Guest Post 2: Ya Soma - Our Visit to Ilana in Burkina Faso - and Bissighin

By Ken Cliffer, Ilana's Abba (father, Ilana Baba), with guest guest comments by Nicki Cliffer, Ilana's mother (Ilana Ma)

“She’s ours now; she belongs to us.” That’s what people in Bissighin, the village where Ilana is serving, said when they met us, Ilana’s parents. Their appreciation and pride in what she’s doing to help them is clear and deep. “Look what she’s doing for us,” said one of the women we were visiting in her one-room house, pointing to her healthy child. Ilana is clearly making a positive difference in their lives.

In a previous ‘blog post (http://ilanacliffer.blogspot.com/2010/04/ghana-marriage-season-and-life-skills.html) Ilana described our arrival and greeting her in Mooré (the language) at the airport. We had practiced it diligently on the plane, using her instructions. As she had anticipated, our greetings later delighted her villagers, who anyway are delightful people, readily eager for and delighted by personal engagement. Or they were amused when we got it a little wrong, like saying “ne yibyego” (good merning) instead of “ne yibyogo” (good morning). In any case, they greatly appreciated our attempts, even though we could say little more than good morning, good day, good evening, good night, and it’s good (ya soma).

After arriving at the airport, we returned with Ilana to the taxi she had engaged to wait for us. We arrived at night. The small airport was teeming - crowded with smiling and chattering people who helped us negotiate our way through customs. Heading outside, we walked down a concrete ramp bordered on each side with metal handrails that held back a crowd on either side. Ilana's face was the one white face in the sea of welcoming smiles surrounding us. As Ken mentioned, Ilana had a taxi waiting for us. Burkinabé taxis are a breed unto themselves. This one, like most others, had the requisite cracked windshield, no mirrors, and ripped upholstery. I seem to recall plastic covering one missing window. Thankfully, it didn't have a hole through the floor. The night-time streets, some paved and some dirt, were mostly dark, lit by street lights in only a few places. The city was quiet.

At the hotel in Ouagadougou, a long discussion between Ilana and the taxi driver ensued in Mooré. Ilana was wielding the language with finesse, standing up to the driver regarding the fees. She assured us that this was par for the course; a usual feature of the culture was to “negotiate” with some vigor. Seeing her wield the languages (Mooré and French) and stand up with assertiveness in the culture to avoid being taken advantage of was impressive.

Left and above: Courtyard of the hotel in Ouagadougou.

The hotel cost the equivalent of about $20 a night – on the expensive side for Burkina Faso. It was especially fancy, having showers – although in our first night’s room, nothing prevented the shower water from seeping from the curtainless shower area in the bathroom into the bedroom area, flooding it. The room we were in later was better in this regard.

Ilana exhibited her assertiveness and language facility again the next day in the marché (market) in Ouagadougou – everywhere we went, people followed us around entreating us to buy their wares or come into their shops. At one point, Ilana, in Mooré, simply told a guy who had tapped her on the shoulder, “Leave me alone,” and pulled away, to the cheers and applause of the Burkinabé women around us. I suspect that her assertiveness there only made her and us more attractive and challenging as subjects, as the attempts at engagement continued until we departed, even though (or possibly partly because) we bought a few things. Since almost nobody there speaks or understands English, Ilana could talk with us relatively freely in English about what was going on and what she thought about it (not always positive) – a switch from our usual pattern in which we use Hebrew for that purpose in an English-speaking environment (I speak nearly exclusively Hebrew with our children, in any case).

Left: In the marché in Ouagadougou. The marché in Ouaga was overwhelming! If you go, be prepared to be followed by crowds of people entreating you to buy... I was wearing a straw hat with a wide brim (a Target or CVS garden hat special). One of the shop owners begged us to follow him to his shop - where, after threading our way through the narrow corridors flanked with colorful shops and stalls, we saw that he sold conical straw hats. He was surprised that I didn't immediately jump at buying his hats since they were, according to him, much better than mine.

Ilana hired a driver, Bill, to drive us around for the first couple of days, until our last night in Ouagadougou. He turned out to be very helpful in helping mediate in some interactions, although he sometimes was too attentive for Ilana’s taste – for example, at times in the marché. But all in all, he was appropriately attentive and helpful. As Ilana pointed out it would be, the marché in Ouahigouya, which we visited some days later, was much more subdued and free of the energetic marketing tactics.

