So pictures are all in Bilanga, mostly of my family, house, courtyard.
The little boy looking at the camera is zidane, one of my favorites,
him and his sister Natalie, and the little baby on Sibiri’s back. In a
lot of ways Sibiri, the mom in my courtyard is like Aissa in my new
village, not the loud, take care of everything type, which after more
than a year here I don’t need, but the same sort of comfort.
Burkina continues to treat me well. I’ve setteled into a rythym in my
new village. Wake up, shower, drink hot chocolate (thanks grandpa) go
laugh with the family (in gumalchamae, the language they speak). Go to
the boutique, say hi to the neighbors on the way (in fulfulde the
language that a large percentage of my village also speaks) and then
talk to the boutique guy in moore, followed by class where I’m
teaching English in French. Ok, not so amazing as my dorm during
college as far as languages that are being spoken, but this is a
small, isolated, african village. I didn’t realize how isolated until
someone pointed that out at thanksgiving, that Krista, Brooks and I
are 76k from Fada, our nearest major city, and although there is
another volunteer 24k away it’s difficult to get over to visit her.
My largest frustration with the new village is my new work situation.
My students cheat and then don’t think that they deserve a zero. I
give multiple versions of the tests and then when they have the
correct answers for another version, so they are wrong on their test,
they get upset when I fail them. And then my colleagues are not
supportive of this. When I give the students zero for cheating, every
single time this has happened the students have gone and complained
and my colleagues have come and questioned me on this. They, for
whatever reasons, don’t understand that I’m a hundred percent certain
that the kids cheated and have no guilt giving them a zero.
The new physics teacher has only his high school diploma and doesn’t
believe that we’ve actually been to the moon. He also doesn’t believe
that there is a gravity that exists between all objects, small though
it may be. Fine, I can accept that most people don’t get this –but he
teaches physics! I just left even though technically we weren’t done.
My colleagues are very unproffesional and their familiarity with the
students makes my job very difficult and I’m not exactly teaching
anything interesting.
If you look in the new Bradt travel guide for Burkina Faso (you may
even be able to find a copy at Barnes and Nobel) Bilanga is mentioned
for having the worst educational department in the country. Great.
I saw Soro and Arouna today, colleagues from Kirsi and it was better
than Christmas. It was so good to see them and to hang out with them.
I told them about all of these problems, and they were beyond
understanding, they were incredibly wonderful.
But outside of work things are going well. I’m really enjoying the
family that I live with. They make dolo, which is a millet beer, and I
will often sit around and drink with them. There isn’t a very high
alcohol content so it’s a fun social activity. My little brothers and
sisters are super cute, and hang out with me every evening and usually
we’ll take left over bits of chalk and draw all over my patio. They
work on the alphabet and numbers. Natalie, my littlest sister is
usually really quiet and just watches as her older brother Zidane
rattles things off. But the other day I had another volunteer from
Djibo visiting and we were doing the alphabet. Their highest
accomplishment to date has been to recognize the letters for the first
letters of people’s names (how we’ve been doing it to avoid the
multiple language problem) but Natalie all of a sudden starts reciting
the alphabet and gets all the way up to H before she gets so
embarresed that she stops.
I had a mouse problem the other day, which was caused by the metal
grating falling off the opening for my shower water. So a momma mouse
had gotten in and had babies in one of my clothes baskets. Upon
discovering this I let out a loud scream and my courtyard populated by
dolo drinkers perked up. Immediatly one brother, Jaques, was
dispatched to the market to buy rat poison, Sibiri, my mom, hauls the
offending basket out and throws all of the babies against the ground,
the momma mouse having hopped out and still being in my house. Jean
goes around to the back of my house to replace the grating, and
Narcisses, yet another brother, cemets it back on. Jaques returns and
they put the poison in a calabash with some to and make a little
barracade for it in my bedroom so that Rou won’t accidentally eat it.
And then Sibiri gives me the closest thing I’ve gotten to a hug from a
Burkinabe to let me know that everything is ok. I love my family.
Krista has a mouse problem and her village could care less. Brooks
spent three weeks trying to find the poison for the two of them to
use. He has a bat infestation. I had one dead mouse removed from my
house the following day. problem is solved.
I’m also learning the guitar from my tailor. He taught anil, the
volunteer before me in Bilanga, and has now decided that I should
learn as well. He is looking for money for amplifiers etc. to get a
band going, so I had a business volunteer visit and we sat down for a
while and worked out a plan. I should clarify – - I’m learning African
style guitar, no idea about this whole chord business, but it’s got
rhythym. I showed off my mad guitar skills at the hostel the other
day, and after the other volunteers stopped laughing, well, they did
stop laughing. I have no rhythym so this may be a failed effort.
The gumalchamae are very different from the Mossi, my friend that just
visited decided that Bilanga was just there. Very much out in the
middle of no-where. I think the same could’ve been said for Kirsi,
just your average African village. Except that Bilanga has two
barrages going for it, so there’s water and carved out wooden canoes
floating around in the evenings if I wish to stand just outside my
courtyard and watch.
I’ve opened up my house at set hours in the evenings for the girls to
come and study. They used to come 50 at a time, but as there was no
room they’ve tapered off to about 20-30. We’ll see how many come back
the next trimester. I’m a little weary of having students come to my
house and if they come outside of programmed hours I’ll let them know
that that is not acceptable. Otherwise I can see a rash of students
coming to my house and whining.
You may have heard about Burkina on the BBC the other day – I now know
that none of you listen to, or follow that, or you might’ve sent a
concerned email asking about our little dispute between the police and
the military that left 6 dead. Yes, yes, a little bit more color to my
stay here in Africa, all is well now and peace has been restored to
the country.
I hope everyone has agreeable holiday plans. I’m heading up to Mali
shortly after Christmas and in Ouaga for Christmas. Hoping to come
back to Ouaga for new years (had wanted to continue on to timbuktu,
but they’re having some real security issues over there). And also
hoping that Tabaski will not mess up travel plans as everyone’s
holidays are falling around the same time this year. I went to church
a couple of weeks ago with one of my brothers. Amazing to sit in a
small room and listen to the singing. Difficult in that it was in
Gumalchamae and I understood very little of it. Will maybe go to the
moore speaking church soon and try and pick pieces of that out.
I have a mental countdown going of the months left – it’s almost over,
Mali, new years, a month in village, em comes to visit, another month
in village, my Close of Service conference and Spring break, another
month of teaching and then I’ll likely travel around for a couple of
weeks to a month before heading back in time for the fourth of July.
I’m getting so excited! I miss you all and I hope this holiday season
is treating you all well.
Best holiday wishes,
