Camp Glow

My one-year anniversary was in June, wow can’t believe it’s been that long.  Time here seems to move very quickly.  As I reached the one-year mark I was able to reflect with great appreciation for the successes and the challenges.  It has been worth it, I look forward to and couldn’t be more excited for this next year!

Most recently was Camp G2low, a leadership camp TOT (Training Of Trainers) was three days of sessions for facilitators, PCVs and counterparts, facilitated by volunteers to get everyone on the same page. With sensitive topics like sexual health, violence and gender equity it was imperative to discuss how we would present each session. I presented the first session on goal setting with my counterpart who is on his way to university next year. We discussed the importance goal-making, how to make smart goals and then each student wrote their own goals for their future, Students saw themselves as doctors, teachers, lawyers and military officers. I was overwhelmed with their excitement. When I wasn’t presenting I was observing other sessions and helping when it was needed. They learned about the reproductive system and then consecutively birth control and family planning. I lead a session on gender, debating the roles and responsibilities of girls and boys. Girls wash clothes, do the dishes, sweep the courtyard, pump water and cook while the boys have much more free time to play or when schools in session study. They acknowledged the discrepancy between their responsibilities and decided they wanted to make a change. During the camp the boys and girls shared the cleaning duties equally. The last session I facilitated was on violence and was the most difficult. It’s a concept that is very difficult to understand in this culture. In primary school they are hit if they don’t answer a question correctly and it affects then throughout their lives. The first time I observed a Burkinabe classroom I cringed and had to walk out. Violence is not something that they hear about like per say HIV/AIDs. We went through the spectrum of violence and I was trying to guide them to deciding they wanted to end violence in the classroom but instead a girl in the front row raised her hand. She said to me, “But Madame if the teacher didn’t hit us we wouldn’t learn.” I wanted to cry. I stumbled over my words and after talking to colleague decided what I would say. I asked the students if they were like donkeys or dogs or other animals that can’t think for themselves. I asked them if they stopped learning when they get to secondary school. I think it was a breakthrough and am looking forward to the future where violence in schools is unacceptable.

Stomping Out Malaria

April is my favorite month, spring in the US, flowers, sunshine, new birth and my birthday, but there is another cause to support this month, April is Malaria month. Malaria is the leading cause of death for children less than 5 years old in sub-Saharan Africa and the most common cause of death for all groups in Burkina Faso. It disproportionately affects pregnant women and children less than 5 years old because of their compromised immune system. Possibly the most disturbing issue with Malaria is that there are completely curable and preventative methods available. Our job is to bring awareness and education of techniques that can be used to help lower your risk! Malaria is transmitted by the female mosquito, a specific type of mosquito, year round here in Burkina. April is a month to bring awareness to Malaria all around the world.. even for us who are fortunate enough not to have Malaria impeding on our lives.

Cutting up soap for Neem Cream

I started pushing awareness activities with my Health Club regarding preventative care, for example, mosquito net usage and neem cream production/usage (anti-mosquito cream made using tree leaves). This is the perfect time of year to talk about how to protect yourself.  Rainy season begins in May and therefore more mosquitoes, (they reproduce in water) hence more Malaria.  Along side preventative care education it is necessary to take a look at how it’s transmitted, symptoms to be aware of and what you should do if you do have Malaria.  We, a nurse and myself, lead a total of three classes on Malaria education for my Health Club with 2 students from each class. Now the students are passing this information on to their class (10 classes) and they have been doing a wonderful job! My neighbors also were incredibly interested in the Neem Cream…opportunity presented itself, so I invited her to gather some of her friends to come over and we made it at her house. They were so excited that they could make it themselves and kept thanking me.
The normal everyday life has improved tremendously with the rain, it blesses us about ever three days. This of course is not normal in all of Burkina but we are fortunate and our rainy season starts technically a little early.

Neem Cream with my Heatlh Club (and little Ashley)

Neem Cream with local women's group

Lately I’ve spent some time in Ouaga working on programming for the incoming peace corps volunteer training group.  I will be a facilitator for the next group of peace corps volunteers entering Burkina Faso and can't wait to welcome the new volunteers!
We’ve been making some progress on Camp Glow and have changed locations to Dedegou which is a larger village farther north. The biggest hurdle of course was getting funded, thank you to everyone who donated! I’ll be bringing six students and a counterpart who will help us facilitate sessions. We’re all really excited to get going!
Next on list is our beloved Science Camp. Some other female volunteers from my training group and I came up with the idea to encourage and motivate students to study science through using experiments. Experiments and labs are uncommon or possibly nonexistent practice in this country.
The camp is 20 girls and 20 boys from 6^th grade to 8^th grade for a week in Koudougou (central Burkina).  Each facilitator (PCV) is bringing a counterpart to work with to make the sessions easier to replicate at our sites. We want to expose our students critical thinking, the relevance of science in their daily lives, opportunities in the scientific field and empowering teachers (focus in, train up).  We're working on all of the logistics but we need your help with funding. Please go to https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=686-218 and help us out!
Well that’s a little overview for now but I promise there will be more to come!   Thanks for all your love and support, letters, packages, photos and prayers. 

