I survived a week and a half

Dear everyone,

[WARNING: this blog entry might be … hard to read… it’s pretty long and full of gritty details of my moving to site and my inability to deal with life there]

I’m laying (not lying) on a comfy bed, the same bed, actually, that I stayed in on my way down this way to my site a week and a half ago. I am more relaxed than I can remember being, and seeing as it’s only 10:38 pm, I’m going to try to write out a big mental dump about the last week and a half, which was my first week and a half in Bagré, the village where I’ll be working for the next two years. That’s two years minus a week and a half, I might add, not that I miss America like it’s nobody’s business or anything.

We went to Ouagadougou first, since most of us needed to buy at least the most basic furnishings for completely empty houses, myself included. Ok it wasn’t completely empty – in my house’s defense there was a leaky canary and a modest table inside. We walked from the Transit House to the main road and waited for taxis. I was with a group of maybe 9 other PCVs (that’s right, I’m all sworn in and no longer a PCT). We got in two cabs, discutéd the price and headed off for downtownish. All told we hit a Burkina version of what’d I’d call the dollar store crossed with ocean state job lot crossed with target to get things with which to feed ourselves such as utensils and other hard to find items like cutting boards or sifters. We also bought stove tops here. Yes, stove tops. It’s like what you yourself have at home except two and a half burners instead of 4, half the area, and not including the oven below it. Therefore: stovetop. Then we sent two of us home to the Transit House with a cab filled with all the rest of our stuff and the rest of us went on to brave buying everything else. Long story short we ended up on a street corner with dozens of vendors coming up to us, competing to sell to us, competing to be heard. We we’re basically immobilized after a while both because the items we were buying were heavy (gas tanks, for example) and because the sellers were completely surrounding us. Eventually we got all we’d come for: mattresses, cots, pots, buckets, basins, pillows, clothesline, etc. We hired a guy in a pick up to haul it all off and take it back to the Transit House with Ray, Andrea and myself packed in on the back like sheep. Then we told the guy to drive us to the US Embassy where I indulged in a double cheeseburger with fries and KETCHUP and a large chocolate MILKSHAKE. The US Embassy has magical food.

Then I started to feel real sick. I went to the TV room and watched a little bit of that ballroom movie I can’t remember the name of staring Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez which all told isn’t that great of a movie unless you are obsessed with ballroom like yours truly. There is one particularly good tango in there, if I remember correctly. Then I started to really miss dancing. Like REALLY miss dancing. Wherever I go to grad school or med school there will be a good ballroom team there, no questions asked. It’s one of my requirements. Even dancing at a studio like the one in my town is fun and all but it’s not the same as having everyone around you competitively focused. Not that competition is the point but more like that’s the kind of ballroom I like. So I told myself it’s ok because if I set my living room up right then I could dance in there as much as I wanted (sans partner) since the floor is cement and I have socks and I don’t have nor will I ever have nearly enough furniture to need to fill in that space. The neighbors wouldn’t be able to see and I’d get my fix. Sometimes I wish I could fire my parents for not making me start ballroom when I was 3, en lieu de ballet, but then I quickly remember what a ridiculous thought that is.

Right, so I was feeling really sick. Not cuz of the life changing burger or orgasmic milkshake but more like the flu. Now let me tell you, getting the flu in the States sucks but getting the flu in Africa really blows or bites or whatever you want to call it. You just feel really dumb in a place where you could be suffering with Malaria or Tuberculosis or some exotic rash suffering with symptoms of the flu. I quickly hit the grocery store (bang) and went home to the Transit House and crashed with a couple others who had decided not to go out to the wine bar. Most of us had early departures the next day so it was the wise place to be anyway. Mainly I just wanted to die so I crashed on a mattress in the hallway and talked to Katherine in the States (as opposed to Katherine here) and then talked to a couple people who would be leaving before anyone got up to say goodbye.

Next morning was blurry and bleary. Everyone was over tired, over stressed, and sad and excited aux meme temps. Drivers came, quickly loaded up everyone’s mounds of stuff, and off went the first round of people. Just like that – most of us were gone. I wasn’t officially going to site till Monday so I chilled and went to breakfast and then came home, did some last minute labeling and took off with An and Marty’s kitten. Marty was hanging in the capital for another week to work on French, so I got his kitten. Not a bad deal since I knew I was going to be lonely out of my mind pretty soon.

