One Year Later
One year ago today, I stepped off the plane and into the wall of stifling, sticky heat that indicated to me that, in case I wasn't positive of this before, the weather in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso was not going to be very comparable to the weather in Bangor, Maine. It was about 9 o'clock in the evening- the sun had gone down many hours before- and yet the temperature was still pushing 100. The 15 of us new volunteers who arrived that day were greeted by a horde of "veteran" volunteers who forced chocolate chip cookies on us. No doubt they were amused by the sight of 15 smiling, perky, fresh recruits who insisted on bombarding them with a slew of naive, silly questions about life here in Burkina Faso as a Peace Corps Volunteer. But pretty soon, Peace Corps higher-ups whisked us away in air-conditioned SUV's and led us through the heart of the capital city to our hotel. That ride from the airport to the hotel was intense. The main streets of the city were lined with broken down shacks and the ragged-looking people who called these shacks home. I got a look into one of these run-down shacks. It was totally empty, save two people lying asleep on a bare dirt floor. When we checked into the hotel, I couldn't help but feel a bit guilty at the fact that I was annoyed with our accommodations- noisy, broken fan, ripped window screens, busted plumbing, rock hard bed and pillow. Hey, at least I HAD a bed and pillow.
I have learned much since March 16, 2005. I have learned that you have to savor the days when the temperature is "pushing 100," because the next day will most certainly be a day that blows past 100 and pushes 110, 120, or 130. The thermometers that I brought all max out at 120; I honestly didn't know it was possible to be hotter than that. And those of you from down south who are reading this and saying, "Whatever, Josh, you're from Maine. You're just wimpy when it comes to the heat. It gets that hot down here all the time, and we all deal fine with it."- I have just two things to say to you. First, 120 degrees in the Southern US and 120 degrees in Burkina Faso are totally different. Why? Two words: Air Conditioning. We don't know what that is here. Second, yes, you are right, I am a wimp.
I have learned that I should have been more thankful for those cookies the other volunteers made for us. Turns out cooking in this country isn't all that easy, especially if you had no idea how to do it back in the States where there exists these magical places called Shaw's, Star Market, Kroger's, IGA, and Shop 'n' Save. (Read: Thank you to all of you who have sent this helpless, culinarily-challenged guy packages of food. Every packet of tuna or box of mac-and-cheese you send means one less night of playing Amoeba Roulette with rice and grease sauce, beans with grease sauce, or sheep-head soup... with grease sauce.)
I have learned that those naive, silly questions I asked when I first got here were both naive and silly. I remember one of my biggest concerns when I arrived was to find out what sort of subject matter I'd be teaching. I was preparing to work teaching classes of 100+ kids for two years in a foreign, developing country where I don't speak the language or know the culture, and I was worried about whether I'd be teaching long division or the quadratic equation. It turns out the actual teaching thing is just about the most straightforward and easiest part of my service over here. The whole "bridging the culture gap, learning the language, coming to terms with the poverty and misfortune all around you" thing is much more challenging. Go figure.
I have learned that I don't know what poverty is. My first night here, on that drive from the airport to the hotel, I thought I saw poverty. It made a huge impression on me, and I thought I was that much closer to understanding what it means to be poor in a country like Burkina Faso. Then I had my couple of months of training in a smaller town, and I saw and met people whose situations made the people I had seen on that drive seem fortunate in many ways. I realized that having a shack for a house and wearing ragged clothes are things very far down on the list of complaints of people really affected by poverty. Disease, malnutrition, and starvation are much further up on that list. Nine months ago, I was assigned to my small village and I have met and gotten to know people who continue to challenge the extent of my understanding of poverty. People who are burdened with severe mental and physical illnesses; hard-working kids who get sick or pregnant and are forced out of school; parents who have suffered through the deaths of multiple children. Deep down, I've always believed that when a kid is born, no matter what situation he is born into, there is always hope that he can "beat the odds" and lead a life that he considers to be successful and fulfilling. The things I see here challenge that belief every day. Maybe my belief still holds. Maybe every kid, even a baby girl born with AIDS to a mother whose husband abandoned her and who already has trouble feeding her other 6 children, maybe even she can beat the odds. But living here has forced me to admit how ridiculously tiny those odds often are. (Think Southern U. coming up with the upset over Duke in the first round.)