The day after we arrived, we stopped by the Peace Corps transit house, where we picked up Ilana’s Peace Corps friend and colleague Sara. We got cash from the ATM, and met up with Bill, the driver. We drove to Nazinga Park, by way of the artist’s colony outside of Ouagadougou.

Left: At the artist’s colony, Ilana, me (Ken, Ilana’s abba=dad), and Sara, standing by a loom for weaving recycled plastic bags into fabric for purses, wallets, and other items; as Ilana and her colleagues have pointed out in their ‘blog entries, little is wasted.

In Po near Nazinga Park, we had dinner with Ilana’s Peace Corps colleague Daniel, at a restaurant that had a big painting of Barack Obama on the outside wall (sorry, we forgot to photograph it).

After dinner in Po, we were running late getting to Nazinga Park, not far from Ghana, where we had arranged to spend the night. It was dark by the time we got onto the long dirt road from Po to the park. On the way, we saw (presumably) controlled fires set to burn off the brush (below).

When we arrived at the park entrance, we had to convince the guard to let us in, since the park had officially closed for the day. When we arrived to the housing area (several incredibly long, bumpy, dark, and scary [as in, what-do-you-do-if-you-meet-an-elephant?-scary] additional kilometers up the road), we had to search for someone to get us into the housing – we found the person who would end up serving as our guide on our “mini-safari” the next day, who had access to keys to some of the cabins. We got in, and shortly thereafter the lights went out. We showered in the dark, using our head-lamps (no photos of that, either).

The next morning, we met our guide, and after encouraging the truck to start (left), we departed on our “mini-safari” drive through the park. The guide was remarkable in his ability to see animals before they became apparent to us.

Left: Wildebeest.

One of our hopes was to see elephants in the wild. When we didn’t see them right away, we inquired about how often one would. The guide estimated about a 50-50 chance. So, when we finally saw an elephant family in the brush, we were excited. After we passed by, it crossed the road behind us.

Left: Elephants crossing. OK - I can't resist. If you don't like groaners, skip the following.

Q: What's the difference between an elephant and a grape? A: Their color.

Q: What did Jane say when she saw the elephants coming over the hill? A: Here come the elephants over the hill.

Q: What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming over the hill? A: Here come the grapes. He was colorblind.

Seriously, the elephants were amazing. Such large and graceful creatures living in their natural habitat, and we were able to share a momentary peek into their lives. Breathtaking!

Below: Standing in the back of the truck – me, the guide, and Ilana – the view was better from there, without the truck structure blocking it.

Bill, afraid of the elephants, started speeding up to get away from them. The guide, who was in the back of the truck (at that time the rest of us were still inside) banged on the roof of the vehicle. We think that was a signal to stop so we could observe the elephants. But Bill sped up. A misunderstanding ensued regarding whether we were going to try to see them again, between some of us and the guide, which Bill eventually helped mediate. We resolved it, and continued on to a water reservoir where we saw another family of elephants bathing and apparently doing in the water what animals do (this we did photograph, although detail is murky - see below). The reservoir had a nice observation area alongside it.

Left: The elephants, the guide, Ilana, and Sara.

Below, right: The elephants and all of us with Bill, our driver.

Below, left: The elephants frolicking (?) in the water.

Below, right: The park office, and our truck.

We returned to the office area, checked out, and got on our way back to Ouagadougou, via Po.

Below, left: Baboons we saw when we were on the way out of the park.

Below, right: The entrance gate to Nazinga Park (looking back toward the park on the way out).

Below, left: Daniel, Ilana, Sara, and me, dining in Po (Nicki took the picture). I (Nicki) took most of the pictures because the camera was the one I received as a birthday gift (thanks to all who contributed).

We returned to Ouagadougou, stayed overnight again in the hotel, and headed on the bus to Ouahigouya, after some delay getting going. Ilana told us about the bus schedules (you can read an earlier blog entry of hers that includes interesting bus experiences: http://ilanacliffer.blogspot.com/2009/12/dogon-country-and-jms.html). They have schedules, but when a bus gets full, it goes; thus, you can’t rely on the schedule, but need to know the practices. The schedules just mean that yes, there are buses, and yes, they go to those places. Times have nothing to do with schedules.

Right: the erstwhile bus schedule.

Below, left: the gathering people waiting to get on the bus.

