GRE

So I spent the last month studying vocab for the GRES. Here's a report on how they went.

3:20 am
I wake up, feeling terribly nauseous. Arg. Run to the bathroom and start puking. I really shouldn't have eaten that burger last night.

5:30 am
Wake up, sure that it's time to get up and go. Realize I have a fever and pop a couple pills.

7:00 am
Wake up, eat a strong breakfast of bananas and off to the testing center.

9:00 am
The test instructions are supposed to start

9:07 am
The other test taker shows up

9:10 am
It becomes apparent that the other test taker doesn't understand the directions for filling out the registration sheet.

10:10 am
We're almost done with registration, ready to start the essay!

10:55 am
My hand goes on strike! The advantages of the computer based test seem pretty relevant at the moment.

11:45 pm
Last essay almost down, hand cramping like a fiend.

1:30 pm
Two testing sessions down, two to go! Starting to feel a bit 'floaty' but that might just be concentrating for so long.

3:00 pm
I'm free!

3:25 pm
Back at the transit house, lay down for a quick nap

9:00 pm
Wake up from said 'nap'

The next day I get the results back from my test checking for parasites. I managed to get two kinds - Entameba coli and Blastocystic hominis! Now I feel like a real Peace Corps Volunteer!

Still waiting for the more important test results... they should be coming after New Years sometime.

Seb

My phone vibrated in my pocket, pulling it out I saw 'PCCD' was calling. This must be important.

“Hi Shannon.”

“I'm afraid I've got some bad news. Seb passed away last night”

I, like the many other PCVs that received the news that day, was stunned. No one expected this. Seb's return to work two weeks prior had been accompanied by a huge sigh of relief. Our friend was out of the woods. But apparently that wasn't the case.

I fought back tears as I fumbled with my keys to get back into my hut. No. I felt wave after wave of sadness wash over me as memories of Seb floated back to me. No. I thought about his family, and our PCBF family. No. Please, no.

I first had the pleasure of meeting Kiendrebéogo Sebraogo over a year ago. I didn't quite know what an 'APCD' did, but I was pretty sure there was no hope of me correctly pronouncing his name in the near future. He said we could call him Seb.

As I would learn over the next year, Seb was a truly extraordinary individual. This means something different to everyone, but to me it meant that Seb saw us at our worst – the sometimes neurotic, stressed-out, hyper-sensitive beings we all sometimes become in this country – and was there with a helping hand and a big smile. For Seb we were more that just employees, and this really showed in the relationships he developed. He brightened the lives of everyone around him.

Seb's passing really did make the world just a little bit darker. As we're left to pick up the pieces it has been humbling how many people have stepped forward to light up that darkness. I challenge myself and all of you to do a part as well. Be a Seb for someone in their time of need – like he was for us.

Thank you Seb. You've touched many more people than you imagined that you could. I'll do my best to honor your memory.

Goodbye friend, you'll be sorely missed.

Sssss

I cracked another peanut between my index finger and thumb as I watched the status bar creep slowly across the screen. Peanuts are probably my favorite snack food in Burkina – they are (somewhat) healthy and are really easy to find. Plus cracking peanuts is a way to pass the time as I wait for the latest instillation to finish. And I have a lot of installing to do. After an unfortunate hard-drive malady incident, I found myself having to reinstall everything on all of my twenty computers. Good times.

The process had dragged on for the last couple weeks due to an abnormally high amount of power cuts. Watching an install that took several hours die at 90% as the power blinks out is a bit discouraging. Watching it happen several times in one day is extremely frustrating. But at least I was making progress; with about half of the computers done I was starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I stepped out through the door into what was becoming a bright sunny day, not unlike the day before and probably much like the next day. I had amassed quite the peanut shell collection just outside my door and I dutifully added another handful. As they were racing down toward the ground I heard a loud “HIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSS” down next to my sandal-clad right foot. I jumped back about a foot and half and looked down to see a coiled cobra – hood and all – staring at me. I ran.

Once I was what I considered to be a safe ten yards or so away I peered back. It was about a foot and a half long – certainly not among the biggest snakes I’ve seen – but what set this apart from every other snake I’d seen was the its hood. It sat coiled exactly as I’d expect, looking at me and waiting, moving slowly back and forth. As I peeked through the slits between my fingers (what if it was a spitting cobra?) I felt an urge to go in and get a better look – this creature was absolutely fascinating. However after a few moments hesitation and a glance down at the bare skin of my foot that could have been so easily pierced by two poison laden fangs, I decided that I didn’t want to risk getting bitten by a cobra in a small remote town in Burkina Faso. It was time to go get some reinforcements.

