Summertime & the weather is breezy

The summer months are upon us here in Burkina. But that doesn't mean we get a break. In fact this is the season when everyone is working long hours. Since the first significant rains fell in June life in village has moved to the fields. Often the village is already quiet and deserted by dawn and it is not repopulated until dusk. The common topic of conversation now is 'How was your work in the bush?' What did you plant? Which field did you weed? However, the one break this season has brought is a respite from the heat. The rains come in dramatic African fashion- on a wall of dark blue-black clouds and with a torrent of wind proceeding. The rains have managed to completely transform the landscape as brown-red dry earth turns to grassland once again (and the herds of wildebeast return . . . I only wish). Many places I saw every day I had forgotten had ever had living things growing in them or any color. But thankfully my eyes which for so many months seemed to be starving for green, can now feast of fields of corn and waving soft grasses and bright peanut sprouts. (My first comment back in the States driving out of NYC was "It's so green!") Now as a result of the rains I can sleep inside without cooking myself in my mud-brick-tin-roof house. Yes there are still 100+ degree days but the clouds and winds make it bearable. While the pace of my neighbors daily work has picked up mine seems to have slowed down. It is difficult to plan or do anything with villagers with everyone working full days in the fields. So I fill my time this summer by volunteering at my local health clinic filing in data for records or taking temperatures or talking to women about malaria prevention. One week I was able to help out a reading and literacy camp in a village further south. The camp was held at a small village library- something completely unheard of in a highly illiterate country. Even so the village had a sweet and enthusiastic librarian and four walls of shelves filled with donated books. The kids I met were shy on the first few days of camp but soon warmed up to the boot-camp/craft-time/school/song-and-dance set up of the camp. I watched the kids get excited about reading and make a little dash to search out a book they could take home to read that night. Included in the camp were several sessions on life skills and health like hygiene, malaria and AIDS prevention. Overall it was wonderful to be a part of, regardless of how tiring a week with 10-11 year olds can be. As the summer comes to an end I hope to plan and organize a new association of beekeepers. I hope I can go out with them to collect honey and maybe design some bee suits. Lastly, an update on the well project: work was done in July and much of the interior well was cemented.

And the funding begins!

Great news! I have received my first grant to begin the well project. This initial installment is about $1,000 and comes from the Peace Corps water and sanitation fund. It will allow us to begin the work with the mason. It was been a long wait, but I am so grateful to finally see the project begin and the first part of funding arrive. Soon the website will open back up for others to give to the project. I will keep you posted!

Americaland: Three Weeks of Wonders

Where is there a land where (almost) every house has a toilet that flushes, every kitchen a fridge, every building wireless internet? Where cheeses are seen in variety and in abundance, real ketchup comes with your fries and real coffee flows from coffee makers and cafés on every corner? And two last words: ice cream. Need I say more?

Yes, this and more lies in the land beyond the sea, far from the heat and the dust of my past year in West Africa. And it was this land of plenty that I stepped back into when I went home for the past three weeks for my youngest brother's nuptial festivities. I was surprised by several things: how green it all was, how many several story buildings there were, how I was able to remain dust and sweat free for hours at a time, how the cashier at the gas station store didn't understand French, how funny an American dollar looked and how light our coins are, just how much cheese there really was, the possibilities . . and the choices of every aisle of every store (shampoos!). Many people asked me if I felt culture shock in returning, but mostly it was the little things: being amazed as I watched children at my mom's elementary school form quick and tidy lines after recess (Burkinabé children: Lines? What are lines?), being able to put ice in my drink (and actually thinking- this is maybe too cold), being able to hand over a $20 bill and the cashier not bat an eyelash at giving me change. Mostly though, it felt comfortable and cozy to slip right back into home and Vermont and the lovely, breezy weather.

It was incredibly special to be able to watch my little brother get married and I am still in shock that it happened (and that now he's an old and crotchety married man). (Sorry, Wes.)But it was beautiful, held just a walk from our house in the back fields and celebrated in our own restored barn. In summary the weather was perfect, the cake was delicious and seeing Wesley dance with his bride was priceless.

I also spent one lovely week with my dearest friend Candace in Buffalo, NY and re-connected with Houghton alums and my old Mennonite church. It was perfect; I ate well, and stayed up late, acted like a kid- eating ice cream, going to the zoo, biking around on a pink bike, flying a kite, . . another part of making the vacation a glorious respite from work and the heat.

Now after a long 52 hours of transit, I made it back to Burkina and stepped off that plane again into the 100 degree humidity. I had a flash back of first stepping off the plane onto the runway a year ago and realizing how much I have learned and experience and grown between those two moments of arrival. One a new beginning, the other a return. One a fearful nervous step, the other a confident almost relieved step back onto Burkinabé soil. Yes, America is a land of wonders, but how many more new and unique and wacky and dramatic and sad and touching and wild wonders have I discovered in this land called Burkina Faso? And how many more do I have to discover in this next year?

Fill to Overflowing

The post for my village's new well project is up and ready to go. You can read more about the project and help make this vital need a resource reality. Thank you so much in advance for your support!

