New Pump

My school got a new pump.  Now we can start the garden and tree planting.  I have about 6000 seeds that I ordered through the PC and hopefully a fair amount of them grow.

Some ~7th graders in uniform at the pump.  They like serious pictures.

It it took a week or two to do all of the work.  Now the kids don't have to haul the water from the older, more distant pump.  You can see the classrooms in the background, my classes are the furthest right and the 3rd from the right, 2 7th grade classes where I teach math.  

The pump water is preferable compared to well water.  I would estimate the village is 50/50 between pumps and wells.  Pump water is better to drink, though not the best.  I'm working on filter setups that can be built cheaply in village using plastic buckets or clay pots and sand and clay for filtering.  

Can't play until the stupid cow moves

Always getting in the way

Clothes

All of the clothes you see here were pieces of fabric a couple of weeks ago.  One simply goes to the market to the fabric guys, picks out the fabric, takes it to the tailor, they size you up and make anything.  Its so easy, and better fitting.  These are my city nightlife clothes.

You learn a lot about yourself in Burkina, with so much time to sit on your porch and read.  I've found that I am definitely a white pants type of guy.  You can literally do anything here, any color, any style, and it all works, there aren't really rules about colors and stuff.

I suppose the obvious next post would be on the enormous task to keeping those stupid pants white.

Soccer Time

Soccer season has started.  My team plays against high schools from Banfora.  For away games they pile into one of the bush taxis (pictured in earlier posts) and drive over.  They are pretty good, despite being a middle school and not having the top 3 grades that the high schools have.  They won their second game in penalty shoot off, they don't have extra time or ties.

All of the spectator kids get to stand on the sidelines and storm the field when there is a goal.  It's anarchy out there.  

We are going to start a league between classes at my school, with each professor coaching a class as their team.  I'm gonna get the girls to try out and challenge the boys because they never let the girls play, even though the girls are much tougher from having to do so much more work.

Making tea in Burkina

Welcome to my new "In Burkina" series, where we will be exploring everyday activities in a village in Burkina Faso.  Today we will be making tea.

We drink it in these little glasses.  Its incredibly strong and takes a while to get used to.

This is where tea comes from.  You can buy it in any little village at the market.  There are many types, but most come from the distant and strange land of China.  From this bag of tea, about 3 inches in height, you can get 3 batches of tea, though the third one is pretty weak.  Some people refuse to drink the 1st/3rd tea round based on personal preferences.

This is all you need to make your very own tea!  The pitcher is filled with water, for making the tea and also cleaning the items because they will get sticky from sugar.  The little white bag is sugar, btw, and you add it according to your taste, after boiling the tea.  Speaking of boiling the tea...

The blue pot is for boiling water with the tea leaves in it.  You can let it boil for 15 minutes or an hour, depending on how much time you are looking to pass.  Thats charcoal under the pot, it burns for about an hour, so you will have to replace it occasionally.  After boiling the tea in water, you pour out the tea into the cup for sugaration.  Refill the blue pot with water if you plan to do another round, and set it back on the fire while you add sugar to the current round.  Now you are going to pour the current tea back and forth between the cup and the red pot, after you've added the sugar to the tea.

As you pour back and forth, a nice foam will buildup from the pouring action, this is very important.  When you are satisfied with the amount of sugar in the tea, you will save the foam that has built up.

Now you set the red pot back on the fire, setting aside the blue, as the tea in the red pot has cooled significantly.  When it is warmed up enough, it is good to drink and you can enjoy it under the shade of your favorite mango tree with your friends.

This is me (center) with my buddies Jacques (right) and Adama (left).  Jacques works at the village health center as the pharmacist and Adama is a farmer.  Typically we have some teacher friends around, but today it was just us.  Also other village people will occasionally stop by to chat.  Tea can last as long as from noon to 6pm.

There is of course a very detailed tea culture that must be adhered to.  This is the primary way Burkinabe men pass their time in the afternoon, when most people have a 12-3 break from work (as it's the hottest time).  Even class is out during this time.

Following a strict code, tea is typically served first to the most "important" person in the group, and on down the line, with the fakir (tea maker) drinking last.  Much like an American would never make the social faux pas of skipping from a double dog dare to a triple dog dare, a Burkinabe would never leave a person out of the tea serving line.  I have been trained in the fine art of preparing tea, not very common amongst foreigners here.  I wouldn't say that I'm an expert on Burkinabe culture yet, but I'm pretty sure being a fakir here is about as high of an honor as receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor in America.

I hope you have enjoyed this little segment.  I have some ideas for other, like exploring the market and interacting with a classroom full of students, washing clothes, preparing food.  I would also consider requests if you are curious about anything.

My ride into town today

Market day in Banfora, lots of villagers going in to sell stuff.  We fit 19 passengers in there, no big deal.

I'm still me

Well, less of me.  I bottomed out at 170lbs a few weeks ago, looks like ill be hovering around 170-175 for a bit as I can't really see my lifestyle changing.  That's the funny thing that I've noticed about people in general in Burkina and elsewhere:  There seems to be this belief sometimes that our personalities and habits are based on our immediate environment.  I am still pretty much exactly the same.  I have no desire to have a tidy living space, I'm not even there for most of the day.  I'm still shy with meeting new people, still fairly quiet.  I don't meet many new people in my village day to day.  During my training from June-August, other people would say things like "im not usually like this, it's just the stress of the situation", the situation being hungry and sweaty in a new country.  I think stressful situations just make the personality characteristics that you repress appear more strongly. 

After 6 months in Burkina I've hit a routine that I am happy with and am comfortable in my environment.  I just spent 14 days in Ouagadougou for IST (in service training).  I just got back to my region yesterday and was really relieved to hear people speaking in Jula again.  It's almost comforting now.  Im going to get into full gear as far as project work goes.  I will have my 10 hours of teaching every week like normal, but I will start the other parts of my job.  IST was kind of the end of the new volunteer trial period, now I'm supposed to do it all.  Teaching villagers about malnutrition and AIDS, having after school clubs with the kids and continuing to learn about the culture here. 

I'm happy with the balance so far between staying in my site and getting away to bigger cities.  One or two days every weekend I go to Banfora or Bobo.  Banfora is my regional capitol and is only 12km away, I typically bike but there are lots of bush taxis too (see earlier transportation post).  I hang out there with Matt and or Marlow, two volunteers near me.  There are two super fancy hotels with fast and free wifi internet.  I use my old smartphone or a friends computer, catch up on news and reddit and starcraft.  Really miss starcraft.  Beta happening now, so sad, and I'm returning to USA maybe a year after the expansion is released.  There is a pool at one of the hotels and they both have great food.  I also stock up on things like eggs, pasta and laughing cow cheese there.

Bobo is more of a once per month things.  I am in the bureau right now, a Peace Corps building for volunteers to use who don't want to go all the way to Ouaga, a 4 hour bus ride from here.  Lots of volunteers in the region to hang out with.  Fast internet on two computers and fans.  Even a medical room if I get sick and want to stay here.  It's very reassuring to be able to take a 90min bush tqxi fqirly cheaply and have a place to go, with a cheap place to camp in a tent only a few minutes away.  Plus the shower, that's cool.  Printer, scanner, you get the idea.  When I want a night out of site, I have two great locations and lots of cool people to be around. 

I'm going back to site in an hour or two.  Xmas break is coming so I will have a lot of time to explore my site now that the weather is getting bearable.  It was actually kind of chilly last night.