An and I passed the night in Tenkodogo and Marty’s kitten stayed with me and eliminated all over me and the room (amazing really – she’s so tiny) so I got up early and washed out the sheets and scrubbed the mattress and the floor and then sat down to tea and waited for An’s driver to appear and whisk her away. We stayed and are again staying at this cute little auberge called Restaurant Leina. A small restaurant and a small auberge in a quiet part of Tenkodogo where you can spend the night for pretty cheap. Even running water and electricity! An’s driver came and took her away and then I was alone. Well not really I mean you are really never alone here, but I felt alone and it was sudden and clear and profound. My driver appeared shortly after and we drove the 45 km down to Bagré and I tried not to cry.

Crying, you see, would have done no good at all because this driver, who I don’t even know, is trying to be as nice and helpful as he can and all I want to do is scream and tell him, no no go back it’s not time yet I need you to turn around there’s no way I’m ready for this. But there’s no turning around and soon we were in Bagré and then no sooner were we at my house. But where is the key? Well… I don’t know. Last I saw, my neighbor had them. Well where’s my neighbor? Oh, he’s at Tenkodogo, says a boy. Of course he is; we were just there. Well that’s ok he lives with a boy who could get them. Ok well where’s the boy? Oh he’s at work. Where’s he work? The Prefecture, 7 km back. Ok well someone call my neighbor and have him call the boy and have the boy come here and find the keys and then give them to us. I don’t mind the wait. The hard part doesn’t really start till the car drives away so the longer we sit here doing nothing because my door’s locked the better for me and my fragile mind. Well wait we did. Almost an hour in fact but no one showed up. So the driver decided it was time to go to the Prefeture and find this guy and so we headed that way but ran into him at the gendarmarie, shooting the breeze with some gendarmes. My driver, being much the boy’s senior, chewed out the boy for his inconsideration for our situation then lectured him on the importance of delivering something like a key in a timely manner. The boy hung his head and admitted he was wrong and then gave us keys and helped sweep the dust and bat guano from my house. I don’t yet know my neighbor’s name, but he is the Proviseur for the Lycée I live next to and the boy who lives with him is named Benoit and best I can tell, he’s roughly my age.

Kids watching the bulls in the field between my house and the Lycée were called over to carry everything in the house and then two were told to start weeding my yard. Since my hard is 99.5 percent weeds, this was pretty straightforward. I don’t know why but there are separate and different keys for my house, kitchen and pantry respectively. It took another hour to track down the keys for the kitchen and pantry but by then everything was pretty well moved in the house. I let Marty’s kitten out of the box and her oversized voice filled my hollow house and could be heard at least three houses down.

Then the driver started saying his well-wishes for me and my stay at Bagré. He said all those sentimental things I couldn’t stand to hear at that time like what a good thing I am doing and how lucky they are to have me and how I’ll have a whole two years here and all that stuff. I started crying but looked away, down, over, turned around, whatever, to avoid crying in front of the driver and my new neighbor’s housemate. On top of it not being helpful to the situation, it’s just plain inappropriate here really. Crying in public’s not really an acceptable way of dealing with things here. The neighbors urged him to pass the night here and they started rolling out exceptional offers of hospitality that Burkinabé are notorious for, but the driver soon said he was sorry, but he had to go but that maybe one day he and his family would come down this way and get some cows and some land and be happy. After all, he said, it’s beautiful here.

And he’s right. A whole week and a half later and I still wake up every morning and look outside and remark to myself or to the cat how beautiful it is here. Everything is so vibrant. The green of the grass and trees is so green and the sky is such a blue with the most textured, deep clouds I’ve ever seen. The wind moving through the village creates an almost steady breeze through my house and the great barrage and lake are only a stone’s throw away, providing, much as the Atlantic did at home, a slightly milder climate to my village. Unless a nasty storm’s rolling in, I can always see at least a few big old bulls grazing, being observed by one or several boys. At least one point during the day a good sized group of thirty or more moves through and mows the field around my yard. These bulls are enormous! But boys of even 6 or 7 years old can watch them, herd them, push them, shove them, yank their tails, and even ride them without the bulls barely blinking an eye.

