The Party

A week earlier I had received a text from Katie, “Come to [our district capitol] on the 9th.  No questions.”  With no other details, a failed attempt to meet Katie on the road, and a dead phone battery I wasn’t sure when or where I was suppose to be, so I was very glad to run into Lauren as I was walking out of the Post.  As we attached our packages to our bikes she says, “So… how long has your phone been dead?”, with an intriguing smile.

“Since yesterday.  Why? Is there something I should know?” I asked wearily. 

“Well, we’re on standfast…”

Standfast is the Peace Corps’ first step in the emergency action plan; it means is that we’re not permitted to move/travel from wherever we are and we need to report our whereabouts to the office and be ready to act incase of an emergency.  For all elections or major planed protests and whatnot, we’re put on standfast; it’s more of a precautionary measure then anything, in most circumstances.    

Lauren and I biked to Emily’s house, where Emily and Katie are waiting for us.  Luckily Katie, Lauren, and I didn’t find out about the standfast until we were already in the district capitol, some of our other friends didn’t make it in.  We briefly talked about the standfast and why we were put on it, the recent protests had escalated some, but the gravity of the situation and what it meant for me didn’t hit me for sometime later.  We went on with the plan for the night and the party began. 

The girls gathered around me, “As I’m sure you’ve guessed, this is your bachelorette party” Emily said.  The party was to have 3 stages, the first was spa treatment.  We made a milk face mask, foot bath, and did hair masks.  Filed our nails and feet.  All the pampering our limited means could lend us.  The conversation was the typical conversations had by 4 girls who haven’t seen another English speaker for over a week, supplemented by the gossip from a People Magazine. 

Emily made us dinner-Mac ‘n Cheese made from a brick of Velveeta Katie had received- a special treat for all of us.  Just as we were finishing up dinner Josh called; it was at this point where I realized what the standfast meant for us- we could not take transport to Ouaga in the morning as planned.  This effected him more then me at this point, since his car left at 5 am and mine not until 7.  Still, neither of us could leave the villages we were currently in.  It took a little convincing to get Josh to agree NOT to take the 5 am car, since there were only 4 cars to Ouaga and 3 of them left before 8 a.m., but we made a back up plan- we’d call the Bureau starting at 7:30 a.m. and hopefully he could get on the 8 a.m. car and I’d take 10 and we’d both get there around noon.  Now that that was settled I went back to the party. 

Stage 2 was a board game Emily created, roll the dice and go so many spaces and answer the question.  Some questions were personal (what was your first kiss), some were trivia questions about Josh (what was his childhood security item? (answer: a stuffed rabbit named Bunny)) and some were just silly challenges.  The second spot to the end was “Eat some Cock,” and when I got here Emily pulled out a cake she had made in the shape of cock and balls.  It was made out of banana muffin mix and homemade frosting, and was surprisingly delicious.  Guess there has to be a little dirty humor at a bachelorette party.  Overall I was very impressed with the creativity.  The game took several hours to finish, but in the end I won. Not sure if it was rigged that way or not, but still fun.

 

Stage 3 was a dance party.  A Lady Gaga dance party to be more specific.  There is no hiding that I LOVE Lady Gaga (her beats are catchy and perfect for dancing, there is no denying it).  We were all tried, as it was already around 1 a.m., several hours past our village bedtime, and none of us were as drunk as you would expect for a bachelorette party.  In fact, I don’t think any of us were drunk at all, despite the 4 bottles of Champaign.  But they insisted on a dance party, albeit short, and after a few songs we all crashed into bed. 

 

I woke at 7:15 to my phone ringing.  Josh and I immediately started to get ahold of someone at the Bureau who could tell us if we could come to Ouaga today.  2 days before the wedding and we still had a lot of errands to run beforehand.  Finally just after 8, Josh got ahold the the Safety and Security officer- he told us we had to get permission from the country director herself.  She was in a meeting and would call us as soon as she could, until then we had no choice but to sit tight.  So the party continued on into the morning after.  The 4 of us girls drank tea and coffee, ate omelet sandwiches, and perused the latest magazines we had got in the mail, all anxiously awaiting news from the bureau.  Finally, just after 11 a.m., Josh called.  He had talked to the Country Director- Josh and I, and our 2 witnesses, could come to Ouaga today, but we had to take the next possible car and leave right away.  The first possible car for Josh, and only other car leaving that day, was at 2 p.m., and his witness (and neighbor) wasn’t planning on leaving until tomorrow.  Josh frantically tried to call her, she has poor cell phone service, and prepared to bike to her village to get her.  Thankfully he caught her by phone and she was able to catch their car, 10 minutes before it left. 

As for me, luckily Lauren was my witness and she was already with me and ready to go.  Our bus also left at 2 from the village we were already in.  We waited with Emily and Katie; took naps, read magazines, and played with the tattoo mustaches someone had sent Katie. Finally we all went to the bus station and Katie and Emily saw us off.  Took my favorite bus, KGB, out of the Centre-Ouest for the last time.  

Wednesday, March 9th- My last day in Village

I woke up this morning and did my normal morning routine, only after each step I packed it up.  Brush my teeth, pack the tooth brush.  Wash my face, pack the face wash.  You get the idea.

  My morning wash station. 