I have learned that I was an idiot to criticize my accomodations at the hotel that first night. Busted plumbing? You mean it actually had plumbing?!! I've returned to that hotel a few times for meetings and conferences over the past year; every time I stay there, I feel like I am in the lap of luxury. Electricity, plumbing, multiple floors, AC in some rooms, no rats, no mice, no bats! I laugh when I remember how I thought I was roughing it (or as close as I could be to "roughing it" in something claiming to be a hotel) that first night. Let's be honest, there were weekends in college when the Zeta Psi house was in worse shape than this developing world hotel.
I've always known that I've been blessed. I have learned just how blessed I really am. I've always known that my family is important to me. I have learned just how special they are to me and how much I appreciate and love every one of them. I've always known that the world isn't perfect and that someone should probably go ahead and try to do something about that. I have learned that, far from being perfect, parts of this world are actually really very messed up. And I've learned that I should probably go ahead and try to do something about that.
That one year flew by. It doesn't seem like it's been a whole year since I was in Philadelphia, scrambling to jot my NCAA tournament picks on a bracket torn from a USA Today and mail it off before boarding the plane to Paris en route to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. I'm glad that my time here in Burkina so far has been more successful than my brackets turned out to be last year. As long as J.J. Redick holds up and I stay away from the bird feces that litter this entire country (next-door Niger has reports of avian flu, but don't worry- we're being take care of well over here), both my brackets and my second year in Africa should be very successful.
Regards,
josh
Addenda:
1. I'm heading east for Spring Break to go on a "safari" (if you can call it that here in Burkina Faso). I've been promised lion sightings. Hopefully, there will be some wicked cool pictures on my blog next week when I return.
2. Finals Prediction: Duke 74 - UConn 70
3. Aren't I so very cool? I think the kickstand being down really adds something...
I have learned much since March 16, 2005. I have learned that you have to savor the days when the temperature is "pushing 100," because the next day will most certainly be a day that blows past 100 and pushes 110, 120, or 130. The thermometers that I brought all max out at 120; I honestly didn't know it was possible to be hotter than that. And those of you from down south who are reading this and saying, "Whatever, Josh, you're from Maine. You're just wimpy when it comes to the heat. It gets that hot down here all the time, and we all deal fine with it."- I have just two things to say to you. First, 120 degrees in the Southern US and 120 degrees in Burkina Faso are totally different. Why? Two words: Air Conditioning. We don't know what that is here. Second, yes, you are right, I am a wimp.
I have learned that I should have been more thankful for those cookies the other volunteers made for us. Turns out cooking in this country isn't all that easy, especially if you had no idea how to do it back in the States where there exists these magical places called Shaw's, Star Market, Kroger's, IGA, and Shop 'n' Save. (Read: Thank you to all of you who have sent this helpless, culinarily-challenged guy packages of food. Every packet of tuna or box of mac-and-cheese you send means one less night of playing Amoeba Roulette with rice and grease sauce, beans with grease sauce, or sheep-head soup... with grease sauce.)
I have learned that those naive, silly questions I asked when I first got here were both naive and silly. I remember one of my biggest concerns when I arrived was to find out what sort of subject matter I'd be teaching. I was preparing to work teaching classes of 100+ kids for two years in a foreign, developing country where I don't speak the language or know the culture, and I was worried about whether I'd be teaching long division or the quadratic equation. It turns out the actual teaching thing is just about the most straightforward and easiest part of my service over here. The whole "bridging the culture gap, learning the language, coming to terms with the poverty and misfortune all around you" thing is much more challenging. Go figure.
