Friday, November 26, 2010

Little Boy and his Box

While I waited for my bus in Ouaga I couldn’t help but take notice at the little girl sitting next to me.  She was eating gato, fried bread, with her stuffed animal rabbit.  Much like little girls do, she would offer the bread to the rabbit, pretending  to feed it, and then stuff it in her own mouth.  It very much reminded me of a scene very common in America, a tea party, but seemed vastly out of context in Burkina. I couldn’t put my finger on what was so strange about the situation, until at last it hit me- the little girl had a toy.  A made for the purpose of child’s play, store bought toy.    
Children in Burkina don’t have toys.  I’ve never even seen toys in stores- there’re just not sold here because they have no real useful purpose.  Children make their own toys, playing with things adults deems useless.  I was once visited by a band of about 5 boys under the age of 5, or rather, I came home one day to find them playing in my yard.  Each was adorned with a empty sardine can with make shift wheels made out of wire, attached to a long string- Burkina’s version of a toy car that the boys could pull around.  Once I said hello to them they scampered off in the direction of their compound, their “toy cars” in toe.  I’ve seen another version of this pull cart, one with a small box as the body and wooden wheels attached to a pagne string.  I can’t imagine someone actually making the wooden wheels, I’m sure they are a byproduct of something else, but they don’t really go round anyways.  The boys drag along the box car behind them nonetheless.  The children literally get the scraps of what their parents can’t find a use for. 
A common practice at the CSPS is to give a child a pill packet or empty medicine box if they start to fuss.  Just something to distract them.  The pharmacy usually has a stack of small, empty boxes that the pill packets come in bulk in.  One day a male toddler was given a box that use to hold vaginal suppositories  to calm him down after a shot.  The child pranced around proudly with his box, which was labeled in English, so only I was amused by the sight. 
But the child that really touched me with his use of “trash” was Little Man.  It was a busy morning at the CSPS and I had just finished taking temperatures.  I sat down on an empty bench, facing out into the entrance, and found Little Man staring back at me.  He was just wearing the neon green pants that go under his neon green boubou, the traditional Muslim getup, without the top and was plopped down in an old medicine box that was just big enough to fit his little body, feet hanging over the edge, in the middle of the CSPS front courtyard.  From the look of him you’d think he was in a lazy boy. I smiled at the sight of him and he gave me a big, white smile back.  Throughout the morning I watched him play in his box, pretending it was a car or maybe that he was flying, occasionally he would move around and sit in a different position, and wherever he went the box was sure to follow.  That morning, he was just a little boy with his box.  A very plain and simple box. It reminded me of my own childhood, when Nany gave me a box from a new fridge or stove, and we made a house out of it.  For days and weeks I played in that box until it couldn’t sand any longer and Nany claimed it for the burning barrel.  Incidentally as I was leaving the CSPS that morning, I saw Little Man’s grandmother in the box, one side had been ripped down as to create a lawn chair.  He was perched on her lap.            
Children here are a sentiment of a simpler life- there are so many things in the western world that are truly unnecessary, they just add clutter to our lives.  Children’s toys for example- sure they serve a temporary purpose, but interest level has a short lifespan and it quickly becomes a garage sale item.  After all, aren’t children just as amused by the trash?            

Rotten Meat

Even the best laid plans tend to be foiled in Burkina.  Buses never leave when they are suppose to, you never know when something will or will not be open, things never happen on time or sometimes they will be early, and you can almost always count on meeting times to be an hour or 2 (at least) later then projected.  (I learned this in my first week in village, when Katie and I hurried to make the 2 hour bike ride to the district capital for an 8 o'clock meeting that didn’t start until almost noon).  We’ve come to call this being “Burkina’d”. 

It was Monday November 15th, and I was preparing to leave Ouaga after a weekend of meetings for the Food Security Committee.  The routine for leaving the city is pack up, go to the post to withdraw money (the Post office is also the bank), grab lunch, a quick trip to Marina Market for all grocery needs not found in village, and catch the 14 hundred bus.  I was running a little late, being distracted by one last episode of Mad Men, and got to the post between 11 and 11:30, only to find the power in the city was out, therefore I could not withdraw money.  Having no other choice since I didn’t have enough money to pay for my hotel room otherwise,  I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Finally at close to 14 hundred the teller told us that they were closing early for the fete, tomorrow was Tabaski (a big Muslim holiday), and so she took our phone numbers down and gave us the money, without checking anything, and said if there was a problem when the power came back up she would call.  Thanks, that’s really nice of you, but you couldn’t have done that 2 hours ago so I didn’t miss my bus? I suppose not.  Guess it’s another night in Ouaga. 