Just a Little Heat

Hot Season has arrived. As I’m sitting here I can feel the sweat dripping down my face and legs.. its hot.. hotter than I ever could have imagined. To give you an idea the temperature today is 40 C or about 104 F. No A/C no fans. A common spot to sit is in between the roots of the mango trees because its somewhat cooler than the ground. Sleeping seemed impossible until I decided to move outside in my mosquito tent. When I asked people about sleeping outside they had some qualms and said it wasn’t safe to do it alone. So I invited my little neighbor girls Lea, Amadine, and Claudia to have a sleepover. Now the students who live next door have joined us and it’s become a great way to promote the use of mosquito nets plus have a little fun.

                                       These are the girls after one of our sleepovers!

Classes are just getting better as the time goes by. I think it’s a combination of feeling more comfortable with French and really being able to have a relationship with my students. Since the school year has began I’ve been trying to memorize all of their names.. I’m at about 80 percent, not too shabby, (remember they aren’t John and Susie).  The students are doing well also and improved substantially from the first trimester. The English club was hanging on by a thread but were back into the swing of things after they took their BEPC Blanc, a practice for a standardized test they are required to take to move to the next level of school this summer. I’ve turned my house into a library with English children’s books thanks to Mrs. Pospisil’s 5^th grade class’s wonderful packages! I have one student who comes at least twice a week to ‘check out’ different books. He likes to sit and translate the first half into French with me and then take it home to work on the rest. He is a go-getter and its refreshing to work with only one student at a time. His name is Prosper and I think it fits! The health club is off to a rocky start. With an unreliable counterpart I’ve been leading most of the sessions alone but the students that were chosen are perfect! The first session one of my students, Safiata, came up in front of the class and did a condom demonstration. She’s a spunky girl from the Peul ethnicity. The Peul’s are what we call our nomad people. They have lighter skin and wear copious amounts of jewelry, and are compared to being ‘gypsies’. I was proud of her courage and the other students seemed to appreciate her level of maturity. My garden is now non-existent thanks to a herd of pigs. The came in and ate everything that had been growing drop to the roots. This was a bummer but I’ll be replanting soon and hopefully I can find some better protection!

I’ve continued my work at the Maternity and have started incorporating awareness about malnutrition, HIV/AIDS, and Malaria while the women are waiting for their consultations. It seems to be unfamiliar territory for many of the women and I believe this is because it is taboo. This is a common barrier we run into as volunteers. With the mix of religious groups and culture it is easy to make a ‘faux pas’. The best way to combat this is to slowly discuss the causes of each problem and how individually it can affect a family. Along with the other tasks I do at the clinic I was able to watch a live birth. The child was still in the amniotic sac but the delivery was fast. She did not shed tears or complain about the pain. It is her duty as a women to give birth. This was her fifth pregnancy with 3 miscarriages. She is HIV positive and we can’t test her baby for 3 months. This is too typical of a story here and it breaks my heart. As I wish I could say that life is good here I can’t. Life is rollercoaster, up and down, never knowing what will happen tomorrow. What I’ve learned more than anything so far is to forget about expectations and live the life we’re given.

The Here and Now

With February just around the corner I’m finally able to sit down and write. It has been too long since my last post although not much has changed. I finished up the trimester with ease and headed to Ouagadougou for additional IST-In Service Training. My counterpart has been terribly sick and therefore was not able to accompany me. Instead my school director showed up in her place.  It was incredibly motivating for all of us and we were presented with great tools to take back and use in  our communities. 

After the whirlwind of IST, came the greatly anticipated arrival of my mom and sister. They arrived on the 21^st of December,  we began our adventure with pizza, beer, and fried plantains on the street in Ouaga! Oh boy, the fun began! From Ouaga we took a bush taxi semi-truck down to Sapone and specifically Bonogo the quartier of my host family. The taxi dropped us off on the side of the road, with suitcases in tow we rolled on down the dirt road until the African children (who had never seen a Caucasian child—Anna), surrounded us. We were greeted with a warm welcome and my host family was beyond thrilled to meet my family. My mom and Anna presented wrapped Christmas gifts for the whole family. Our custom of wrapped gifts was a little confusing at first, after a little prompting to tear them open the uncertainty passed and they were so excited.  The little girls were elated with the crayons and coloring books, Mama Cecile loved her knives and Papa Jacob strutted around showing off his new soccer ball. They too presented Mom and Anna with gifts, they were given the traditional hat of Sapone, a labor intensive and meaningful gift.  My Aunt Shirley sent these balls that light up, the children were having a great time with them until the parents realized how fun they were. Soon the parents were passing them back and forth. Ha ha . My mother was asked to be a second wife to Paul, my host uncle.  We met the chief of Bonogo and participated in a honorary ceremony.  Following the ceremony we were paraded through the village to greet everyone who lived within a five-mile radius. The whole experience in Bonogo was unbelievable, they rolled out the red carpet for my family!

