taught to make an effort to understand the opinions and feelings of others. Burkinabe simply aren't encouraged to do the same, creating an environment that encourages bullying. If no higher authority is going to intervene and tell you to ask nicely or think about how your actions make others feel, most kids will just take what they want when they can. As hard as it is to accept that people can lack the ability to empathize, it explains a lot of the frustrating experiences I've had with Burkinabe.

The enormous influence of upbringing on one's personality and values has only become more apparent to me during my experience in Burkina. When another person has no idea where you come from, has never met your family, or haven't talked to you about your past, they really don't know you. I haven't been to the village that every Burkinabe comes from and met their family, although I am familiar with the general context of the upbringing of most Burkinabe. But I don't make predetermined judgments of Burkinabe based on it. That is why I find it incredibly frustrating to be judged by people who haven't the slightest idea where I come from or even an inkling of the general context of my upbringing.

In short, the world would be a better place without bullies. I'm glad I got to experience the World Cup in a country that actually cares about soccer. I love my family. I love my friends. I love where I come from. I love sports. And I'm still on the fence about soccer.