Tuesday everything is going well; find a place that is open for lunch, and head to my bus a little early.  Only no one is there.  Now, I’ve asked a head of time, and was told buses run every day of the year, but my bus stations isn’t looking good.  Thankfully there is an attendant there who tells me that the bus isn’t running until 17 hundred because of the fete.  Great, so much for not traveling or biking home in the dark, but oh well, I really need to get back to village.  So I sit at the gare with a book and wait.  The 17:00 bus leaves pretty much on time, everything is going well, until we get to my stop.  Or at least I think it might be my stop- nighttime has fallen and every small village along the road looks the same in the dark, a few thatched shacks on the side of the road.  Usually the bus attendant calls out telling you where we are if he knows someone is getting off there, but I hear nothing, and we barely stop for even a second before the bus keeps going.  I stare out the window for something I recognize- finally I see the Mosque that is the turn off for Katie’s house and run up to the front of the bus to ask them to let me off.  By the time the bus stops we’re just outside of the village where Katie lives.  No worries, it’s just a 20 or so minute walk back into town to her house, where my bike spent the weekend.  At least it’s a beautiful night, big, bright, almost full moon.  I get to Katie’s and we chat for about a half hour or so while she feeds me the food she had been given/ made for the fete.  It seems that Tabaski is a big excuse to eat a lot of food, kind of like Thanksgiving.  Finally around 19:00 or so I start strapping my bags onto my bike for the hour ride home.  Before I go she hands me a bag of mutton that a neighbor had given her, she is a vegetarian, and says something to the effect of, “here’s some conciliation for being Burkina’d,” in regards to not being able to get home in time to celebrate the holiday in my own village.  Sweet, meat is vastly missing in my diet.  By the time I get home it’s late and I’m tired.  I throw my bag down on the floor and put the meat and other food items on the kitchen table, since I don’t have a fridge. Bed quickly ensues. 

Wednesday I get up and do my normal village routine- get dressed, eat breakfast while reading newspaper articles sent form home, and off to the CSPS.  Most people are still feteing, and the President on Burkina is campaigning in our district capitol, which a good number of people were attending, so it was a quite morning.  I leave the CSPS a little early because cheese and crackers (from a care package) and a magazine are sounding really good right now.  While reading I realize how sleepy I am in the midday heat, and take a nap.  When I woke it was 3p.m., obviously too late to make lunch or I’ll ruin my appetite for dinner, so I go about my day.  Finally at 18:30 the hunger pains start nagging me and I head to my kitchen.  As soon as I open the kitchen doors this smell hits me in the face.  I had forgotten about the mutton.  I hadn’t been in the kitchen since 8 a.m. when I made oatmeal and coffee, it’s the first time I’ve had my hands on real meat in this country, and I forgot I had it. Balls! 

There was no way I was going to waste my one chance for real protein, so I set off to salvage what I could.  First step, try to hack it off whatever bone it was on.  Not easy, now I see why people here cook bones and all.  I also tried to cut off any parts that looked a little discolored, a little greenish, or a funny texture.  It all smelled bad, but I was desperate for meat.  There was voice in the back of my head that told me to boil it, that’s what is done here with meat, but I had this vision of chunks of juicy stir-fired meat that I couldn’t shake.  I put everything I had that could possibly make the meat palatable into the dish: my last garlic and peanuts, spices, even my precious quinoa, and thoroughly cooked the meat trying to cook the bad out of it. 

Finally I sat down in my chair under my hanger to eat by candlelight.  The meat still tasted funny.  I sadly forced a few bites down, unfortunately the bad had leaked all over everything and the hole meal tasted like rotten meat.  As I sat, hopeless, a dog meekly poked his head into my hanger.  I’m rarely visited by dogs, maybe he could smell the mutton.  Dogs aren’t fed here, they live off of “table scraps,” so they are always hungry, and this dog looked about as sad as I felt.  With a feeling of defeat, I picked out the rest of the mutton chunks and threw them to the dog, which greedily gobbled them up without a second thought.  I was unwilling to surrender the entire meal, and forced down the potato chunks and quinoa, fully knowing that I would most likely feel sick afterwards, which I did.  This was my first experiment with Burkina meat, and it ended rotten.  Oh Burkina, how you got me again! 