After breakfast I walked to the CSPS and was greeted by a very joyful nurse.  She insisted I follow her around as she did her “work”.  I sat in as she did a few consultations and then she got up and declared she was going to the maternity to help the midwife with CPNs (Pre-natal consults) .  I was confused by this; it was Wednesday and we’d only ever done CPNs on Mondays.   Since I’m virtually useless during CPNs (I can only weigh the women, and even then I seem to mess it up) I thought I would go say hello to Roger at the pharmacy.  Once the nurse realized I wasn’t following her like a lap dog, she called me over and insisted I come to the maternity with her.

There were only a few women there and not much to do.  She asked me to take their tension and Sylvie, the midwife, right away piped in that I can’t do that, in her smite way, before taking the next women into the exam room.  “You don’t know how to take blood pressure?”  the nurse seemed shocked.  Nope, I’m not a doctor.  She told me how easy it was and said she would teach me.  She talked me through it as she did it on a women, but her explanation was lacking and I still didn’t understand how to do the counting bit.  Plus the final numbers they come up with are nothing like what I hear in the states (apparently they drop the first number?).  It was my last day in village and I didn’t feel like getting a lesson on how useless I was.  Thankfully there were only 3 women there and we were soon done with our work at the maternity. 

She had me follow her back to the clinic and into the consultation room, where there were no patients to see.  She sat down at the desk and wanted to chat.  She asked for all the details about the wedding, and then told me she couldn’t come.  She had been talking about coming to the wedding all week, so I was surprised to hear this.  She had just found out that the national meningitis campaign, where they go house to house, was that week and the Major would not give her the afternoon off to come to the wedding.  After our short conversation she leaned back in her chair and fell fast asleep.  I didn’t know what else to do and not wanting to wake her, for fear she’s want me to “assist” her for something else, so I sat there as she slept.  About 20 minutes later a young man came to the doorway and clapped (the Burkinabe knock).  She did not wake up.  He looked at me and I shrugged.  He clapped again louder.  This time she raised her head.  “When your work is finished, the Major wants you at the maternity”, there was to be a meeting with all the health agents to prep for the meningitis outings.  She said okay, then as soon as he left she put her head down on the desk and fell back asleep. 

10 minutes later one of the Community Health Agents came into the room, “we’re waiting on you for the meeting”.  “I’m working” the nurse replied.  The agent laughed and said something I didn’t understand.  “I’m coming” she said.  After she left the nurse again closed her eyes.  5 minutes later the same lady came up to the open window and said something I, again, didn’t understand, but I hope it was along the lines of “seriously, come for this meeting”.  The nurse took a few minutes to compose herself before walking over to the maternity.  I ducked into the pharmacy to talk to Roger before she could tell me to come with her.   

Conversation with Roger was pleasant.  I asked if he was coming to the wedding and he told me no, he was too villageois to come.  We proceeded to have a conversation about nothing in particular, where he informed me that the United States had 52 states.  When I said there were only 50 states he pulled out a Burkina news paper, which had printed in an article about immigration in Arizona that there were 51 US states.  Interesting.  Soon it got to be 11, then 11:30, and I started to anxiously watch the maternity for the meeting to end- I wanted to say goodbye to the Major. Despite being my counterpart, I had barely spoken 2 words to him in the last week since he was so absent.  Finally at noon Roger told me not to wait any longer, I had things to do and I should go home.  He’d tell the Major I wanted to talk to him and hopefully I could catch him on my way out of village that afternoon.  I lingered a bit, to show I gave it my best effort, then hurried home to finish packing. 

I made an easy lunch and then cleaned and packed up my kitchen.  Most of my house was already packed, just last minute stuff and cleaning.  One of the neighbor boys wandered over, one of the Chef’s sons, to see what I was up too.  Typical, he’s a usual, but he usually comes in a pack.  As I cleaned up I gave him a bag of plastic bags, which he seemed excited about.  He then preceded to fall asleep in the chair I had moved outside while I swept, still clutching his bag of bags. 

After a little while a little girl came by and saw Cadero asleep.  She checked to see how asleep he was, then grabbed his bag of bags and ran away.  A few minutes later Cadero’s bigger sister, Angina, came to claim him and take him home. 

After I was all packed up I piled all my belongings in the corner of the big room, ready to be packed into the Peace Corps car on the following Monday. 

  

This drew the attention of the neighbor kids.  They watched me for a moment and then sent Angina to me, knowing she is my favorite, coaching her on what to say, “Vous etes partir?” Not quite right, but I understood.  “Oui, Je pars”  Instead of being sad like one might expect (or hope) the kids seemed excited and ran around asking me for anything I still had out.  I gave away old magazines and all the boxes and bottles I had empty and they ran home with their “goodies”.  Just before 3 p.m. Roger stopped by to say goodbye and give me the 500CFA I had loaned him when he didn’t have change at the pharmacy.  He truly is a good guy.  He knew I needed to leave at 3.  He informed me that the Major had just left for one of the satellite villages, but he would tell him Goodbye for me. 

As I loaded up my bike and closed up my house I was bombarded by a few of the usual kids.  They asked for candy, and since I had it and was leaving I gave them some.  Then they wanted me to take photos. 

     

Finally at 3:20 I got on my bike and headed out of village.  I was already 5 minutes late for meeting Katie, my PCV neighbor, on the road and I still had to bike 4Km to meet her.  Just as I was passing the CSPS I ran into Roger.  He told me the Major had just returned, but if I was already late it was okay for me to just continue on, he said with a wink.  Sorry, I’m already late.  He gave me a warm goodbye and wished me a good marriage, and I continued on, biking out of village for the last time.