When we finally got going, we were on a bus that was arriving in Ouahigouya a little on the late side.

Below, right: Kids among those who sell stuff at every stop.

Below, left: Ilana buying some bread through the window (the common practice). Kids surround the bus whenever it stops. They have their wares on their heads (bread rolls, sesame-honey wafers, irradiated water in plastic bags called sachéts, and other foods). People who buy something automatically offer to share it with their neighbors. It's a sharing kind of culture, where even kids are shared around. A woman got onto the bus with an older toddler and twin babies. The bus conductor (not the driver, but the guy who punches tickets) without blinking an eye, plopped one of the babies in Ilana's lap for the duration of the mom's (and kids') trip. Baby was happy, mom was happy. Ilana just shrugged her shoulders and said - that's how things are done. Baby was not wearing a diaper by the way (diapers are not common, if they exist at all, in Burkina; we didn't see any). Good thing it's hot and things dry out fast.

When we got to Ouahigouya, the sun was setting. Ilana’s plan was for Nicki and me to rent motos to ride to the village.

Nicki tried it. Below: From the look on her face, you see why she used Ilana’s bicycle. Right. First time trying a motorized bike since - well, ever. At night, dirt roads. Bumpy, pitted, sandy roads with no light other than our camping head lamps. No practice in making that thing behave (i.e., stop, go, and turn on command). No thanks. I was much happier on the bicycle.

Ilana used Ashley’s bicycle (a friend stationed in Ouahigouya). I rented a moto, which was our main light except for small headlamps that we all had. The ride to Bissighin on the dirt road was hazardous, but interesting. We all fell once or twice as we hit patches of sand (so tasty - that red sand), or looked back (me) to see why the others were having trouble. But we made it.

Ilana tried – but not entirely successfully – to bring us in (sneak us in, really) along a route that would avoid our having to pass the villagers, who would reprimand her for bringing us back so late at night. (Which, when they saw her, they did.) Nevertheless, we were greeted warmly, especially so as we used the Mooré greetings Ilana had taught us.

During our stay, we observed some of the life in the village, much of which Ilana has described in her posts. We’ll just hit a few of the highlights, emphasizing some of Ilana’s activities.

Ilana has previously described the savings and investment club she helped organize, which also makes and sells soap (see #3 in http://ilanacliffer.blogspot.com/2010/01/ahh-hello.html). The soap is a scarce commodity, and, therefore, is valuable (by their standards). Below: The beginning of the soap-making process – in which concentrated soap material is stirred and then diluted with water – fresh water and salt water alternately.

Left: After the mixture sits for a day or two for the bubbles to dissipate, the color (green) and perfume is added, and the mixture is bottled for sale. (Also see Ilana’s colleague Erik Durant’s description on his ‘blog here: http://erikspeacecorpsexperience.blogspot.com/2010/02/hi-ho-hi-ho.html).

One of the days I was washing dishes (using valuable soap and water sparingly). Ilana’s liquid soap was in a wide-mouthed container that I accidentally knocked off the counter, and quite a bit spilled on the dirty concrete floor. I used a wet sponge to wipe it up – squeezing it into the water in a bucket. When I had completed one round of this, I asked Ilana where to dump the soapy wastewater. She told me she’d take care of it. When she returned with the empty bucket, I asked her where she’d put it. She confessed that the women would not let her waste good soap, so they had rescued it to use, such as for washing clothes. She likewise rescued a second bucket-full. Little gets wasted.

Another resource that is best not to waste, as it takes time and energy to collect, is the wood for fires for cooking. One of the projects Ilana has described (see http://ilanacliffer.blogspot.com/2009/06/risky-business.html, which has her reference to Gwen's 'blog on it) is her teaching the villagers to make "improved cookstoves," which allow much more efficient use of the wood.

They build the stoves up with mud bricks (i.e., from the soft mud made from termite mounds and straw, which has been prepared before and sat for the right amount of time), around a pot of the size that will go on top. Left: one of the women holding a soft mud brick that will be incorporated into the wall of the stove (and smoothed in, so that the brick is no longer distinct). The partially completed stove is next to the pot at the upper left of the picture.

Below, right: A nearly finished stove (but not yet dried) with the proud craftswomen (and a boy who likes being photographed). An opening for putting in the wood under the pot will be cut later when it has dried a little more; the pot goes over the opening at the top.