So they left and soon the kids weeding left and then finally I was alone. That’s ok, I told myself, I have plenty of things to do since all my stuff was plopped in the middle of my living room. The cat had plenty of things to do to, and helped me unpack every little thing. I moved the cot into one of the bedrooms. I moved the table against the wall in the living room. I put my filter up on the table. I moved my clothes in the bedroom. I rediscovered where I’d left my flashlights and toiletries. I kept going till within hardly any time at all everything seemed to be in it’s respective place; either in my bedroom or not. I looked at the other two empty rooms and frowned; I really didn’t like having rooms I didn’t know what to do with. I mean there’s really no way for one person to really need 4 rooms. So I closed the other two doors since the rooms were starting to scare me and I knew that come nightfall, I’d be even more scared. I hate houses I don’t know at night. So I was doin’ pretty well, so I sat down on the porch (as I had no chairs) and realized it had begun. The sense of not knowing what to do had started. So I just sort of sat there and felt pathetic with the kitten. Just sat there and inevitably thought to myself the worst thing I could have thought which was, wow, I’m going to be here for two years. In just two years I can go home. Two years?? Like that is anything even resembling a comforting thought.

It’s not that I don’t like it here. I mean I really kinda do. The people are so friendly and generous and welcoming that you wouldn’t even believe it if I told you. And so far being stared at wherever I go like I have a 5th arm hasn’t really bothered me. But it’s not America, and if I haven’t mentioned it by now, America is the best country in the world. Someone remarked over dinner the other night that perhaps the Peace Corps is a right-wing, super-patriotic-driven program, designed to attract recently graduated youth who are just about fed up with America’s problems, send them off to do good in the world, and in the process thoroughly convert them into more patriotic individuals than they ever imagined they were capable of becoming. It didn’t take long either. I went from someone who seriously considered living at least some sizable portion of my adult life in another, better, country – a country I didn’t have to feel so ashamed of – to being someone who has no intention of ever wanting to live anywhere else, all in a matter of a couple months. Live somewhere else? Who would do that? That’s crazy talk.

Sooner than I had time to really start feeling sorry for myself, sitting out there on the front porch with the kitten, two boys arrived with three bulls. They sat themselves down on a rock just a stone’s throw from my front gate and watched. Watched what? Watched the nassara. For hours they did this. I went up, introduced myself in Mooré, asked their names, promptly forgot them if I even properly heard them in the first place, and asked them how they were and how their bulls were. Ca va they said, in the quietest voice they could muster. And so it went. They were so sweet and I wished that there was someway I could get them to understand that their simple presence there on the rock in front of my gate was so comforting. With them there I wasn’t alone. The next day I gave them some bread with nutella on it and every day following their oldest sister, who brings them lunch in the middle of the day, has invited me to eat with them. It’s usually To, but it’s good on the scale of To, and anyway it’s nice not to eat alone. That’s how it goes here. Not everyone has everything they need, and some people have more than others, but if everyone constantly shares what they have then it sure does make for a better situation in the long run. That’s hard for me to get used to. Not that it’s good to share, but just the act of sharing in the first place. Not like I never learned how, it’s just that if you’re the one in the US who’s always the giving one, always the one that shares what she has, then more often than not, you’re going to get walked on and taken advantage of and not feel very good about it. Here it’s quite the opposite. The more you give, the more you get. On the order of… 7 catfish, 3 sodas, 3 bananas and 2 smoked fish. Not to mention my neighbor, the Proviseur, took me to the market and bought my whole first found of groceries for me along with a broom. He also took my stove to market to get it fixed for me when it wouldn't work and has since lended me 3 chairs. He's also shown me where to find most anything I want, or sent a kid to get it for me, took me to the carpenter and all in all has been a superb neighbor.

Meanwhile the cat has managed to figure out that I won't see her crapping in the house if she goes into my bedroom to do it since I can't see there from the door.

Food. Yes, now I get to cook for myself, which is generally a good thing. I don't require much to be happy with food, and if I'm cooking for myself then no problem right? Well kinda. Somehow this past week and a half I've managed to have no appetite. Like less appetite than I can remember ever not having in my entire life. I don't feel really sick either. Just don't want to eat. Take tea in the morning and then might feel a little hungry but not nearly enough to want to cook or eat what I had cooked. Thankfully for my body, people offer you a lot of food and I am obligated to eat some of it so I haven't been totally wasting away. It's not that it's that hot either. Sitting on my porch is nicer right now than Mystic is back home.