On to Leo via a landrover and a driver, (pheww) took it easy on the girls for a couple days, we hoteled it, swam in a pool, visited a fellow PCV, went on a little safari through Nazinga , saw some amazing elephants! 

Next on the agenda was Bouroum-Bouroum, my home. It took 5 hours by way of the public transportation system, which is a large shotty charter bus ready to break down at any minute. Not to mention their packed with as many people and tend the travel at the speed of light.  I’ve become quite accustom to this mode of transportation however mom and Anna…not so much.  It felt good to be back and it felt more like a home with the company.   I had so much fun showing them around the village, meeting and greeting.  The people here are very relaxed and value each other over time and things.   Salutations and taking tea is more important than Mom’s to do list.  She will have to come about five more times to complete her list.  Anna was so wonderful with the children—they still ask about her everyday.  

We made a day trip to  Gaoua by bush taxi, experienced the marche (market) filled with  produce,  grains, seasonings, cookware, jewelry,  fabrics, etc… Anything you need to live is locally produced and sold at the marche’ with the sad exception of a few items that are beginning to ship in from China and India. 

For New Year’s we were tired, so we came home early.   But  about three in the morning we were awoken to the beautiful sounds of  the balafon.   It’s peaceful tones echoed through the village.  Only in Africa, a once in a lifetime experience.

The trip went by too fast and feels almost surreal now that they were here. Since they left, life has gone back to the way in was. School, the maternity, and my clubs fill my time. Presently we are preparing for Camp Glow, a leadership camp, and a Science Camp for students in September. 

  

Thank you for all of the wonderful gifts for my community and the incredible emotional support as well. Until next time….Remember to stop and take some tea  :) 

All my Love,

Ash

Maternity, Tabaski & Dogs

For the most part I’ve established a routine.  Class, English club, and the normal social aspects of life. I’ve gotten used to sitting under a tree for a couple hours everyday and saying close to nothing. I watch the way the children interact with the other children, adults with other adults, children with adults, women with men, the lobi people and the others. To say the least…I find it incredibly interesting. Silence is something I’ve learned to enjoy and something that’s growing inside me. A good silence, a comfortable silence that makes me feel full of life. I’m learning new phrases in the local language everyday and find that every time I greet old women in lobiri or dioula they scream with joy. I can say all the greetings  now and am learning to ask for things, for example, I would like some rice. I find myself much more interested in the local languages than I am in French because of the tonal sounds they make.

I recently started working at the Maternity every Tuesday and feel communication challenged, until Anges—the aid—translates it into French for me.  At the maternity my duties include weighing women in kilos, measure their height in meters, and am learning to take their blood pressure. The women all think I’m a doctor and it makes me think maybe I should become one. After I finish with the easy stuff Anges, gives them  a physical exam and the other women take blood.  They send the blood to Gaoua for testing of all sorts of diseases, most importantly AIDS.  Down here in the south we have a larger HIV/AIDS population than in the north but its very hush hush. No one speaks of it,  but I keep pressing. I will begin a sensiblization with some students from the school on World’s AIDS Day and after we will paint a mural to help sensiblize (raise awareness) in the community. My first day at the Maternity was one of those fascinating days I will never forget… I showed up early around 6:45 and the only person there was the cleaning lady. We chatted a bit, just small talk, and then I sat down to wait on the concrete bench just inside the door. All government  buildings here are constructed out of concrete with open ‘windows’, they always seem cold—not temperature cold but cold. I could see the sun shining through the trees outside and it was a mystical feeling. All of a sudden two women approached the entrance hunched over something, (I later found out it was her baby she delivered aside the road) They walk past me to the back without saying a word, in America that would have been acceptable but here salutations are imbedded in their culture,  after them, a man follows, he looks like he’s seen a ghost but he stops and  says good morning, how are you, your family, your health all in lobiri,  with his hands moving from his head to his hips and back again. There was a young woman who was paced up and down the halls waiting to give birth, I recognized her from the market and I offered my support and assistance as best I could.  Many times during the day I went to check on them.  Mothers and babies are all well.  It was a great day, a special day, one that will stay with me for the rest of my life!

A couple weeks ago was Tabaski, a Muslim holiday but enjoyed by all. I went to a friend’s house, we took tea and chatted for hours. I went to masque for the second time and found it just as thrilling. Not understanding a word of Arabic it feels more like yoga or meditation

than a religion. I then helped the women prepare the very large meal of rice with peanut sauce. As I went to stir the sauce I  didn’t realize the men had brought over a very large corpse of the lamb (sacrifice for Allah) and hung it from the tree.  I ran directly into it…boy what a surprise!