Burkinabe hate snakes with a passion. The mere mention of ‘serpent’ gets the attention of the whole room and they will kill any snake they can find. I’d never actually seen this process, but I figured this was my time to find out. I ran over to the nearest classroom and grabbed a few of the biggest students and ran back to my lab. When we arrived I started to pick up some of the pieces of an old desk, thinking that it would be an alright weapon, or at least a way to stop from being bitten. The students exchanged confused looks.

After quickly explaining the situation the group dynamics immediately changed. “A snake!” “Where is it?” “How big is it?” “When did you see it?” An uninterrupted string of questions assaulted me as each student threw down the piece of wood I had given them and started picking up rocks. As we cautiously made our way to the place I had last seen my soon-to-be-deceased friend, I felt a pang of regret. The snake had done nothing to me – in fact he probably has helped me out by killing a lot of the mice in and around my lab. But what if I had stepped one foot to the right and he had bitten my foot? I shuddered.

“THERE IT IS!” shouted one of the boys and a barrage of rocks sailed through the air. I was amazed that so few students could through so many rocks! Someone got a headshot in early and flattened the snake’s head into a pancake. They moved in to closer range then, hitting the snake’s dead body with sticks and rocks. I told them to stop. He was most certainly dead at this point.

We did a brief clean-up of the area, putting back the rocks and moving the pieces of the snake off into the bushes. Then I escorted the students back to class, thanking them for their help. On my way back to the lab I saw another snake slither off into the bushes. Good work, stay afraid of me and we’ll get along just fine.

In which we ford a river

I decided to hop on the small van we call a taxi-brosse when the bus I was riding on decided to take an unexpected stop and made no signs of moving again. These stops are really the more frustrating parts of transport. You'll be going along making good time and you come upon a village. You stop as per normal to pick up some passengers, but then you notice that the driver has turned the bus off and vanished! Then you spend the next several hours grumbling and waiting in the hot sun, given absolutely nothing to know when or if they bus will be continuing.

In any case, today I said enough! I saw that the tax-brosse was passing by and I decided to hop on it. And off we went! I was one of two passengers, which was a little bit disconcerting at first (empty taxi-brosses have a tendency to stop in places for long periods of time, hoping that someone will decide they need to go somewhere) but as we continued a slow but steady pace forward I began to feel very good about my decision to abandon the bus.

On the road I'm traveling on there are two inverted bridges. This may sound pretty fancy, but really it's just a concrete half-pipe for cars, which allows the river to cross over a road without wiping it out. I had heard that these inverted bridges where in pretty bad condition (read: under feet of water) at times but I had never really experienced this before as I usually didn't take this road. Today that was about to change.

We came upon the first inverter bridge and my heart skipped a beat, there was about two and a half feet of water covering the bridge! I heard the driver and the passenger in front nervously talking about the battery. Looking down I see the car battery uncovered and very much ready to electrocute us all, sitting at my feet. Eeeek!

Before I have a chance to say I might want to sit this one out, the van plows into the river, trying to best it can to maintain speed. I glance nervously down at the door where the water is beginning to seep in through the bottom. It seems every time we slow down more water starts pouring it.

“GO FASTER GO FASTER GO FASTER”, I'm yelling inside my head as we start to catch up with a guy pushing his moto across. He's not making very good time and is right in the middle of the road.

“Tell him to move” the driver tells the front passenger. The passenger leans out the window and starts speaking softly to the guy.

I yell at him, “You must speak louder!”

It seems the guy pushing the moto isn't going to move and it doens't seem like our driver is keen on slowing down and I'm expected a mid bridge watery collision and possibly electrocution, but at the last moment the guy veers off the right and we're home free!

Safely on the other side the front passenger turns to me and says, “You were afraid?” I explained that I really didn't fancy getting electrocuted, to which he just smiled and says, “Oh, so you heard us talking about that did you?”

Ah, Burkina.

Portez un Copote!

