The Land of the Upright People

I landed in Burkina, my new home for the new two years, about a week and a half ago. It’s been crazy, busy, and exciting starting Peace Corps all over again. We had our staging (a Peace Corps orientation) in Philadelphia and it only lasted about 5 hours. It was almost the exact same set up as last time. We discussed the goals and purposes of Peace Corps, our anxieties and anticipations, and did a few awkward ice breakers. For those of you who do not know, Peace Corps has three main goals, which they base a volunteers service upon. They are:
1. Filling the need of trained people to interested countries
2. Teaching other countries about America and it’s people
3. Teaching Americans about other countries
These are just summarized in my own words, but I’m sure you get the point. The main focus of the goals in cross-cultural exchange. This is an important part of a volunteer’s service. This allows us to integrate into communities and successfully do our job here. Integration is also a key factor in our safety here. If we can successfully integrate into our communities and become a respected member, life here will be much easier, and funner, for a two year service.
After staging, we headed off to Burkina. The entire trip took about one whole day, and was successfully completed without any problems. We were greated in Ouagadougou Airport by our new country director, Shannon, and a few members of the Peace Corps/Burkina Faso Staff. Shannon handed us a short itinerary for the next few days, which I didn’t really look at too much. It wasn’t until later that night I noticed the cover of it said “Bienvenue! Welcome to “the land of the upright people!”. Almost two weeks later, I still don’t know the story behind this, or why Burkina was named that. It would have made my service much more diifficult had I came to a country where the people were pre-homo erectus! Hah!
Anyway, our first few days in Burkina, we stayed in a pretty sweet hotel. They had AC, and served us ice cream for lunch! This is huge in Africa. We had a lot of introductory sessions, and met a lot of the new staff. We also started the huge task of vaccinating everyone. Thanks to my time in Guinea, I already had all but 2 shots. Woohoo! Everyone else will be receiving about 15. Burkina has the same language requirements as Guinea, which means by the end of the three months of training, everyone must test at an intermediate-high level in French. As you all remember, last year, I knew no French and tested at a level of novice-low (the lowest level there is). Apparently all my hard work paid off because I tested this time at Intermediate-High on the first test! This means that I will be taking review and practice sessions of French for the first four weeks, which is when we receive the name of the site where we will live. At this point, I will stop taking French and begin taking classes in the local language at my site, which is called Jula. I’m pretty excited about this, and proud of myself for remembering that much French! This is a huge weight off my shoulders.
After our days in Ouagadougou, we went to the city where we will be living for our training for the next few months, called Ouahgouya. This town is also pretty nice. It has internet connection (although it’s slow and doesn’t work very well… it’s still internet!), electricity everyday, and a hotel with a pool.
Last week, I moved in with my host family, the Traore’s. My experience with them so far is much different than in Guinea! My family in Guinea, the Fofana’s was more of what I would consider a traditional African family. There were a lot of children, and my host mother stayed home most of the time and did house work, while my father went to work. My new family is not like that at all. My host parents just got married last year, so they are still a young couple, and don’t have any children yet. Although my host mom did tell me she wants to have at have 10 haha. My father works at pretty big bank that is in 6 west african countries and France, and my mother does small loans for the market women (at least that’s the best understanding I had of her work with my not so great French). They both work a lot, so I’m usually home with my 2 cousins that are staying here, Aissatou and Rashidatou. I think my parents are pretty well off though because we have satellite TV and I have a fan in my room, so I’m not complaining haha.
Another thing I’m rather excited about are the bikes. Now in Guinea, my bike was broken for the entire time I was there. I rode it once for about 5 minutes, then got a flat tire and pushed it back home. Now, in Burkina, there are brand spankin’ new bikes for everyone! I was a little nervous at first about having to rely so heavily on biking as my main mode of transportation, but now I’m getting used to it. I bike everywhere. I live about 2-3 miles from our training center so I bike to and from school everyday, as well as lunch, and anywhere else I have to do. It’s nice and relaxing… when it’s not 100°F and I’m sweating my butt off.