And going to site is really depressing - I'll be frank about that. The first three days were terrible. Listless in the day, not knowing what to do, not knowing anyone, meeting everyone, speaking three languages, being watched - stared at or glared at - scared at night by every little noise and feeling so profoundly alone. It's a beautiful place with wonderful people and it's not that hard to survive here anymore but there is such an utter feeling of emptiness. Two of our group went home this week. 2 more of my favorite people - Beth and Katherine. Now there are just 22 of my training group left.

So what made it bearable? The BBC world service, which I listen to at least 5 hours a day, my iPod (I swear I would have ETed by now without it), the kitten who talked so much you almost wanted her to go away and leave you alone (funny huh) and more than anything CALLS FROM HOME. I don't mean to sound pathetic, but without those things, I would have probably turned around by now.

And I have a puppy now! I'm giving back Marty's cat, but when I get home I'll still have this cute little clumsy male puppy who I've named Neo. He's gonna be a B---- to train. But we'll work it out. Ca va aller.

The other morning Benoit brought me 6 eggs I had asked for and 9 others he said were a cadeau, a present. This is something people do here - you go to market and buy 5 tomatoes and the lady throws in an extra one as a cadeau. But 9 eggs?? that's an enormous cadeau. Good thing I had 2 animals to feed. I cracked open the 5th egg and *bam* there it was: a tiny guinea fowl embryo. About 1 cm long, with some intricate blood vessels, two huge eyespots and a beating heart. I felt awful. Obviously cracking that shell was an irreversible action, so the chick was going to die, but that didn't mean I wanted to eat it. I mostly wanted to barf. I also didn't want to have to watch it cook or stir it up with the rest of my eggs. I also didn't want the cat, who was clawing up my pagne to slurp it down. So I tossed it in the compost - I just didn't know what to do. It was so unexpected and I was unprepared.

I met my new language tutor. I can't remember is name but he holds the national record for some sort of running in Burkina Faso. Since Burkina Faso's government doesn't treat atheletes quite the same way as America treats theirs, he's gone to America to train for some amount of time and I can tell since he speaks great English. Not awkward classroom English like I speak French, but when I talk to him I feel like I'm really talking. He will teach me Mooré, Bissa, and more French. The Peace Corps will pay up to about 20 dollars for this a month. Here, that amounts to a lot of classes.

One other thing that made this week and a half easier was text messaging. Here, relatively speaking, sending a text to another volunteer is super cheap and I must send between 1 and 10 texts a day. It's not much writing room but it's enough to say "I hate my life can I go home now? I got run over by a cow today how are you?" and get a really quick response back. Not like anyone's got much to do now; we're all sitting around being lost and often depressed, and possibly waiting for texts.

I made rice but there was so much gravel and sand in it that I couldn't eat it. I was afraid of breaking my teeth, which is one of the most common Peace Corps injuries. All of you out there buying pre-degraveled bagged rice should be ashamed of yourselves. My olive oil is gross only beacuse it tastes like olives and I don't like olives. The olive oil in the states is more mild and doesn't take on such a strong taste.

I went to the carpenter with my neighbor and had some shelves made so that the kitten and puppy would have a lower probability of crapping on my stuff and not the floor at night. Well here everything is custom made so I couldn't just say "I want shelves"; I had to give exact dimentions I wanted and since I'm here, those had to be in meters. Well I guessed. I now have the largest set of shelves in existance and they tower next to my cot that I sleep on. On the bright side they hold most of my belongings and food I don't want to keep in the pantry. I've also asked for the local old man to make me 4 wooden chairs. They're beautiful and I'll have to send you a picture once I get them.

But all in all everything's going to be ok. Once school starts time will fly instead of drag and in just a week and a half more I get to go to Ouaga for the VAC meeting for a couple days.

Things are getting easier instead of harder. But let me repeat, this isn't for everyone. You've got to be really good at feeling alone and different. Anyone at this point who quits ... well... no one can say anything bad about that. Not a bit.

So that's all for now. I will be back here in Tenkodogo at some point and at the least I'll be able to get online from the capital in less than a week and a half. Sorry no pictures at this time. All my solar stuff works great, but as a result of being down here in the rain belt, there's not a lot of sun. That'll change soon, and in the mean time I'll make do.

And CALL ME! A call from home literally makes my day or two days or possibly week.

Love you all, hope everyone's doing great.