Wednesday, July 28, 2010

My First Successful poop!

Today I had my first successful solid poop!  This may seem like a graphic, or silly, thing to feel the need to update my friends and family on,  but at this point in my life this is a huge victory.  There are 4 trainees here, that I know of, that have either picked up a bacteria or parasite, and intestinal problems is something we battle daily.  In a world where it’s a struggle to even satisfy your most basic needs (the other day I tried to order a veggie sandwich for lunch and got rice with oil), finally having some normal bodily function is a huge deal.  It’s all about the small victories in life.  After days of constipation, days of stomachic spasms and nausea, bouts of diarrhea, days without pooping at all, poops that are soft serve or the consistency of baby poop, a mixture of half and half, and days where I felt like Brittney Murphy (I think?) in the move Speed where I would get the bang and run to the bathroom only to be disappointed with a rabbit terd, I am proud to report that on Thursday, July 15th, I had my first normal, successful poop in Burkina Faso.  It took 23 long days, but we finally got there.  I’d like to thank the delicious food at Restaurant Chinese and my good friend Nestcafe, who undoubtedly played a big role in this win. 

However, only hours after this success I drank the welcome water given to us when we went to interview a local family on their daily schedule.  So now I play the waiting game…

*It was too good to last.  Far too good.  Not sure if it was the Welcome Water or something else, but right after breakfast on Friday I found myself running to the bathroom.  This was followed by nausea, drive heaving, severe stomach cramps and fear of having it come out both ends at once.  Every time I eat something my stomach cries.  This continued all day Friday, Saturday, and, yup, on into Sunday.  One more day of this and I get to submit a stool sample into the PCMOs (Peace Corps Medical Officers), which will be fun… 

** I got lucky and things calmed down a bit on Sunday and I had a completely peaceful Monday, but then Tuesday my stomach started rumbling and I could feel something brewing.  I feared the worst.  Sure enough, after dinner I started to feel the bang and had an explosive evening.  Was even woken up in the middle of the night to poop, and continued to be miserable all day today, Wednesday.  Finally at around 7:30 pm, after about my 11 “bowel” movement of the day and after 2 hours of going every 15 to 30 minutes, I talked to Jean-Luc (one of the PCMOs).  He suspected a bacterial infection and immediately started me on antibiotics since it’s lasted 6 days.  Tomorrow I submit a MIF kit (stool sample), which was a lot of fun creating… to verify what is wrong and hopefully be able to cure it.  I’ve never been so sick of pooping before in my life.      

*** On the 9th day of diarrhea I feared that the antibiotics did not work, especially on the 10th day after I had finished the meds and was on my 5th trip to the bathroom.  But on the 11th day things looked hopefully and, thank God, the 12th day was good.  Finally back to normal. It took 2 seconds to drink the water and 12 days to undo the damage.  Well, at least I’m past my first African illness, hopefully smooth sailing from here!                                                 

Friday, July 16, 2010

Our Forced Migration!**

On Thursday, July 1, all 79 of us trainees had a weekly community meeting.  It was the last class session of the day and the meeting started out with the normal “lets discuss the good and the bad that happened this week”, followed by some details pertaining to the upcoming forth of July party.  I was dreading the 10K bike ride back to village when the next announcement was from Congo, the safety and security coordinator.  He causally announced that the US embassy had received information that called for enlarging the pre-existing “no-go” area for Americans and Westerns in the North of Burkina Faso, not only for Peace Corps, but for the safety of the general public, which included the area of the country we were in.  (I cannot state what this information was, but the US embassy issued a warden message that is available for the public to read on the US Burkina Faso Embassy website.  Go there and you can read it yourself.)  No big deal, but all the heath trainees would be driven to village to gather all our possessions and then join the GEE, SE, and SED kids at a hotel for the night.  After waiting about an hour for the cars and drivers to be ready, we were instructed to leave our day bags at the training center (because of limited space in the car) and head to village.  We were escorted by host country nationals to our home-stay and instructed to gather only what we had brought and leave anything that belonged to the Peace Corps (for space reasons, I’m sure).  I’m very curious to know what was said to our families, as Moore was spoken (rightly so, my family didn’t speak much French),  but we went straight to my room and they helped me shove everything I had unpacked back into my two bags.  We weren’t exactly rushed, but the driver eagerly hurried me along.  Then off to the next house. 