Below, left: Near where the women were building the stove a young man was building a house, prerequisite to obtaining a wife. You can see the size of this house where the woman (and, eventually, her children) will live – the men live in separate quarters.

Below, right: The future husband mixes the mud that serves as mortar between the already-prepared mud bricks.

In Ouahigouya we visited the man who owns the house where Ilana is staying in the village – and on another trip we visited the family Ilana had stayed with while she got training for her service – a more affluent family in a town on the other side of Ouahigouya. Ilana biked for both trips. For the first, Parfait, the head nurse, took Nicki to Ouahigouya on his motorbike while I rode the little moto – and then Nicki rode with me back to Bissighin afterwards. She rode with me on the entire trip to Ilana’s initial host family. (Ow ow ow... no cushions!!)

Left: After our visit, Ilana’s initial host family escorted us to the edge of their village. In the foreground is her host father. (It was such a pleasure to meet this family. Ilana was lucky to have had such a wonderful host family.)

Below, right: Here they all are with us (Ilana set the camera to shoot us on delay, so she could get into the picture).

After we had been in Bissighin for a day or two, one of the residents pointed out that they would have to have a dance in our honor. Because they started late, they decided to finish the dance the next day - so we had two dances in our honor. Once with a lot of dancing, with singing for the music, and another time with a lot of singing, and some dancing to go along with it. This second time, one of the men in the village was tape recording the singing – perhaps why the dancing was less consistent, being distracted by the recording. The dancing and singing in our honor was nearly exclusively the women (and older girls) – although one of the older men took part around the edge during the second session – and ventured into the middle of it once or twice. But it was mainly the women. Below: A video of the first dance session. Some of the songs sounded like they included Ilana's name, presumably honoring her (and us). (The women and men laughed when Ilana and I joined in the dancing.)

Below: A video of the second dance session, with the old man involved - wearing green and carrying a stick.

Below: The kids pick it up dancing around the edges (the same old man is at the end of this clip).

We stopped by the school one day. On the way, we met a group of kids leaving – left – their teacher had not shown up.

The instruction is somewhat spotty, partly because the attendance and attention of the teachers is. Below, right: One of the teachers preparing a meal during school hours outside of the classroom. (Absolutely lovely people, but we did not see a bit of teaching done.)

Below, left: Classroom. The kids were excited to greet us.

Ilana’s main activity centers around fostering health practices, particularly that of the children, and focused around the health center – the one for which we walked for water (see our previous guest ‘blog entry). Ilana and her associates conduct many types of “sensibilizations” associated with the nutritional efforts (as well as other efforts). Here, Ilana and Aguera, the pharmacist, “sensibilize” the women who have brought their children and babies to be weighed, in light of the slippage that had occurred after their original instruction and success in feeding the children well – as evidenced by the children’s weights and arm measurements.

Left: Parfait, the head nurse, also got into the act.

Below: Ilana is weighing and measuring the children, prior to the above interactions. The measurement is of the upper arm circumference, which indicates the nutritional status.

One day when we stopped by the clinic, a woman had just given birth to her tenth child – here they are (below, left).

Before we left, we were gifted with many, many peanuts, and with some traditional clothing (seen in a picture below and in one of Ilana’s previous entries in which she mentioned our trip: http://ilanacliffer.blogspot.com/2010/04/ghana-marriage-season-and-life-skills.html). I was gifted a Barack Obama cap, Nicki received a beautiful beaded necklace, and we were both gifted with a live chicken. We were expected to have Mr. Chicken (yes, I know) for dinner on the day we left. The chicken rode upside down on Ilana’s handlebars into Ouahigouya (see one of Ilana’s first few ‘blog entries for another gifted-chicken-on-handlebars story: http://ilanacliffer.blogspot.com/2008/11/tale-of-two-chickens-sorry-erik.html), was then transferred to the luggage compartment of the bus to Ouagadougou, and finally to the trunk of the taxi we took from the bus station to the Peace Corps transit house. By the time we arrived there, it was a bit thirsty – Nicki saw to slaking its thirst while it waited outside the transit house. ("Here chickie-chickie-chickie - drink something!!!" For some reason the guard and the gardener thought this was hilariously funny.) We won’t discuss its fate here, but let’s just say that the guard at the transit house had the makings of a good dinner sometime after that. We also left some of the peanuts for the transit house denizens, and took lots with us as well (we still have some left - anyone want to share some peanuts?)