A Well Without Water

So the day has finally come: I am deep in my first grant(s). My village, Tombila, needs water and they asked me to help. And I in turn ask you, dear reader, to help.

You’ve heard from organizations the very real struggle for access to clean water all over the developing world. But not many places feel the need for water more than the arid land below the Sahara known as the Sahel. Burkina Faso is characterized as a Sahelian climate with limited rainfall and about 30% of the landscape made up of scrub brush and acacia. My village falls just about on the line between desert to the north and forested land to the south. As a result not only does our region get little rainfall (only 4 months our of the year) but my village’s current wells are running to the end of their supplies. Therefore in several meetings with my village we identified a new well as the most important project to begin my Peace Corps service.

The people of Tombila showed a great deal of initiative when they began hand-digging the well in December. In only a few weeks the initial work was done and the village waits on help to allow the mason to cement and build the interior of the well finishing the project.

This new well is especially important for the village’s primary school only a few hundred meters away from the new site. Currently the school has no source of water so the children bring water with them in old soda bottles usually only ½ liter for the morning until they can go home for lunch. This time of year the temperature reaches well over 100 everyday and there is absolutely no relief to be found in the hot classroom. Imagine trying to learn in that environment.

The total cost of the new well will be $12,000. The community is able to invest approximately $3,772.00 in labor and materials. I hope to gather some funding from a source within the Peace Corps so that the total I hope to raise from friends and family is $5,254.00.

If you would like to contribute to this need more information will be posted at www.peacecorps.gov/contribute. Gifts will be tax deductible. I am excited to be helping the village of Tombila with such a necessary and tangible development goal. Please help me in this endeavor by giving according to what you are able.

Change and Yellow Pompoms

Here are just a series of small things that make up my daily life here- observations and descriptions:

*The other day a 5-year-old did my dishes- and she did them cheerfully, without my asking her! Now tell me that would happen in the States.

*Acacia trees (acacia nilotica to be specific) have little yellow flowers that are blooming currently. They are fluffy little balls that look like from something Dr. Seuss or little pompoms cheering as you bike past, "You can do it! You can make it through 8 months with no rain!"

*Climbing onto a crowded African public transport is decidedly like a giant game of Twister: over the baby nursing, under the lady hefting a rice sack, past an old woman with sharp elbows who really wants your seat, next to the man holding upside down chickens, beneath the window with the goat feet hanging from the roof . . . regrets: sitting in the seat beneath an open window. . yes, baptism by goat pee. . I think I quit.

*A trip to the market takes strategic planning. One must have just the right change at just the right time or the whole thing falls apart and every vendor looks at you with a pitying face and tells you it is impossible. To avoid this sad dilemma where even five vendors down an errand boy can still not find you change, one much begin at the right place. First, to the boutique where one can break the 10 mille (about $20) that the bank always give (despite that one rarely buys anything for such a large denomination). There one might buy phone minutes to call the states and a kilo of flour. You may wait patiently at the counter here hoping vainly for a line, only to be cut by several women buying soap and a man filling a bottle with oil. Then to the tailor's where he tells you your skirt from four weeks ago is still not done and it is said with a sheepish smile that 'Won't you just come back later today? It will be done then'. Right.

Next to the "queen of the market" or 'tanti' (aunty) as we call her, to buy some peanut butter in a jar I hand her. She scoops it out of a big metal bucket (it once had paint in it perhaps?) that site in front of the scale filled with dried fish pieces that seem to consist mostly of bones and skin. Perhaps I can buy some for my cat. . . Tanti can break your 2 mille ($4) if you smile nicely. Next it's too the jumbled "house wears" a few straw stalls over to haggle for a new wash bucket. . Walk away several times when he refuses to lower the price. He can make change for your 500 ($1) (and no I won't marry you).

Now is the crucial moment- armed with change one can finally turn to the produce ladies with overflowing baskets of red onions, shining tomatoes, funny dried flowers and plants, and even summer squash and dark plumb eggplants. The questions remain- will you find green beans today? Will the tomatoes be green or mushy? You carefully choose your piles and sweetly smile when you really want to buy 2 roots of ginger not 15, please. The woman sighs a little and makes change with the women 6 stalls down. Maybe she even gives you a 'cadeau' a gift of something extra- maybe another three tomatoes plucked from her stockpile just for you.

Lastly, as the dust picks up and the sun begins to feels as if it is searing the skin on your neck, you swing by 'electronics' just to browse, while you try to remember those last things on your shopping list (market is only every 5 days, you know). You wonder at the various piles of mystery cords and dangerous-looking batteries sitting beside stacks of 'chinois' electronics, lantern lights and cosmetic creams from Japan. You turn back at the honey selling table with its molasses-like product and on the way out you say hello to the banana lady and buy one out of habit. Finally, you walk out the frialator aisle with women frying fish and fritters and keep an eye out for the frozen drink-selling girl who just might have the hibiscus juice you have been dreaming of, and yes, you do have the 25 piece to pay for it. Happiness is in exact change.