Once back at the hotel we (79 trainees plus any volunteers who were in the area) all sat down to a group meal of spaghetti before retiring to bed.  I was lucky and got a 10 person dorm-style room with 8 other health girls and Sam.  Some of the other sectors were stuck with mattresses on the floor of a large dining room, but what do you expect when trying to house around 100 people on such short notice. 

We finally got to sleep-in in the morning, the first time in country, and breakfast (bread with jam and tea/ nestcafe) was from 8-10.  We were told to have everything packed and ready to leave by 10, but it wasn’t until 12 that we actually left the hotel, where all of us caravanned together in PC busses out of the Ouahigouya area to a safer part of the country.  We arrived that evening to an even nicer hotel with air conditioning and wifi, which we would call home for the next two weeks.  Unfortunately none of our bags made it until the next evening, including my day/overnight bag which had also never made it to the hotel the night before, so I spent the night and next day with nothing but the book I had grabbed for the car ride and my nalgene.  I didn’t even have my phone or wallet, which had been left at the training center in my daypack.  This is what really made me feel like a refugee, but that was quickly overcome by the nice beds with an almost real pillow and the hot indoor shower.        

For anyone who is interested, and speaks French (perhaps the website has an English option?), there is a very amusing, and exaggerated, article in Burkina’s main national newspaper about our forced migration from the north.  Unfortunately I don’t know the name of the newspaper, or the web address, but I’m sure google does.

Evacuation was really no big deal. There has never been an incident in BF and treats are extremely rare, that’s why this one had to be taken seriously.  All that really happened is there is a grey area near the Mali/Niger boarder that is a no-go zone for American workers, and that no-go zone grew, slightly, including the area where our training center was.  We were just re-located.  Burkina Faso is still a safe place, and the Burkinabe are not a part of the danger, just the some people in Mali/Niger that we have to be careful of.  But it was still a crazy and exciting hiccup at the time!  

That Saturday we got the day off, so a group of us went into town to eat some delicious cuisine and see the city.  Then on Sunday we had a huge 4th of July party at the International School.  There were two fields, so there was a game of soccer and then a game of ultimate, which I was thrilled about.  There was a delightful pool, which most of the afternoon was spent in.  The school even had real toilets and toilet paper! Around noon there was hamburgers and potato salad, and the country director surprised us with a real American style cake.  A day by the pool with cold drinks; we couldn’t ask for a better 4th of July!  

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On Monday we started back into training, which was now held at a really nice expat school.  There is nothing to complain about having class there: the water fountains are filtered and cold, there are European style toilets and paper, and the classrooms have air-conditioning.  Yup, this is as good as it gets.  Unfortunately, we are moving to a smaller city on Sunday to finish out training and get back into home stays, but life was good while it lasted.  Another added bonus to the school was there are about 5 giant tortoises that roam the campus.  This little guy decided he wanted to join our French class:

P7130031       Last weekend all the health trainees went on demystification, which is a fancy word to mean we went to stay with a Health PCV at site for the weekend to see what life is really like in village.  My language group traveled with our LCF 2 hours east, via public bus, to spend the weekend with Sara.  It was a lot of fun and great to see what an actual PCV site looks like.  Sara has a really cute 2 room house (with electricity!) that she has painted and decorated really cute.  She shares a family compound with one other lady, and has a dog, kitten, and 3 baby chicks.  Being in her home made me really excited to get to my own site.  We got to tour her CSPS, as well as the center for malnourished children, and a hospital.  We also got to watch her give an HIV/AIDS sensibilisation to a group of peer educators, which was a good look into what we will be doing in the future.  We watched the world cup finals at her neighbors house and got to experience the dolo bar (dolo is a homemade millet beer) and learn how dolo is made.  The dolo culture is interesting, but I will save that for when I get to site, since I’m sure the dolodrome will play a key part in integration.      

