heyy

Heyy. Yes, yes, it's been a while, but don't fret, things have been good here, i've just been busy with finishing up my etude de milieu in village, and then going through my in-service training for the last three weeks. So I'll just give a QUICK re-count of my life since the last time I've posted:

Well, let's see. If we go back to the end of February, i traveled up to Djibo, a town farther north of me, in the Sahel, for an HIV/AIDS training of trainers with four of my villagers. We worked with the "action sociale" in Djibo to hold a workshop (in Moore, Fulfulde, and French) on HIV/AIDS, and how to teach others in the village about it. It was really good, but definitely hard at times, because none of the people i brought as my counterparts from my village were literate, so it made taking notes very difficult for them. Honestly though, i think they learned a lot, and now hopefully we'll all be able to work together back in village. I was hoping that Djibo would look drastically different than the beautifully dry and dusty Ouahigouya, but, the only major differences I saw were that there is an abundance of sand that's difficult to bike through, and the occasional camel. Oh, and the people speak Fulfude instead of Moore.

On to the beginning of March. I took another trip, this time to Ouaga, for FESPACO. Don't ask me what FESPACO stands for. I don't know. I can tell you though that it's a big pan-african film festival, the biggest in africa actually, which is probably the only thing tourists voluntarily come to Burkina Faso for unless they just happen to be strolling through on their way to Ghana or Mali. It only happens once every two years, so pretty much every volunteer in the country, plus those in surrounding countries came to Ouaga for it. I'm not sure how film festivals usually work, but there didn't seem to be any sort of program that gave descriptions of the films, so it was basically a "guess what the movie would be about/what language it would be in by the title and country of origin" game. Yea, i didn't play that game too well, but it's ok. I did see one movie in Moore with French subtitles, which was cool just because it was in my local language, but it felt a little bit like i was just living my every day life in two dimensions. My transport back to village from FESPACO was a bit comical because my bike didn't come back on the same bus as me due to a lack of any free space whatsoever on that bus. SO, the bus company said they'd put it on the next bus and it'd meet me in Ouahigouya, which was no big deal. Erik, Josh (who doesn't live near us but was traveling with us), and I putzed around OHG for a few hours waiting for the next bus to come in, only to find that they had absolutely not put our bikes on that bus at all. Of course. They assured us though, that they'd definitely be in the next day at some point. Good good, that was helpful. It was starting to get dark, so we had a quick group meeting and decided that the best thing to do would be to walk to my village since it's the closest to OHG and none of us had enough money with us for a hotel. We started walking, and every single Burkinabe who saw us had the exact same reaction to our lack of bicycles. They would stop, be utterly shocked and appalled at the fact that we were walking and not riding a bike, and then hop off their own moto or bike and insist upon accompanying us all the way to our destination. Inevitably, after roughly 40 steps of walking with us, they'd say "uhh well, i'm going to get going now, uhh bon courage!" I guess we fatigued them. The way back into OHG the next morning would have been a bit more miserable, seeing as the sun was shining at full force; however, a camion saw us walking when we were about halfway there and offered to pick us up. We accepted.

After FESPACO i only had about 2 weeks in village to finish up my « etude de milieu » and do some more integrating into my community, before heading off again for my 3 week in-service training, which i’m just finishing up right now. I’m heading back to village tomorrow, which i’m very excited about, and i’m also hoping that my near month long absence hasn’t set me back in the integration process. Before i left though, things were going really well in terms of feeling like part of the community. I started playing soccer with the boys who play everyday in an attempt to show them that girls can actually do sports (i may be doing more harm than good with my sub-par soccer skills, but i try). Instead of just staring at me like i’m a fascinating modern art exhibit, the kids actually come in and talk to me now. Granted, i don’t always know exactly what they’re saying, but usually i can figure it out based on their karate kicks, their sound effects, or their vigorous pointing in one direction or another. Now, every night, the women in my courtyard call me out to their nightly chat/gossip sessions, which again, is all in Moore, but we’re getting to be pretty good at understanding each other with my limited Moore, and their even more limited French. I’ve taught the kids in my courtyard how to dance like an american. Or wait, how to dance like I do, so maybe not really like an american, more like a spastic monkey, but i did show them the maccareana, so that should count for something. Right before I left, there was some crazy man (a fou) walking around my village, not really doing anything bad, just being generally crazy, but he wasn’t from my village, so all the little kids were afraid of him. My favorite little six year old brother, Saba (yes, like what I call my grandfather), came running to my door, saying « ILANA !! QUICK LET ME IN, HE’S COMING, HE’S COMING , I’M SCARED ! » So i let him into my courtyard, and he sat with me while i washed my underwear (which is why my courtyard door was closed in the first place), avoiding the scary man (but really occasionally excitedly getting up and looking through the holes in my courtyard door to see if he was out there). It was nice to know that he thought i could protect him.

Oh, also, as a reward for losing my phone so many times, and then having to buy a new one on more than one occasion, my phone company (ZAIN) gave me a bunch of gifts, including a couple ZAIN pagnes, out of which i had matching dress/shirt outfits made for me and Erik. Below is the result (please try to ignore the insane t-shirt tan lines):