I walk into the roomed and feel like I'm going to a meeting of the UN - high sealing, plush seats, large projector screen, signs for translation channels. I look around at all the people, there are probably about five hundred at the moment and there are supposed to be six hundred fifty before we start our speeches. Slightly intimidating given that I'll be speaking in French about a topic that I don't quite have the vocab for – health.

Rewind two days and I'm in Ouaga to celebrate my birthday and see Andrea's COS (close of service) conference. I'm making the rounds through the bureau saying hi to everyone when out of the blue I get asked to speak to a group of Burkinabe volunteers who will be serving for a year as teachers. Apparently they've asked Peace Corps to come do a presentation about how to live a healthy life during your service.

I've spent most of the day before writing and translating my speech, I'm going to have to go off my notes for a lot of it, which I'm not entirely happy about. If I had been ask to give an hour or two of how to use a computer I think I'd be pretty comfortable doing so, but I'll be talking about washing and preparing food, safe sex and STIs.

And then it's our turn, Country Director Shannon, Andrea and I walk up to the enormous stage and take a seat in one of the empty chairs at the long table. Shannon is up first, speaking about the philosophy of development. I'm looking at my speech, trying to come up with something to liven it up. Then I remember a song my host sister used to sing to me:

“Si tu aimes manger, tapes les main! clap, clap, clap
(If you like to eat, clap your hands!)
si tu aimes le soleil, tapes les main! clap, clap, clap
(If you like the sun, clap your hands!)”
etc...

And I thought I could change up my current delivery of my 'wear a condom' to fit to the song, which was at the end of my speech. After stumbling through the first part of my speech I made it to the end and was ready to go. I asked them if they knew the song that my sister taught me, and most of them said yes, then I launched into my modified version. It turned out a little something like this:

Si elle dit je t'aime, portez un capote! clap, clap, clap
(if she says she loves you, wear a condom!)
Si il dit je veux pas, portez un capote! clap, clap, clap
(if he says he doesn't want to, wear a condom!)
Si c'est un jour de la semaine, portez un capote! clap, clap, clap
(if it's a weekday, wear a condom!)
Si c'est un weekende, portez un capote! clap, clap, clap
(if it's a weekend, wear a condom!)
Si vous êtes fatigué, portez un capote! clap, clap, clap
(if you are tired, wear a condom!)
Même si vous êtes excité, portez un capote! clap, clap, clap
(even if you are horny, wear a condom!)

With the delivery of the last line the audience broke out cheering and laughing. Mission accomplished!? (not in the Bush aircraft carrier sense)

On a side note: it's really funny when English speakers are trying to say they are excited about something, often they end up telling everyone they are really horny (excité)

The Road

I wake up to my alarm and the scamping of little feet. My alarm (which, quiet fittingly is set to the song of time from Oceania of Time, I programmed it in myself) has scared Tyler and Jessi's two new kittens, Gingembre and Noname (which I've tenaciously been calling Meatkat for the past couple days, despite dirty looks from Jessi and Tyler - they want to name him another kind of spice) and they go darting for cover in their favorite hiding/sleeping spot – in the shelves on top of the pasta packages. They are both so cute and it has been a lot of fun playing with them the last couple days. Chris, Andrea and I snuck up to their house under instructions from Jessi to surprise Tyler for his birthday. He awoke to find a full breakfast spread (including bacon!) laid out with three of us and Jessi awaiting him. And he had no idea that any of it was coming. Good work Jessi!

But now all that is over - it's 6:30 am I have to get my butt in gear and get down to the road to catch the bus back to Toma. After saying goodbye to Jessi and Tyler I hop on my bike and get down to the road. Just in time to... wait for thirty minutes or so while the bus driver decides that he has enough passengers (or has finished his rousing round of morning banter) to leave. My wait is broken only by the occasional passing of bikes or motos on the road. Almost everyone says hello.

After about 10 minutes pass by a see a girl coming up the road with a chair on her head. As I'm wondering why in the world a young girl like her would be headed out of town with a chair on her head she stops in front of me, puts down there chair and says that her mom told her to bring this to you. I look down the road and sure enough her mother is about a hundred yards down the road, smiling and wave to me. I wave back and yell thank you in French and local language. She just waves back.

After a few more minutes the bus shows up, laden with its usual cargo of people, bags, boxes and animals. I wave the bus down, and tell them I'm headed to Toma. About a minute later my bike has been hoisted up to the roof and firmly tied down and we're on our way!