Dogs: If you get a chance to look at  the  picture you’ll see I have two dogs. Taco and Fajita, they are a handful but will be good protectors of my home and me.

I Love the Holm Family newsletter from the reunion, I would like one of those each week. 

Thanks for all the love and support--Ash

...Life is but a dream.

Not necessarily one of those amazing fairy tale types of dream nor the kind that leave you haunted but a dream nonetheless. Swear-in was fantastic and to be able to call myself a Peace Corps Volunteer feels great. The ceremony was filled with speeches by volunteers, the U.S. Ambassador, our Country Director, the Prime Minister of Burkina followed by tribal dances and gift giving. Of course the part I enjoyed the most was taking the oath, the same oath each of our Presidents take. I teared up with a feeling of pride, excitement, and purpose. The ceremony kicked off a fair given by Peace Corps to show the community what exactly Peace Corps volunteers do. There were booths dedicated to heath aspects like Moringa—a tree used for malnutrition, Neem cream—cream made from leaves of a tree for mosquito protection, and our own PSDN—Peer Support Diversity Network for volunteers. There were countless booths selling their artisit specialty from bags made out of recycled plastic to beautiful hand-made fabrics. If you want to know more about the fair there’s a wonderful video on pcburkin.org.

The came ‘affectation’ and by that I mean a Peace Corps van picked me up in Gauoa to take me to my new home in Bouroum-Bouroum. It was a rocky start to say the least.. no one had a key to the house—mine had been in my wallet that was stolen in Ouaga—and therefore we had to pay someone to come break in. My latrine wasn’t finished with only one wall to go, of course it was the wall that faces the road. When we did get in my screen door was completely eaten by terminates and crumbing to the ground. There was ‘snake grass’ consuming my courtyard, which is dangerous so while we were waiting for the guy to break into my house the Peace Corps driver was so kind and started helping clean up my yard. By the time I was finally able to get all my stuff in it was pitch black out except for the fires of grass burning in my courtyard and the only noises are animals/insects in my filthy house.  My only thought was, ‘What have I gotten myself into?’

The good thing about a rough beginning is it can only get better or as my very wise mother told me ‘this too shall pass..’. The next day was filled with a cleaning of my house, ceiling to floor, with the help of my water girl Pelagie. Her husband and some neighbor kids came over and helped with all of the folage and outdoor cleaning, Finally it was starting to feel like I could live there. The first week I just roamed around meeting people and introducing myself. I met a dear friend Fati who sells Attceike in the marche and I’ve spent a lot of time just hanging and chatting with her,

The past week was the first week of school and I’m teaching 5eme Math and 4eme Physique-Chemie. My 4eme class is only about 50 but my 5eme is aournd 80. They were incredibly timid but hopefully I can get them talking more. Each class is two hours and it’s tiring but I’m sure after a month or so I will get used to it. I’m starting an English club for the 3eme students and hope to have the first session this week. 

My health is back to normal after a nasty case of E. Coli and am trying my best to adjust to the food. The lack of English is sometimes trying but it gives me a reason to keep working on my French. Life is much different than Sapone but I know it will just take time to figure it out. I have a new mailing address down here and would love to hear from everyone! If letters aren’t your thing emails work too! Please don’t leave me hanging over here in the dark—literally because I don’t have electricity—and keep me updated not only on new things that happen but just daily things! I’ll try to put new pictures up soon. Until next time..

What lies ahead.

In just a few days I will finally be an official Peace Corps volunteer. I swear-in on Thursday 22^nd and leave for my site on Monday.  My head is spinning and it’s not because of the dolo. This week has been one of those ‘this will pass’ kind of weeks. I got bit by a cat and therefore had to go to ouaga for rabies shots. My phone was stolen which really just made me sad more than make me angry, mostly because the people are here are such good people but they are just doing what they need to survive. The kicker though was that I had to leave my absolutely wonderful host family this week. These three months went faster than I could have ever imagined and they have raised me in a sense. They taught me how to wash my clothes by hand, how to poop in a hold in the ground, and most of all they showed me first hand the hospitality of this culture. I cried like a baby and am so grateful to them for showing me the ropes.

These past few weeks have been filled with IGA(income generating activity) training, TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) training, and latrine building. Peace Corps has really given us an incredible amount of some really useful tools and I’m so thrilled I’m finally going to be able to get to work. I start teaching in a few weeks and am filled wih excitement. And in all honesty I am scared out of my pants!

Congratulations to my beloved brother and now sister! :) Couldn't be happier for you guys.. xoxo

I never think of the future--it comes soon enough.
Albert Einstein