I have now been in Burkina Faso exactly three months. It is hard to express what has taken place in that span of time. Since arriving in the heat and dust and chaotic colorful beauty that is Burkina, time seems to sprints then crawls. In three months I have seen both the village life and the city life of Burkina, explored several volunteers sites and joined in the daily life of two Burkinabe families. I have been speaking three languages, planted and germinated 70 or so trees cultivated crops I was previously unfamiliar with, hoed fields alongside my host family and gained 12 new best friends of fellow agriculture volunteers. I have watched the landscape change, trees blossom, millet and sorgum grow to far above my head. Mango season has passed (sadly) and after it came summer squash and funny little local green eggplants, then cucumbers appeared in the market, and tomatoes were like a treasure- anyone who found them was obligated to tell the others where to find the "tomato lady" amongst the maze of market stalls, past the bar of local millet beer, on the other side of the men selling chinese electronics, beside a woman selling piles of onions and peanuts). Now as the rains have increased to once a week or so, you can even find watermelons sold on the sides of the dusty highway out of Ouaga and not far from my current family's home in Karpala, a district of Ouaga, I can buy green apples from Ghana and little yellow melons which tastes like when a honeydew met a cucumber.
In many ways my life here has been simplified; I focus on growing a little nursery of trees (papaya, baobab, wild grape), planning what I will eat for lunch and how to create a meal from just onions and tomato paste with some sort of carb, or peanut butter with bread and sliced mangoes, practicing my French with my host father, attempting Moore with my host mother- which usually would mean pointing to dinner being made over the fire and repeating words for millet and various wild leaves- and each night hoping I have used the correct Moore greeting. In other ways, life here seems exhaustingly difficult. Tasks that would be simple in the states become incredibly puzzling- how to hand-wash your wardrobe, pee in a squatty-potty without baptizing your feet, navigate a village by trees and cow paths, locate toilet paper in a town where only no one uses it (add to that trying to explain toilet paper to the vender who has never heard of it and keeps trying to sell me a notebook), and how to get change after you buy a Fanta. Just coaxing life out of the tired African soil at times seems a daunting task for the next two years. Just turning the soil in a little plot of land before the rains softened the soil is a million times harder than hoeing a row in our raised bed of rich soil in Vermont. Or try understanding a session all in French about the long list of coups that have overturned Burkina's government or which types of fertilizers are best for sorghum and yams.
But more than the difficulties of training, or the simple joys of cucumbers after so many plates of rice and leaf sauce, I wish I could describe to you the moments of beauty here- the expansive skies and the giant billowing clouds, the brilliance of the moonlight and the drama of a coming storm. I missed this. And there is something familiar about the smell of dirt as it begins to rain or the sounds of cows and roosters to wake you up. From the moment I stepped off the plane three months ago, the vague sense that I have been here before has only grown deeper as I connect with memories from Tanzania and create new memories in Burkina. And in a week or so I will be moving into my home away from home, my first little house of my own and I went all the way to Burkina to find it. It certainly is incredible to let the reality sink in that I will be living and working here for two years. And this feels like my first real steps into my life beyond graduation . . . it just happens to be in Africa.
My site is going to be a little town with no electricity, limited cell service, and no running water. But I have been placed with a very motivated women's agriculture association with which I hope to share my new-found knowledge of local environmental solutions and improvements to traditional farming. More than anything, I am excited to begin the process of getting to know my community and finding my niche in a little Burkinabe village. Wish me luck as I swear in as an official volunteer in ten days! And I hope I can be a little more faithful in updating my blog once I make it to my site.
Ala k'an ben! (May God keep you!)