That pretty much brings you up to speed on life in the BF.  This week has pretty much been more of the same- a lot of French, longs training days, getting use to the food, quoi quoi quoi.  Tomorrow, Saturday the 17th, we have a half day of training and then the afternoon off before heading to an alternate training facility for the duration of PCT.  So I will leave you with my highlight of the week- A group of us health volunteers decided to celebrate hump day on Wednesday by going into downtown and taking advantage of the good food while we still could.  About 10 of us went and had the best Chinese food one could ask for in West Africa at Restaurant Chinese.  This place is owned and run by real Asians, so it was pretty ligit.  Best damn wanton soup I’ve ever had.  

**For my friends and family that actually follow my blog- yes, this is an revised version for a previous post.  I was kindly asked to edit this post, as I had divulged “way too much detail” about our “re-location” incident.  To the PC staff who is following up with my edits, I hope this my more PC approved.                         

Home-stay Continued

Alright, I’m going to try to pick up where I left off last night.  After the adoption ceremony I walked to my home-stay with my host mother and a following of children.  It was unclear, probably because I don’t really speak French or Moore, who all the kids belong too, but there seemed to be at least 20 under the age of 15 that lived in my family compound.  My host father, who is the only member of the family who I can sort of communicate to in my broken French, went on a head on his moto.  Once we arrived home I was immediately shown to my room, asked if it was ok, and then left alone.  My bags were already in my room, since they were dropped off earlier that day, so I spent a little time fiddling around with my bags and whatnot in my room since the family had left me to myself and I didn’t know what else to do.  After a few minutes I went out in my courtyard and sat down and almost immediately was swarmed by an army of children.  They pretty much just stared at me and then a few brave souls attempted to speak to me.  It took me a good five minutes to realize they were speaking French, not Moore, which I’m not sure says more about their French pronunciation or my French comprehension.  However, even after this realization I struggled to get anything more across then “Je m’appelle Ashley”. 

Soon my host father came and told me to “leve”, as it is part of their culture to wash before eating dinner.  My host mother brought a bucket of water my “shower” and I was given a large cup and set off to the bucket bath.  My first bucket bath was slightly awkward because the privacy wall didn’t even come up to my shoulders and couldn’t tell if it fully covered me when I stepped away from the wall.  Also there was a very small piece of wood that was covered in black plastic in my shower area, and I couldn’t figure out what it was used for (a stool maybe?).  But I was pleasantly surprised that the water was warm and in the end embraced the full bucket bath while enjoying the sunset in the African horizon beyond my latrine.

After my bath I attempted to venture out into the family courtyard to try and interact with the family.  I was welcomed with lots of greetings and blank stairs and only made it a few steps past my courtyard.  I let my host father know that I didn’t speak French very well, like he couldn’t tell, and I believe he told me that his children are learning French in school with me.  I tried to tell him he had a beautiful home, but that didn’t quite come out right at all and he just stared at me.  After an awkward pause he called to his wife to bring food and lead me back to my courtyard.  After the food arrived – yams - he told me to pour oil over then and salt them and sat me down in the chair in my courtyard to eat.  I tried asking if i should eat here or with the family, but that failed.  Then he left me to eat my salted yams alone, in the dark, with only the light from a small lantern to keep me company.  It wasn’t long before the lantern caught the attention of all the local bugs, and I was soon joined by this huge scorpion-looking monster bug.  I’ve never seen anything like it; it wasn’t a scorpion, but I have no clue what it was, and it seemed to be charging at my feet.  Of course I jumped and screamed and I’m sure looked like a fool to these Burkinabe.  That crazy American girl who doesn’t speak French and runs from harmless bugs…   

It didn’t take long for me to finish eating, one can only eat so many salted yams, and then I sat for while debating what I should do now/waiting for someone to come back.  During this time random people would wander in to greet me.  Some younger men, who would shake my hand and then turn around and walk out, and some older gentlemen and older women, who would try for a longer formal greeting and got a kick out of the few Moore phrases I knew.  Finally my host father came back and sat on a log in my courtyard.  After a few minutes of silence he asked if I was finished eating and if he could take my left-overs to his family.  Then he took my plate and walked out.  I sat alone in silence, praying for Appo (my language and culture facilitator) to come check on me.  Finally he came and help me put up my bed net, and then him and my host father said good night and left me to my own in my little mud house. 

