Burkina Blast #2

Here is the latest from fabulous friend and Peace Corps volunteer extraordinaire Elizabeth.



January marks six months for me in Burkina Faso. Every once in a while, I still have those paralizing moments where I can't recall the chain of events that got me here or where I am. Most of those moments come in the morning, in the first few seconds of being awake after dreaming about the states. I rub my eyes, look up at the mosquito net covering my bed, hear a rooster crow outside my window, and think, "Oh right, I'm in Africa."

But for the most part, life here is beginning to feel normal, and in a sense, the honeymoon of being a newcomer here is over. I've made a conscious effort to settle in to stop feeling like a tourist on an extended vacation: I hung up curtains in my new home, got a puppy, and taught myself how to make french bread pizza with homemade, unrefrigerated cheese (mmmm...). Anything that can make a place with dirt roads, mud huts, and roosters feel somewhat like home.

SMALL BUSINESS WORK

For the past few months in Ziniare, I have been playing the role of a community observer. I've spent the majority of my time with Jacques, the charismatic president of an artisan's association in town. His association was formed two years ago, and is still very much in its infancy stages. The association has thrown two regional arts & crafts festivals in the past, and now wants to take things to a national or even international level with satelite offices in Senegal, Mali, and the United States. The sky is the limit for Jacques. However, from what I have observed, the association is far from being ready to go national OR international - lacking even the basic balance sheet, sense of project management, or concept of realistic goal-setting. THINK kids and lemonade stands, and you aren't far from the extent of most businesses here. I feel like I have my work cut out for me with this association.

HEALTH WORK

Throughout this time, I've been keeping my eyes and ears peeled for additional activities to begin in Ziniare. A missionary I met at the American Embassy one day gave me a tip: plant moringa trees. They are fascinating, drought resistant plants with leaves so nutrient-rich that they could be used to address malnutrition worldwide if villagers simply added bits of the leaves like spices into sauces at dinner. Gram for gram, the leaves contain 7 times the vitamin C in oranges, 4 times the calcium in milk, and 4 times the vitamin A in carrots. Unfortunately, few here are informed and word is only starting to get out about these plants. (If you are interested, check out http://www.treesforlife.org/. Cool organization.) Convienently, my home neighbors Ziniare's medical center, which is finishing construction on a new rehabilitation building for malnurished children. My home is also adjacent to an unused plot of land that is crying out to be cultivated. So I'm starting to see a few puzzle pieces fit together quite nicely here.

POLITICS

Because Ziniare is the hometown of Burkina Faso's president, political factors are always present (just when I thought I might get a break from hearing about politics by moving away from Washington...). In last November's election, the president was re-elected with 80% of the vote. I heard that businessmen from Ziniare pooled together 23,000,000 CFA (the equivalent of $45,000) to give to the president for his re-election....which is HUGE money. Even Jacques at the artisans association was ready to buy new leather couches for politicians that were willing to fund the next artisans festival. I told him I was appauled. All this while the country is crippled by extreme poverty. Honestly, when you see the magnitude of the corruption here by politicians who have the money and power to save lives and don't, it literally makes you want to write a letter to George Washington himself just to say thank you a million times over for not taking the power and running with it when he had the chance.

RELIGION

There's a beautiful sculpture garden in a field in a village beside Ziniare with a granite stone carving in it that says "Silence. La nature parle." ("Silence. Nature is speaking.") My Burkinabe friends here often resign themselves to silence here when faced with the problems of their corrupt government, or the scope of the poverty that effects almost every family. I think they believe that nature is taking it's course. It may be a concept woven into animism, the religion of most Burkinabe. I'm not sure. But often, they defer to their religion when it comes to accomplishing a project, carrying out actions, or when encountering a problem. I hear "Dieu est grand" (" God is good") or "Avec la grace de dieu" ("With the grace of god") at least ten times a day. Sometimes, it can be phenomenally frustrating, especially if you believe your friends can do something themselves to improve the situation. I try to take the approach that there are just as many benefits to having religion play such a strong role in the culture as there are drawbacks. On Christmas Day, I sat in on a mass with my host family, and my host cousin Blanche translated the priest's sermon from the local language into french for me. The priest talked about forgiveness on Christmas, and how we must forgive our neighbors and ourselves, and teach this to our children. For a country on such fragile ground, there is real comfort in watching words like this get spread through communities, no matter what the medium.

FINALLY...

Today I'm in Ouagadougou writing up my final report on my observations of Ziniare for Peace Corps Washington. Then, over the next few months, I'll be trying to put some things into action with the artisans association and moringa trees before the rainy season begins. Wish me luck, as we are about to enter the hot season here...average daily temperature 105 degrees fahrenheit, from March until May. My next email to you all might just have to be from the beaches of Ghana :)

Alright, a final African proverb for your day: "If you want to walk fast, walk alone. But if you want to go far, walk together."

A la prochaine.