The road is bumpy, but not at its worst and at least by the light of day the driver can avoid or slow down for the bumps. And in case you get car sick there are very frequent stops to load on more passengers and cargo. At each of these stops the workers on the bus wait until the bus starts moving to hop on, partly because you're never really sure when the bus is actually going to move and partly because they want to look cool. I've always wondered if they ever got left behind on accident doing that.

Today the most exciting part of the trip is when one of the Guinea fowl got out of it's cage on top of the bus and made a break for it, flying off into the bush. Immediately a gang of maybe ten men and boys go running after it, yelling insults at the guy who put them in their cage as they run. They're back in less than five minutes, bird in hand and before everyone has a chance to calm down from all the excitement we're off again! But this time instead of his normal slow start the driver just steps on it and the gang of last minute bus jumpers is getting left behind! I start laughing as they thump the side of the bus, signaling the driver to stop. He eventually does stop and they clamber back on, looking only slightly abashed.

Before too long the 45 km to Toma is passed and I'm back home. Time for a shower and a nap!

Home again

The bus pulls into Toma late, around 10pm. I'm greeted perhaps the only streetlight in town, lighting up the intersection where I'm to jump off. 'Jumping off' is a highly technical maneuver that requires grabbing ones baggage, yelling at the driver to stop and clambering over people, bags, and animals toward the exit at the same time. Failure to do one of any of these three holds up the process significantly, much to the consternation of the other passengers.

I get off next to one of three 'bars' in town that I frequent and there are a few people that watch me awkwardly grab all my bags and boxes and start the walk up the hill to CAFT. During the day there would be much yelling of “Nasaarha!” by kids playing in the street but apparently they've gone to sleep or are otherwise occupied. My counter part, Frere Prosper, meets me about half way with his moto and relieves me of some of the heavier luggage. I'm forbidden from riding a moto by Peace Corps so I have to continue the last few minutes on foot, happy that I'm carrying less!

I walk into CAFT and am overwhelmed by the absolute mass of foliage outlined by the moonlight. There seems to be plants everywhere! Tall grasses spring out from the road around me as leaves blot out the light overhead. For a minute my home of the past year seems foreign to me, until I round the corner into our compound. And there it is! I'm taken back to the first time I pulled up to my house, almost exactly a year ago. I'm glad to be home.

I dump my backs on the veranda and start searching for my keys. I know they are in here somewhere... emerging triumphantly from my backpack I dust away the cobwebs over my door and turn the key. The door opens and I flick on the light. I'm not sure what to expect. After being gone for 2 months would there be inches of dust everywhere? Insects?

After preparing myself for the worst I look around and am pleasantly surprised. There is a fine layer of dirt, grime, dust and lizard poop everywhere, but besides that the place seems relatively clean! I grab the broom and get to work, I want to get the worst of it out of here and then go to sleep. I can deal with the rest in the morning.

I make my away around the room, making small piles of mess everywhere I go. I've got about half the room done when I round the corner of my bed and AH! LIZARD SATAN SPAWN FROM HELL!!! I almost jump out of my skin as I see what appears to be a giant lizard starting at me from the floor. I pull up the broom defensively, readying myself for a fight. The lizard doesn't seem to be moving at all though. In fact it doesn't seem to be alive. A couple seconds later I realize that this poor soul must have slipped into my room under the door, then died. The heat in my room had long since dehydrated him into a larger, crispier, bone-dry version of his former self. I shudder.

I put him, along with the other unwelcome guest (a scorpion, which I dispatch of with the broom) out onto the porch. The small jump I get out of Prosper when he seems them is worth it. Even after I poke it with the broom and explain to him that it's dead he eyes it somewhat wearily.

The next days are spent sweeping, dusting, mopping (by hand) and washing my room and (almost) everything in it. I feel really good when I'm done. Time to start year two!

Training

Sorry for the radio silence. (insert lame excuse involving 'busy')

I've been working at training for the new volunteers off and on (mostly on) for the past six weeks. It has been really interesting to see how, in some aspects, it is so different working on the other side of training. It feels like all I can write about is training because that has been my life.

So at the risk of sounding incredibly boring I'll give you an overview of training (or stage) from the perspective of a PCV facilitator (PCVF).