It was getting late (like 9 o’clock) and I didn’t know what else to do, so I spent some time unpacking my suit case into the Peace Corps provided trunk before attempting to go to bed.  Attempting, because it was a million degrees in my room and I didn’t get more then 2 hours of sleep at a time before waking up in a pool of sweat. 

At 5 a.m., just as it was starting to cool down and I had finally fallen asleep, my host mother came to wake me to get my water bucket.  She brought me shower water and when I didn’t immediately go to the shower to bath, she came back to tell me again that the bath water was ready.  So I enjoyed a hot bucket bath under the light of the moon in the early dawn hours.  Then she brought me breakfast, plain baguette and Lipton tea, before it was time to head to the CSPS for training at 7 a.m. 

Night two pretty much went the same, only a little less awkward and a little more hopeful.  This time, after returning home from training my host father sat with me in my courtyard for five or ten minutes before telling me it’s time to bath.  We attempted to talk, I asked what he did, but then couldn’t understand the answer. This time for dinner I was given a huge plate of white beans, and again told to douse them in oil and salt. After dinner I got out my French homework and sat in my courtyard to do it.  It wasn’t long before I had a group of kids around me watching me as I translated sentences in English to French.  Some of the older kids were reading my words as I wrote them and reading my French notes, which impressed me but makes sense since they were learning French in school.  Even my host mother, whose name was Miriam I found out, came to look me over for a bit with the other girl who may or may not be the second wife, before she shoed the kids away to let me study in peace.  Then bed time, and luckily it was cooler and rained so I could actually get some sleep.  The morning repeated it’s self almost exactly, only this time I was served yams for breakfast.

That night we were staying at the hotel in Ouahigouya since everyone had to be at a medical session the next morning, and I hate to admit that I was a little relieved to not go back to home-stay.  It’s not that I didn’t like my family, but the lack of communication made it difficult to interact and the whole of it was uncomfortable. Plus, the hotel had air-conditioning.                                    

Thursday, July 15, 2010

3 Weeks down, 6ish to Go

So much has happened since Staging that I don’t know where to begin.  Well, I guess the beginning is a good place to start.  After Staging in Philly we flew to Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, via Paris.  A long 20 some hour flight to go to a place with just a 4 hour time difference.  We landed in the dark, literally, as the airport had lost electricity.  After debarking the plane we were instructed to wait outside the airport until the power came back on.  Right away the African heat hit us like a brick wall, and even in the dark of evening the heat was suffocating. The Country Director and other Peace Corps staff met us at the gate, if you can call it a gate (the only doorway that lead to the runway), and we were ushered through costumes, claimed our baggage, and put on Peace Corps busses to the hotel.  We spent the first 2 nights in country at the Dragon Hotel, this little oriental oasis in Ouagadougou, which is apparently very indicative of BF.  I was surprised by how nice the accommodations were, by in large the nicest hotel I’ve been in on the Dark Continent, with toilet paper and toilet seats, air conditioning, Television, a pool, a working shower (sans hot water) and limited critters (we had one gecko in our room.  We named him Fred).  However it did feel a little silly to be eating Asian food during our first 2 days in country.  The first two days were spent doing logistical stuff- immunizations, bike fittings, introductions, getting our walk-about allowance, quoi quoi quoi- and then off to our training center in Ouahigouya.

Our arrival in Ouahigouya was a little overwhelming.  It’s a good 4 hour bus ride and most of us had fallen asleep to be woken up to a large group of people chanting and yelling at the center as we arrived.  All 50 some of us filled single file off the Peace Corps busses, some what disorientated, to be greeted with traditional “Welcome Water” from calabashes and then dance/walk awkwardly down a tunnel of PCVs and the 20 Secondary Education trainees to the beat of African drumming.  A real quick hello and then back on the busses to be shuttled to our hotel.  That evening we had our last group meal, fried chicken and French fries, and from then on out we had to find our own meals.  After dinner we were treated to traditional drumming and a local dance troop who wanted to welcome us to the community.  We got to watch a few numbers by the dancers, which was amazing, before we all went on stage and tried to learn the dance moves.  It was so much fun trying to imitate the dancers and watching all the nasaras look like fools.  The dancers were so elegant and precise in their movement, our bodies just don’t move like that.