Left: Us with the chicken, and in our gifted clothing (well, I'm holding instead of wearing the cap; note that in our previous guest ‘blog entry, I am also wearing this clothing for the Walk for Water – see pictures here: http://ilanacliffer.blogspot.com/2010/05/guest-post-walking-for-water.html).

Here are a few more random photos and observations from our trip:

Below, right: A photo we like – woman carrying child.

Below, left: Woman carrying some things, including pots and pans.

Below, right: Kids playing foosball at the foosball table at the edge of the village.

Below: Kids playing soccer and bike-tire.

Burkina Faso is very dry and dusty, at least during the season we were there. You saw it from Ilana’s entry about the dust storm (a couple of entries ago: http://ilanacliffer.blogspot.com/2010/04/inside-orange-sky.html). I had had a minor skin biopsy done shortly prior to making the trip, and found that controlling infection in the wound was a substantial and constant battle. As most people there do, we wore sandals or flip-flops, allowing our feet to dump heat (and moisture) and to pick up dust and bacteria. Therefore, we also constantly battled dryness and infection on our feet, putting antibiotic cream and lotion on them at least once daily after we washed them.

Our “free” loaner phones from Verizon were far from free. At one to two dollars per minute charges, we thought we’d use them only for occasional communications or emergencies. It turned out we used them a lot, to make and confirm arrangements. We would have done much better by buying phones in each country to which we went, dedicated to that country. When we were in Burkina Faso, we tried as much as possible to use unité that we bought for our use with Ilana’s phone. But we still used ours at times. It was particularly bad on other legs of our trip, when we did not have access to a local phone.

We were quite surprised by the group of travelers on the plane from Paris to Ouagadougou and back. Very few were black; the vast majority were white. But once in the country, the situation was quite the opposite – we rarely saw a white person other than ourselves and Ilana’s Peace Corps colleagues. One pair of older white women were in the marché on the first full day we were there, a white woman in the nature preserve was touring with her son who was on a missionary trip – and that’s about it. Otherwise, it was Peace Corps and us. Beyond an occasional call out from kids using the name for white people, perhaps some extra acknowledgement we might not have had as we traveled along the road on bikes and a moto, some extra attention in general, and the aforementioned “special” attention at the marché, we did not find that there was much consequence, and certainly no problem, being an unusual color. Of course, as noted above, we had Ilana assertively looking out for our interests and preventing our being taken advantage of.

When we left the country, although Nicki loved the country and the people - and would go back any time, she was relieved to be getting back to her more accustomed way of life. (Unbelievable how comforting bland blue airplane seats can be.) I’m a little more tolerant of the rough life, so I didn’t have the same reaction. One of the flight attendants did comment on my sandals for going in the winter to Paris – which I did eventually change (in Charles de Gaulle Airport). We were a little taken aback by the fumigation of the plane with us passengers in it, upon leaving Africa. (Do watch out for that. No one warned us.) In any case, regardless of Nicki’s relief, we both valued immensely the time we had getting to know the country, seeing a place in which ancient ways of living were still largely being practiced (albeit with a creeping influence of western artifacts and customs). I was particularly impressed with the sense of connection to ancient ways, including, but not confined to, the dancing (among other occupations, I have been a dancer [modern]). But technology is changing things slowly – in the case of the technology Ilana is bringing and the way she is bringing it, in a way organically integral with the ancient ways, for the better, for health and well-being of the people, as reflected by their gratitude and love for her and what she’s doing.

We went to and from Burkina Faso by way of Paris, where we had lovely visits with my cousin Don and his wife Maguy. (Hi, Don and Maguy - it was such a lovely visit with you! Thank you so much for everything.) We returned home via a several-day visit in Israel. (That was fantastic and amazing; we were able to see friends from childhood (Nicki), family (Ken and Nicki), former kibbutz hosts (Ken), and people in the dance world (modern and folk). Hi to all!!!) We then spent a day and two nights in England – with a trip to Cambridge. But as Ilana would be quick to point out, these are not the subject of this ‘blog, so if you’re interested in these experiences, give us a call, or write, or, better yet, come to visit. We have a room for you about the size of a Bissighin house. (More room than that - and we'd love to see you, so please come!)

Right: With Don and Maguy in Paris (at the Louvre).