Side Note: I couldn’t actually get an explanation of what Tabaski is a celebration of- I know it’s 40 days after the end of Ramadan and is either the end or the beginning of the pilgrimage to Mecca.  Also, white sheep are sacrificed.  If anyone can tell me more I would love to learn about it!                                           

Thursday, November 11, 2010

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure

This evening, on November 7th, I had my first trash disposal incident.  I had been warned, but I didn’t quite expect this.  I had heard horror stories of volunteers coming home to find children playing with feminine products on their fingers like Edward Scissorhands.  Katie, my neighbor, had had her trash bag ripped out of her hands to then watched the children tear the bag apart in the middle of a cornfield.  But I am lucky, I have a burning pit for my trash. 

My burning pit is a cement square that comes about waist high.  It had filled up with water during the rainy season and I just noticed yesterday that it had finally dried up, creating the first time since at site that I could actually use it.  It was just before dusk and “burn trash” was the last thing on my to-do list for the week.  I had been putting it off because there was a crowd of children at my house all afternoon and I didn’t want them to get any ideas, but then in a moment of weakness I thought maybe they were too distracted by the American magazines I had given them to notice me.  Plus my trash bags were the black plastic bags that are used for everything here, and didn’t exactly scream “I’m full of trash”.  I was wrong.  As soon as I walked out of the house with the bags I caught their attention.  One girl took one of my bags out of my hand as I walked to the burning pit.  She tends to insist on helping me do everything I may be doing- laundry, dishes, sweeping- and she seemed to be rather calm as she walked with me so I thought she may just want to carry the bag for me.  Then a little boy hopped up and sat on the edge of the burning pit, feet dangling in, and asked for my second bag of trash.  I thought maybe for a second he was going to help me, show me the proper way to burn trash.  Kids get really excited to burn things is the states, why wouldn’t they get excited here as well?  He immediately dumped out the bag and then hopped into the pit and started rummaging.  Instantly there were 4 other children in the pit with him and several leaning in over the sides, they ascended on the trash like vultures.  Oh no, I thought, this is my worst nightmare.  Wrappers and plastic bags were flying everywhere as they tore threw the trash like ravenous animals.  There was one little boy who kept asking me what everything was, or was from- a potato chip bag, cardboard from the fry pan my grandmother sent me, even the wrapper from a pad.  They found old tuna cans and literally started to lick them clean. One of my favorite girls found the wrapper from the parmesan cheese my grandmother had sent and turned it inside out and was licking it- now I finished that cheese about 3 weeks ago, making that cheese residue almost a month old.  Some of the stuff in the bag had been their since my first week at site- about 70 days ago!  Great, I’m going to get the children sick.  They are going to get food poisoning from my trash. 

Power bar wrappers were licked spotless.  Any food wrapper was considered a bonbon.  The cheese covering from baby belles was chewed like gum.  Tin tuna cans were taken.  One girl was especially pleased over a dead pen.  An old and very dirty toothbrush cover, which I had used on my toothbrush for everyday for 4 months, was literally fought over.  Plastic and pieces of cardboard from packaging were taken.  It was incredible. 

After about 10 to 15 minutes and me saying “ok, ce fini!” several times, I finally got them to stop and get out of my trash pit.  As soon as all body parts were out of the way I started lighting it on fire for fear that they would try to grab out another treasure.  Just as I started the fire a mother came by and looked on for a minute.  I’m fairly positive if it wasn’t already light she might have dug in to see what she could find as well. 

While the children ran home with their goodies, hiding them for each other so nothing would be stolen from them, I spent the next 5 minutes walking around my yard picking up all the trash they had thrown out and about.  Needless to say, next time I will wait until no one is near my house to bring out the trash.                     

Le CSPS

In a recent letter from my grandma she asked if the village health care clinic was an actual building, which made me realize that I often use acronyms or French words that don’t translate well and might not fully explain them.  Yes, there is an actual building for the clinic, 3 in fact.  Let me introduce you to the Centre de Sante et Promotion Sociale, or CSPS for short. 

I’ll start with the pharmacy, since it is the easiest.  The pharmacy is a small, one room building a short walking distance from the rest of the CSPS buildings.  It’s an open room with long countertop splitting the room in half, and sitting on the other side behind a desk you will find Roger, book keeping or playing on his new fancy blackberry-type phone.  There are 3 large shelving units behind the counter with stacks of medicines lining them and then several boxes full of meds on the floor around Roger’s desk.  The pharmacy keeps stocked in the most common medicines, but anything too strong or not as common has to be purchased at the district medical center, 18 KM away.  Also, the stoop of the pharmacy seems to be the only place in village that I can sometimes get a bar of cell phone service, sometimes, on a good day. 

