IST-Tech

The last 2 weeks of January was our Technical In-Service Training.  In theory, this training is to give us all the technical knowledge needed to be a good health volunteer.  For the first week we returned to our beloved hotel in Ouaga where we lived for 2 weeks during Stage.  Home sweet home with (sometimes) hot showers and a flush toilet.   The schedule was just like Stage, 4 blocks a day from 8 am to 5:15 p.m.  Most of the sessions were fairly useful- how to fill out the Volunteer Reporting Form, where and how to apply for project funding, cross-sectorial work, how to set up a CARE group (a model where you teach 10 women then they each teach 10 other women) and lots of information on doing a HEARTH model (for malnutrition).  Some highlights included a fancy dinner at Dr. Claude’s house, our APCD, and the day we spent at a fake beach learning about gardening and getting to swim during the lunch break.  It was also amazing just to see and hang out with everyone from our health and SED group (SED also had IST at this time), the first time all of us had been together since swear-in.  On Saturday night a large group of us went out to dinner in downtown Ouaga, then met up with more volunteers, and made our way to a nightclub for a little dancing, the most fun I’ve had with friends since the night of swear-in. 

Monday started off a week in Koudougou, our other home during Stage.  The week started off great, we were staying at a mission run by nuns and the accommodations were wonderful including single rooms with showers and delicious snacks during the 10 am pause café.  After two days of regular sessions our counterparts were to arrive to learn how to design a project and plan one, basically have a project all set up so when we returned to village we could jump right in.  To be most effective, the volunteers got to choose who their counterpart from village should be, someone they were going to work with.  Before IST I told my assigned counterpart, the Major, about the formation and asked who he thought I should bring.  “Je ne sais pas” he responded, does it have to be some from the CSPS?  No, I told him, but it needs to be someone I’m going to do projects with and they have to speak French.  He told me he would think about it.  A week later I asked him again, saying that the nurse or mid-wife could be good choices, but still he had no suggestion of who would work with me.  I needed to tell Dr.Claude so she could send invitations, so I talked to her about it and she said she would talk to my Major directly; perhaps there was a miscommunication.  After talking to him he was the one the invitation was sent to, he had been personally invited by Dr. Claude, so I expected him on the morning of the 26th to join me at the workshop.  The evening before, while everyone else was receiving phone calls that their counterparts had arrived, I heard nothing.  Okay, not that unusual, I’m not exactly buddy-buddy with the Major.  8 am, still no Major and the session is starting.  No phone call, nothing.  Okay, still not that unusual, he was half a day late to the counterpart workshop during Stage, so this would only be the second time he’s been late to a formation of mine.  At 10:30 the second session started and the directors started to wonder where he was.  Finally, right before lunch I got a tap on the shoulder, “your counterpart has arrived”.  I get up and walk towards the door to greet him, only to find it isn’t my Major at all, but a random guy from village.  I recognized this man, he helps the CSPS with campaigns sometimes and I had worked with him during the mosquito net distribution, but I had no idea what his name was.  Panicked, as soon as we broke for lunch I went in search of Rob, who was there as a facilitator; he lived in my village for 2 years, surly he knew this guy’s name.  None such luck, Rob also recognized him but had no clue what his name was.  Finally another volunteer went up to him and made small talk and asked his name for me-Sibrie- a very Burkinabe name.

Needless to say, the rest of the workshop didn’t go much smoother.  He didn’t seem to understand one bit of project designing- why or what we were doing- perhaps this was because he missed the first 2 sessions, or because he hadn’t read the Project Design Manual that I had given the Major for the workshop.  Either way, he didn’t get that each step of the project plan was connected to the last and that they were all for one and the same project.  I had to explain everything to him over and over again.  To make matters worst, he had a hard time understanding my French, but since he didn’t really seem to understand most peoples French that well, nor could he write French, I suspect the problem didn’t just lie in my language ability.  After talking with other volunteers about their experience, it seems that counterparts who were more villageois struggled a lot more then fonctionnaire counterparts and this has to be because of education level.  Unfortunately, most of the education system is memorization and recitation, so asking someone without an upper level education “what do YOU think?” is hard for them to answer on their own.  Problem solving and creative thinking doesn’t seems to exist at the primary or college education level.  I was glad when it was over, and can say that the project we “designed” will never take place.