End of Stage

Training is over, and I’m now officially a peace corps volunteer, though we aren’t being affectated to our sites until December 26 because the people at the bureau were afraid that we would be depressed if we were all alone for Christmas/the holidays. So we’re all hanging out in Ouahigouya until we go our separate ways. It’s like the end of camp. We don’t know for sure when the next time we’ll all see each other will be. It’s quite sad to be leaving everyone, but it’ll be exciting

In the last few weeks, in addition to being sworn in as a volunteer (on Burkina national television!) many important events have transpired. I left my host family in Somyaaga last week, which was really sad, but since my site is only about 14K from them, I’ll be able to visit them often. Before we left our training villages, we had a big party/thank you ceremony for all the host families. The day of the ceremony, my host family reminded me way too much of my united states family, as we were about an hour late for the ceremony. My dad and I were the only ones ready in time, and he was waiting impatiently on his moto, and then decided to just leave without everyone so that at least one representative from our family would be there. I probably should have left with him, but I thought that if I stayed and waited for everyone else, they’d try to get ready faster. He ended up coming back home, telling us that everyone else was there and waiting, and then leaving again before the rest of us left. It was very abba-esque. So me and 5 of my sisters ended up riding our bikes to the ceremony, and my moms (yes, plural) and the rest of my siblings walked. All the trainees in my village were supposed to give a speech thanking their families, but by the time I got there, everyone else had already finished, and they were just waiting on me to give mine, but then I had to wait for the rest of my family to arrive because I wanted my mom to hear my speech. Good thing Burkinabe are extremely patient. Finally, after much waiting, she and the rest of my straggler family sprinted it in to much applause, and I delivered my “speech” in both French and Moore (pronounced more-ay). Just for fun, and in case you’re curious as to what Moore is like, here’s what I said:

French version: Je voudrais dire merci a toute ma famille pour votre hospitalité durant mes deux mois a Somyaaga. Je sens que je suis vraiment un membre de la famille. La famille va beaucoup me manquer, et j’espère que nous allons continuer à entretenir nos relations quand je serais a Bissighin.

Moore version: M baaba, m ma, m yapa ne m kem damba faa. Mam puusda yamb barka, yamb sen n sak n deeg maam yamb zaka puga. Wakat kanga faa, mam lebga wa yamb zaka biiga. Mam na tagsda yamb yel wakat faa. Y-Barka!

Rough translation of Moore version: My father, my mother, and all my siblings. I want to thank you very much for opening up your home to me. Through all of this time, I feel like I have become like a true member of the family. I will think about you all the time. Thank you!

Our swear-in ceremony was like a graduation of sorts. There were speeches by important political/traditional figures of the Yatenga Province (where Ouahigouya is), our Country Director, The Ambassador, and 3 members of our training class. We then took an oath given to us by the Ambassador, and voila!, We’re volunteers! The peace corps invited 2 members from each host family to our swearing in ceremony, and my mom and dad came, and afterwards, my mom said “mam nonga fo” which means “I love you”, and then she said something to the effect of “you are like my real child”. Hearing (and understanding) her say that was the highlight of my day, and a highlight of my time in Burkina so far.

We also spent this week meeting and getting to know our counterparts who we’ll be working with in village. The role of the counterpart is to support you in your projects, help you get integrated into the village, and help you out with any other things you might need. Every health volunteer’s counterpart is the head nurse at the CSPS, but the small enterprise development volunteers that we’ve been training with have counterparts who are various leaders of different organizations or women’s groups, etc.

The last couple days have been shopping days in Ouahigouya, which has been probably the most exhausting thing I’ve done yet. If you are opening up a new site, as in, you’re the first volunteer who’s ever been there, which I am, you get 200,000 cfa of “settling in” money to buy everything you need for your house. That’s about 400 american dollars. Erik and I shopped together and basically spent two days in the Marché (outdoor market) gathering all the things we needed including gas stoves, gas tanks, lipicots (cot), buckets, mattresses, etc. We paid for everything together because it was just easier that way, and then we’d stop every now and then to figure out our math. We would just find random benches to do our calculations on, and re-group before we continued shopping. It was kind of funny; if we picked a bench that was in too much sunlight, people would make us get up and then they’d move it into the shade for us. They really really don’t like it when you are in the sun. Also, a side-effect of us shopping and paying for everything together is that the furnishings of our houses will look close to identical. Oh well. We found a donkey cart to bring all our stuff to the place we’re staying in Ouahigouya, and then on affectation day, the peace corps will help us take it to our sites. We also went to a carpenter and had him make a countertop to use for cooking and a little table to eat at. That will be transported by way of donkey cart as well, straight to my village.

Happy channukkah and merry Christmas to everyone! I’m sharing a room with three other girls right now, and one of them made a paper menorah for me to color in candles every night. We’ve been having nightly channukkah ceremonies in which we sing the blessings and I share some chocolates (courtesy of my grandmother and grandfather in the U.S…thank you sabba and savta!).

Ok, it is getting to be dinner time and im hungry. Check facebook for pics cause they dont seem to be uploading here. Ill try again next time, but for now, there are a few on facebook.