Next there is le dispensaire.  This is where I spend most of my mornings. The design of the building is 7 rooms and the waiting area that form a square with an open-air area in the middle.  I have no idea what the point of the open part is, but there is a tree and it’s not used for anything.  Once you walk into the building you enter the waiting area, naturally, where the walls are lined with built-in cement benches.  The building is supposedly cleaned, there is a janitor lady, but I’ve never seen her there.  It’s not overly dirty, but I wouldn’t call it clean either.  Cob webs cover the walls and bugs are everywhere.  Since there are so many flies and ants and little flying things, you can almost always find at least one toad hopping about in and out of rooms.  And there are probably so many flies because babies aren’t diapered and pee at will.  Sometimes mothers will wipe up the pee if it’s on the bench, but not likely and never off the floor.  Baby pee is viewed as nothing unusual here or something to fret over, I’ve even seen mothers let their babies play in/with their pee.  Also, it is not uncommon for a chicken to wander in and about.   

To the left of the waiting room is the consultation room.  There are two filing cabinets that hold all the CSPS documents, and examination table, and a desk.  Generally, the malade will come in and sit in front of he desk and tell the infirmier their symptoms.  Their temperature will be taken, if it’s a baby the nurse will feel its’ belly, once in a great while they will be weighed or blood pressure will be taken, and then a script will be written for something.  I have seen a few malaria tests betaken on toddlers, but I’m not sure how often this is done, certainly not all 100 something cases a month.  

To the right of the waiting room is the petite surgery room, where injections are given or wounds are bandaged.  However, if an IV is being put in (for malaria, usually) then that has to be done outside where there is more light, since there is no electricity in the CSPS.  This is usually done out back, where people can’t watch.  There is a room with beds in it where people with IVs or that are really sick can lay down, most often used by mothers with sick children.  This is the room where the “come lady” and her grandson, “Little man”, lived with her husband for well over a month while he recovered from a head injury. (They have since left the CSPS, much to my dismay as I enjoyed playing with Little Man, but the husband came in today to get his would checked on.  He gave me a big hello and Fulfulde greeting.  It feels good to be recognized warmly.)  There are also several other beat up mattresses that get laid out on the floor wherever there is space on a busy day.  There is a room that seems to only be used to house the car battery that is hooked up to the solar panel and for sick overflow, a storage room, and then 2 rooms that aren’t used at all for anything. 

Down the path from the dispensaire is la maternite.  I’ve only been in the maternite a handful of times, so I don’t know it as well but it seems to be almost the exact set-up as the dispensaire.  There is the consultation room for consults pre-natal, which has no other equipment besides an examination table, a filing cabinet, and a desk for the accoucheuse. I’ve helped with CPNs twice- the women are weighed, height is taken, sometimes blood pressure is taken, then they lay on the table and their bellies are felt up (a stethoscope may be used, I can’t remember), and then a bunch of stuff is recorded in a notebook for the CSPS and in a booklet the women keep, tests that may or may not have been taken.  Other rooms of the maternite include a birthing room, a recovery room which just has a few beds in it, and a storage room that has the CSPS vaccination fridge in it.  The fridge is hooked up to a gas tank, but I don’t know how that works.  The other rooms of the maternite remain a mystery to me, and I’d like to keep it that way (there are lots of stories of volunteers assisting with births, no thanks!).             

If you keep going down the path you will find the CSPS staff houses, and I have to say they are the nicest houses in village.  They were build by the same NGO that built the CSPS, so they are real, legitimate houses made out of real building materials.  Not too shabby. 

And so this is the CSPS, where my work is based out of.  Every morning is spent in the waiting room, where I sit and greet people and take temperatures.  I make babies cry.  Daily.  But I’ve seen them cry at the infirmier when he takes temperatures as well, so I like to think they are just afraid of being poked at, even though I know some are afraid of me because I’m white. Recently I’ve been passing the time by looking over old CSPS documents and gathering information for my “Etude de milieu” report.  We’ll see how I spend my days once I start doing projects.                      

Frisbee club?

On Tuesday, October 19th, 2010, I did the best thing I could have done for the children of village.  No, I didn’t teach them to wash their grubby little hands or read and write; I had my first Ultimate Frisbee lesson!

Their interest had been peaked the Sunday past, when a fellow volunteer visited me and, much to appease me, he asked if we could throw around the disc.  He was more amused by me then the actual act of playing catch- it had been almost 3 months since I had touched a disc and I was practicing my throws and steeping out, “taking it seriously” as he put it, and the whole time he said I had a huge smile on my face and was as giddy as a school girl.  What can I say, I love Ultimate.  Subsequently, throwing out in my front yard we became the village attraction.  It took no time at all before ALL the children gathered around to watch.  Even men passing by on their bike or women walking from the center of town to their homes with big basins on their head would stop and watch the two nasaras make fools of themselves with the disc. It was a lovely Sunday Afternoon. 