Stage has four sessions a day, two in the morning of two hours each with a thirty minute break in the middle and two in the afternoon of ninety minutes with a fifteen minute break in the middle. There are a few distinct types of sessions: language, cross culture, security, medical, and technical. Which are for the most part pretty self explanatory except technical.

As a PCVF I facilitate passing on the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to be successful in our sector (secondary education). I work along side several other PCVFs as well as some host country technical trainers. We have anywhere from 2 to 6 of these sessions a week which cover a wide range of teaching-related topics.

Because teaching IT is so different from other teaching experiences the IT trainees break off from the main group for many technical sessions and hold sessions of their own. We've covered things like computer repair and maintenance, OS configurations for teaching, challenges of IT teaching in Burkina Faso, classroom management and educational software. I spend the vast majority of my time planning, preparing and facilitating these sessions.

Currently the PCTs are gone visiting their sites. They are going to be back on Tuesday just in time to start preparation for a five week 'model school' program. Model school is going to be a big change in gear as I'll be spending most of my time observing PCTs teaching and giving them feedback on how to improve lessons and teaching techniques.

So that, in a nut shell, is what I've been doing for the past month and a half, and what I'll continue to do for the next month. I should be back up to (more) regular updates after that.

Pictures!

After many months of broken promises to upload pictures I have finally done it! You can find them here.

The Tiberi Times: West African Edition - Headlines

Lightning Strikes Computer Lab, Students Scared but Unhurt
Tiberi guesses that the fuse is blown
Tuesday April 27th, 2010

After foolishly attempting to hold a computer class during a heavy downpour a bolt of lightning struck the computer building Tuesday…[more]

Administration Confirms: The Fuse is Blown
Officials say fuse should be replaced ‘soon’
Thursday April 29th, 2010

School officials confirmed reports Thursday that a fuse had been blown during Tuesday’s rainstorm and say it will be replaced ‘soon.’ Tiberi says he’s worried that the computers won’t be back online in time for finals, the 10th and 11th of May… [more]

Biking by ‘le Claire de Lune’
Tiberi allegedly bikes to neighbor’s village by moonlight
Friday April 30th, 2010

Allegedly describing the alleged journey as ‘scary’ at times and ‘beautiful’ at others, sources allege that Tiberi boasts of eating ‘the best chicken of his life’ in a late night trip to Yaba… [more]

No Power
Electricity not restored to computer lab
Tuesday May 4th, 2010

So far this week students have had to spend their time reviewing written notes in lieu of typing practice for the final. Students are beginning to wonder if there even will be a final, asking “are we going to have a final?” School administrators repeated their claims that the fuse will be replaced ‘soon’ but admitted to setbacks because they ‘forgot to call the repair guy’… [more]

Rain on the Bus: Better or Worse than Dust?
Tiberi’s travels to nearby Tougon during a rainstorm
Friday May 7th, 2010

Mr. Tiberi maybe a trip up to Tougon on Friday, despite rain-storm like conditions. He describes the trip as being ‘okay’ but added that he didn’t like ‘dirty water’ dripping from the ceiling. Upon arriving in Tougon Tiberi says he was ‘dismayed’ to see so much ‘dirty water’ on the ground. Luckily Tougon residents Tyler and Jessi came to the rescue with bikes… [more]

8th Annual West African Wrestling Competition Held in Tougon: Hailed a Success
Tiberi attends event with neighbors Jessi and Tyler
Saturday May 8th, 2010

Bringing competitors from across francophone west Africa, the event was ‘really cool’ says Tiberi but soon moved into praises of Tougon residents Jessi and Tyler LeClear Vachta, ‘they saved Oreos for me,’ he says, ‘OREOS!’ then stared dreamily at a dark colored rock on the ground… [more]


No Computers for Computer Literacy Final
Mixed Reactions from Students
Monday May 10th, 2010

Officials confirmed that finals given today were ‘written’ finals on ‘paper.’ Students generally had mixed reactions though Mr. Tiberi could not be reached for comment as he is reportedly proctoring tests all day. When asked when the fuse would be replaced officials set the timeframe to ‘soon’… [more]

Finals Are Over
Student celebrate as teachers left to correct mountains of tests
Tuesday Math 11th, 2010

CAFT students left school Tuesday with a collective sigh of relieve which was perhaps rivaled in magnitude by the collective groan of the professors. “I have a lot of tests to grade,” exclaims one professor while another adds, “It’s not easy.” … [more]

Gauss

Legend has it when the famous mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss was in primary school his (mean, lazy, etc…) math teacher gave the class the assignment of adding up the first 100 positive integers. So 1+2+3+4+…+97+98+99+100=? He then sat back at his desk with a (mean, lazy etc…) look on his face while the students toiled away, doomed for the next few minutes to tides of elementary addition. Well all of his students except for Gauss. After a couple minutes Gauss approached his (mean, lazy, etc…) teacher with the correct answer, 5050. How’d he do it!?

