Monday, August 9th, was the golden day of Stage- Site Announcements for Small Enterprise Development, Girls Education and Empowerment, and Heath trainees! The entire afternoon was devoted to the event and the APCDs for all 3 sectors came to give us the glorious news. First they gave us candy to butter us up for the people who would be disappointed by their sites. Then a huge, floor to sealing, cover the entire wall, map of Burkina Faso was produced. One person from each sector, in rotation, was called up to the map, given a little man with their face on it, and told their village name. After placing your little man on the map, we were given a road map of BF and an envelope with our site descriptions. The little men were color coded by sector, so we could easily spot everyone. At the very end yellow Secondary Education men were added, since they are part of our Stage but arrived in country 2 weeks before us and have already received their site placements. Much to my delight and surprise, I was the second person to be picked out of a hat and placed on the map!
While most people had a general idea of where they were going to be, because they knew what their local language, I had no hints or clue. The hole country, minus the no-go zone in the north, was fair game for me. I couldn’t be more excited about my site placement! I’m exactly in the region I had secretly hoped to be- relatively close to Ghana and an easy bus ride to Ouaga for when I need to go into the city for a break in village life/ to restock. Also, I’ve heard that my region is green and beautiful and hopefully will produce a good amount of fruits and vegetables. I will live in a very small village, under 2,000 people, but don’t live far from a bigger village with a good market and hopefully an internet cafe and electricity (hopefully being the key word here). My house stands alone, opposed to a family compound, and is 2 rooms with a private douche (shower in French) and latrine. Not inside, of course, and indoor latrine and douche is unheard of in village. I also have a small overhang and courtyard area just outside my door. I’ve been told that the CSPS is very “cohesive” and strong and that my counterpart is pretty easy to work with. The best part is that I’m decently close to my best girl friend from Stage and really close, like bike just for the afternoon close, to 3 other PCVs. Yay, Friends! Who are American and speak English!
Another huge added bonus is that I’m replacing a volunteer who is actually working Stage as a PCV Facilitator. He singed on for a 3rd year, so his first 2 must have been pretty good… right? I grilled him today to tell me about my site- apparently my house was originally built for grain storage, so I have one normal size room and one large room without windows and a high ceiling! My courtyard is not fenced in, per say, but is pretty off the beaten path and visible from the chief de village compound,where the chief spends the majority of his time sitting outside in his courtyard, so it’s very safe. He says the view from my door is just beautiful, which I’m very excited for. Also, there is a burning pit on the side of my courtyard so that I can burn my trash, which is great news since trash disposal is a big issue here (i.e. the ground is a trash can here). Rumor has it that cell service is not good in my village, so that will be a challenge.
Rob also gave me a run down on some of the projects he did and gave me some ideas for what I may want to do. Another bonus to being a second generation volunteer is that the village/ your counterpart sort of has an idea of what a PCV is actually there for (not just to give $) and how to use them in the community. Also I can learn from what the previous volunteer has done and what worked well, and hopefully pick up where he left off on some things. He has worked a lot with moringa, which is a wonder leaf that is very, very nutritious and grows really easy here, and I’m more then happy to pick up his projects with that, as moringa is something I was hoping to work with anyways. I plan go get more ideas and information out of him over the next week before he leaves.
Overall, I’m very, very happy with my site placement and cannot wait to get to site and settle in. Now that we all know where home will be for the next 2 years we are all pretty ready for Stage to be over… but we’ll see if I still feel that way once I’m dropped off is a tiny village and no one speaks English.
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