I have learned that I don't know what poverty is. My first night here, on that drive from the airport to the hotel, I thought I saw poverty. It made a huge impression on me, and I thought I was that much closer to understanding what it means to be poor in a country like Burkina Faso. Then I had my couple of months of training in a smaller town, and I saw and met people whose situations made the people I had seen on that drive seem fortunate in many ways. I realized that having a shack for a house and wearing ragged clothes are things very far down on the list of complaints of people really affected by poverty. Disease, malnutrition, and starvation are much further up on that list. Nine months ago, I was assigned to my small village and I have met and gotten to know people who continue to challenge the extent of my understanding of poverty. People who are burdened with severe mental and physical illnesses; hard-working kids who get sick or pregnant and are forced out of school; parents who have suffered through the deaths of multiple children. Deep down, I've always believed that when a kid is born, no matter what situation he is born into, there is always hope that he can "beat the odds" and lead a life that he considers to be successful and fulfilling. The things I see here challenge that belief every day. Maybe my belief still holds. Maybe every kid, even a baby girl born with AIDS to a mother whose husband abandoned her and who already has trouble feeding her other 6 children, maybe even she can beat the odds. But living here has forced me to admit how ridiculously tiny those odds often are. (Think Southern U. coming up with the upset over Duke in the first round.)
I have learned that I was an idiot to criticize my accomodations at the hotel that first night. Busted plumbing? You mean it actually had plumbing?!! I've returned to that hotel a few times for meetings and conferences over the past year; every time I stay there, I feel like I am in the lap of luxury. Electricity, plumbing, multiple floors, AC in some rooms, no rats, no mice, no bats! I laugh when I remember how I thought I was roughing it (or as close as I could be to "roughing it" in something claiming to be a hotel) that first night. Let's be honest, there were weekends in college when the Zeta Psi house was in worse shape than this developing world hotel.
I've always known that I've been blessed. I have learned just how blessed I really am. I've always known that my family is important to me. I have learned just how special they are to me and how much I appreciate and love every one of them. I've always known that the world isn't perfect and that someone should probably go ahead and try to do something about that. I have learned that, far from being perfect, parts of this world are actually really very messed up. And I've learned that I should probably go ahead and try to do something about that.
That one year flew by. It doesn't seem like it's been a whole year since I was in Philadelphia, scrambling to jot my NCAA tournament picks on a bracket torn from a USA Today and mail it off before boarding the plane to Paris en route to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. I'm glad that my time here in Burkina so far has been more successful than my brackets turned out to be last year. As long as J.J. Redick holds up and I stay away from the bird feces that litter this entire country (next-door Niger has reports of avian flu, but don't worry- we're being take care of well over here), both my brackets and my second year in Africa should be very successful.
Regards,
josh
Addenda:
1. I'm heading east for Spring Break to go on a "safari" (if you can call it that here in Burkina Faso). I've been promised lion sightings. Hopefully, there will be some wicked cool pictures on my blog next week when I return.
2. Finals Prediction: Duke 74 - UConn 70
3. Aren't I so very cool? I think the kickstand being down really adds something...
posted by josh at 12:00 AM
4 Comments:
i love mopeds! u look great.
have fun on ur safari...i hope u see lotsa tail-less monkeys scratching themselves and jumping on people. ;-)
Hi. Good to see you are gaining from your time in Burkina. Keep learning!
Think about posting something on your thoughts on what people in Burkina can actually teach us in the West - eg contentment with little, richness of community life...
Blessings
Keith
I am in ouaga at the moment and stumbled across your blog, and this post. I thought you guys weren't supposed to ride motorbikes?!! Moving swiftly on, I enjoyed what you wrote about the first impressions of the country - it brought back a lot of memories, as well as raising a lot of serious issues. I look forward to reading your blog more. Take care...
Very cool. I am looking into a blog myself, and I am heading your way. I am going to be one of the new folks you bring cookies. On June 4, 2006 I am arriving in BF and am going to be a high school science teacher. Keep up the postings.
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