Lang IST

Three months into service, sort of the mark of the end of the Etude period, there is In-Service Training.  It is broken up into 3 parts, first December 15th to the 21st was regional based language training, then in January there is a week of tech training and a 3 day workshop with counterparts to make project plans.  Lang IST went a little something like this:  Our schedule was suppose to be the exact same as during Stage- 4 blocks a day, 2 before lunch and 2 after- which, thanks to a great LCF, turned into a block of French at 8 a.m., 2 hours of internet time, Lunch, personal sleeping time, and then a block of Moore to finish out the day.  There were 6 volunteers at my lang IST, the 6 volunteers in my providence from my training group, and having all the down time to hang out with other Americans was very nice, but I will admit the actual learning left much to be desired.  I needed the French practice, but French class consisted of reading a French African fable for homework and then discussing it during class.  The kicker is that there are verb tenses used in written French that are never used in spoken French, so a week of studying passe simple is not going to help me speak to my villagers.  In our group of 5 Moore learners we were at 3 different levels, so Moore class wasn’t that useful either, unfortunately.  However, a week out of village and in a hotel with electricity and a half way flushing toilet was invaluable.  We’ve been in country for 6 months now, which is usually a natural slump for volunteers, and we were no exceptions.  Even the volunteer that lived in the bigger city with electricity and internet at his house and a fridge at his disposal was like “I want to go home”.  So having a week to just complain about everything that is wrong with Burkina was nice (the constant intestinal problems, the lack of vegetables, dairy, and meat on a daily bases, not ever being able to communicate with anyone, constantly being harassed because your white, always feeling awkward, the list could go on and on and on).  The one night that we all got together and decided that life wasn’t so bad after all was Sunday night.  Like Stage, we had Sunday off, so after a lazy morning and a little marche visit we all went over to the volunteer’s house who lives there.  It took 6 volunteers, 2 dictionaries, and an iPhone to get through the fable that was our homework, but after we finally finished Katie made us all a homemade dinner.   4 or 5 boxes of wine and several hours of the internet later, life in Burkina didn’t seem so bad.  Through in a little Lady Gaga into the mix and we had ourselves a party. 

Our week of commiserating accumulated with our final supper.  Hilary was really craving the rice from “the Ghana restaurant”, and despite going there the night before and only getting 2 of the 6 plates we ordered, waiting 30 minutes, and then upon our questioning finding out that the food we had ordered “was finished”, we decided to try it again.  We sat down and ordered, commanded salads and a plate of meat from the salad lady and meat stand out front of the restaurant, and then sipped on our drinks and waited.  After a short time the LCF that ordered To got his food, and we waited a little longer.  Rice takes longer to cook, right? Then our other LCF showed up and we asked to add another plate of rice to the order, only to be told the rice was finished.  Apparently they didn’t feel it was necessary to tell the 6 people waiting for rice that it wasn’t coming.  What are the odds that two nights in a row they would run out of food and not tell us they ran out after we already placed an order?  High, this is Burkina.  We asked what else they had- only To- and after eating salads, pouting, and debating where else we should go to find food (no where really, it was on the late side and food options are limited) we reluctantly ordered the To.  It didn’t take long to come out, a large, cold porridge-like blob of tasteless nothing with cold peanut sauce.  We swallowed down as much to as we could- I tried to pinch off little balls and put them in the bowl of sauce and pray it would be like southern dumplings in stew, which was actually eatable, but unfortunately I was served a disproportionate amount of To to sauce and was left with the choice to eat plain To or still be hungry.  I chose being hungry.  As we finished up eating and playing with the jello quality of the giant To ball and waited for our change from the bill, Hilary decided to make a soundtrack to our lives as Peace corps volunteers in Burkina with Hugo’s iPhone.  First she put on “This place is a prison” by the Postal Service, followed by a Bright Eyes song that has chorus that starts off with “how did I get here,” and when the chorus came on she shouted out at the top of her lungs “HOW DID I GET HERE?!”  A question we’ve all been asking ourselves lately.