It was the following Tuesday, and I had finally just gotten a small group of girls to leave my house for a little peace and quiet, when a boy around the age of 10 came to my doorstep and asked to lancer and did a flicking motion with his wrist.  Well, okay.  Who am I to deny someone the joy of throwing a disc around?  Soon we had gathered a crowd of children.  Two stood out as having real potential with their throws- the boy, Sergio, and a girl named Ida.   Sergio had a good start on his backhand, just needed to flatten it out, and when I showed him and gave in instructions in English he still seemed to understand.  Ida’s first instinct was a flick, so I showed her the proper way to hold the disc and to keep her forearm level with the ground.  I realize now I was thinking too big, as then Ida and Sergio tried to help each other and other children learn to throw but would fight over the right way to do it and confuse the two throws.  After that I decided to just let the children get use to the disc in their hands and slowly I would critique their throws.  We played for about an hour, mainly Ida, Sergio, a few other little boys and I, but others would step in and give it a try.  Then as dusk approached and it became harder to see the disc Sergio caught it and brought it over to me, thanked me, and did a little curtsy-type bow that they are taught in school.  Then all the other children followed suit and said goodbye. 

The next day Sergio came back by himself and asked to throw.  We had a good bit of time just the two of us before the masses joined and I think he liked it this way, because I could actually throw it to him and he could learn from me.  We did only back hand throws and I didn’t have to instruct him at all, he just observed me and followed exactly what I did, a mirror image.  It struck me how incredible it is that so much can be taught through non-verbal communication, although it made me a little nervous since I don’t have the best throws in the world and I’m not sure he should be copping what I do.  Still, it was very cute; he started to step out a little when he threw and even picked up the little up down flick of the wrist I do before each throw (which I know a lot of Ultimate players do, but I’m now wondering if they should do it).  After a while a small group of children, including Ida, joined us and then at dusk we called it a day. 

Thursday, Sergio showed up at my house just after noon asking to throw.  I think he was thinking it was earlier then usual and we could get in some throws before everyone else came, but I was thinking it was dreadfully hot and I wanted to nap.  I told him to come back at 17 heure.  About an hour or so later, while I was writing a letter home under my hanger, he came back and asked again to throw.  No Sergio, I said dix-sept heure! Pas encore! I don’t want to come off as mean, but the children CONSTANTLY ask for things, and if you don’t set boundaries they will walk all over you.  Finally, at 5 till 17, Sergio came back and said it’s time.  We got in a few throws the two of us before 3 other little boys joined.  They stood in the line and I would throw to each of them in turn and they would throw it back to me.  Then Ida and another girl I did not know came for the marche to join, so I tried to make a circle so we could all play.  The circle idea took a little minute to catch on, as the children, it seems, are more use to forming lines, and even when they got the circle concept their was an order and we  had to throw to the same person each time.  Our throwing pattern made a perfect star.  It’s interesting to pick up on how structured their schooling is.  A man coming from the marche, or dolo bar, stopped to watch for a second and then thanked me for something (playing or putting up with the kids?), saying “ce bon!”.  I have, in a way, become the afterschool program for the children. 

As the sun started to set our circle dwindled to 4 and we moved close together and passed to the person next to us.  Perfect time to practice my push pass, a short throw I never mastered in college.  It made me think of another fellow GWU Ultimate alumni who taught himself how to flick the disc full field with his toes while in the Peace Corps.  Yup, I can now understand exactly how he had the time or the circumstance to do that.  Then when it got too dark to see I said it was enough for the day.  I got the usual thanking and Sergio said same time tomorrow?  We agreed, 17 heure we would play catch.  Then the swarm of children, there had he 10 to 15 who were too small to play sitting around watching, all wanted to shake my hand and say goodnight.  “Bonsoir! Bonsoir! Bonsoir! et a demain!”

Unfortunately I got a last minute call to meet up with the other regional volunteers on Friday for the marche and a visit and missed our 17 heure Frisbee time.  Since there are no formed groups in my village, no women’s group or community club, starting a children’s club could be a perfect avenue for me to do projects.  Yes we can play Ultimate, but first let me teach you how to wash your hands and why, etc.  They all come to my house everyday anyways, might as well use it to my advantage.  However, since I missed that Friday and on Saturday I wasn’t feeling well so I gave Sergio the disc but I sat out, he quickly discovered playing with children who don’t know how to throw is not near as much fun, and then Ida got a bad cut on her leg and couldn’t play, and since then my Frisbee club-to-be has been dwindling.  I’m still hopeful though, I’ve just got to pump up the interest again!