Our daily schedule every day is just about the same:

6:30 – wake up

7:15 – Try to find an egg sandwich (fried egg on a baguette)

8:00 – Start class 1 (Home stay prep, cross cultural, tech, med, lang, etc)

10:00 – Break

10:30 – Class 2

12:30 – scrounge around for lunch (Avocado on a baguette, Please!)

14:00 – Class 3

15:30 – petit pause

15:45 – Class 4

17:15 – End of Class!  Head back to the hotel

18:00 – Start the quest for dinner (couscous with peanut sauce or spaghetti)

20:00 – Attempt to stay awake to socialize

22/23:00 – Bed        

 

Sunday Afternoon we got lucky and only had class in the morning.  After lunch 2 other girls and I attempted to buy some goods from the marché (think flee/farmers market), only to fail miserably.  Our lack of French skills or common knowledge of typical prices left much to be desired in our ability to bargain.  After dealing with one vender that we thought we had handled pretty well, a group of near by women laughed at us and pointed at us as we walked away.  Oh well, so we didn’t get soap or toilet paper, the huge market with hundreds of people who just want our money is pretty intimidating.  At least we tried.    

On Monday June 28th we had our adoption ceremony and moved in with our home stays. I was placed in Sissamba, a tiny, tiny, “bottom of the barrel” village (as one PCVF described it), which is about 10 K outside of Ouahigouya, with the 3 other girls who are in my novices low language group.  The adoption ceremony went something like this: arrive via PC jeep to the CSPS (the community health center), great the group of men (village leaders plus home stay dads) in a mix of French and Moore, sit awkwardly in silence while waiting for the mothers to arrive, attempt to understand a speech given by some man (village chief?), PCVF translate the speech to 6 English words- “We’re really glad to have you”, another man give a speech (village priest?), same translation, PC staff speaks in Moore, mystery man replies, we don’t know what’s going on, PC staff thanks the village for hosting us, another mystery man replies, we are introduced one by one to our families by reading off “Ashley is with (insert family name I cannot pronounce), shake hands with the host dad and his wife, sit back down awkwardly, more talking in an unrecognizable language, end of ceremony/ extremely awkward walk to our homes with the host mother who only speaks Moore.  Of course a large group of children has gathered to watch this whole ordeal and they accompany us home, being sure to carry my back pack and water bottle, and actually fighting over who gets to carry my things.  I did not speak with my “mother” the entire 10 minute walk home, she just kept looking my up and down and making comments to the other older girl that was with us/ lives in our family compound.  I couldn’t tell if this other lady was a second wife, it is common in Moore culture to have more then one wife, and this other chick had a baby strapped to her back and looked about the same age as my host mother (they both couldn’t have been older then 20, even my host father looked younger then 25). 

Homes in Sissamba are set up as family compounds which remind me of small forts.  There are several buildings in one compound with several different courtyards that are all connected/ surrounded by a mud brick wall.  It looks like something straight out of a National Geographic.  My “room” was a building that stood alone, sort of, at the back of the compound.  It was constructed of mud bricks with a tin door, one window, and a thatched roof.  However, black plastic lines the inside of the roof, for water proofing, and parts of the walls, which turns the house into a Dutch oven.  The first night it was unusually hot out side, which made my room a furnish and I didn’t get much sleep since my blood was boiling.  I had my own personal courtyard and personal pit latrine/ bucket bath area just off the back left of my room, which was actually really nice.  My “bathroom” was all brand new and open air and I can only hope it will be as new at site. 

Well, it’s getting late and this post is getting long, so I think I will save my actual home stay experience for my next post.  Let’s just say it was an experience for now…