There are several theories about how he might have conceptualized his addition shortcut, but I’ll explain the most common here. The brilliant young Gauss saw that 100+1=101, and 99+2=101, and 98+3=101. Little Gauss had discovered a pattern! By looking at the middle two numbers (50+51=101) he reasoned that there were 50 such pairs with sum of 101, thus the simple multiplication 101*50=5050 yields the desired summation.

Ever since hearing this story in grade school myself it has always fascinated me and I’ve been filled with admiration for Gauss ever since. Now why did I tell you the story of the (mean, lazy, etc…) math teacher and Gauss?

One of my students’ favorite activities behind talking and messing around on computers is asking for bonus points. They ask for bonus points if I give them a test, they ask for them if I don’t give them a test, they ask for them if it’s too hot, or it rains, or if it’s a day that ends in ‘i' (so luckily I get a break on Dimanche). After initially curbing to such demands I’ve learned to turn a deaf ear to them. That is until recently.

In my youngest class there were 10 minutes left in the class and I didn’t really have anything prepared. Usually I’d teach them a few words in English or we’d sing a song. It was the last period of the day – a real scorcher of one too. I was ready to be done. Suddenly something clicked. I got up and walked to the front of the class.

“Do you want +3 bonus points?”

Suddenly everyone was paying attention. Three bonus points! That’s almost unheard of.

“I’m going to write a math question on the board and if just one person can solve it, I’ll give you all plus three bonus points.”

Most kids were very excited at this so some of the others were a little more concerned.

“What kind of math problem,” they asked.

After replying that it was simple addition, they were in agreement and I started writing. When I had written the question in its entirety and explained the three dots meant EVERYTHING in between their excitement died down a little bit, but most went immediately to work.

I went back to my desk to play the role of the (evil, lazy, etc…) math teacher hoping but not at all expecting a young Gauss to be seated in my class.

Soon the air was awash with answers. It’s 1,000,000. No it’s 345. No it’s 5,000,000. After a few minutes the whistle blew, indicating the class was over. I sighed inwardly, no Gausses in my class today. Suddenly a little voice floated across the air.

I’ve got it sir. It’s “cinq mille cinquante“ (5050)

My heart skipped a beat. Could it be?

Turns out that “cinq mille cinq cent” (5500) sounds an awful lot like “cinq mille cinquante“ (5050) in a room full of noisy children and my kid wasn’t the next Gauss. Still damn close though. In fact despite the fact that this was one of the youngest kids in the youngest class in the school none of the other kids in the other classes even got close. I was already thinking of doing an advanced math class next year and after this I’m really excited to do so.

A year ago today...

The new stage (training group) gets here in just over a month. It’s mind boggling to think of how much I’ve learned in the past ten months. Walking off that plane I immediately became dependent – on my host family, on Peace Corps staff, and on the PCVs that were our trainers. The PCV trainers amazed me with their French, local language and knowledge of Burkina and its people and now I’m going to be one of those trainers! I’ll be working for six weeks with one of the biggest trainee group Burkina has ever seen. There are close to ninety of them (compared to our thirty two). I’m really excited.

To anyone reading this that is going to be IT I would recommend doing a sweep of your house and neighbors houses to find old sticks of PC100 and PC133 RAM. Almost everyone here came to a lab where they are running on 128MB or, if they are lucky, 256MB. One more stick of RAM can go a long way to maintaining your sanity as your students don’t really get (despite countless reiterations) that computers with 128MB of RAM are slow and end up opening thirty or so copies of whatever program you are trying to get them to open – which of course puts that computer out of commission for almost the whole class.

And to everyone coming over I would recommend getting an awesome sun hat. I wasn’t really much of a hat guy back in the states but my hat, along with my laptop and camera are my most used and appreciated items that I brought with me from America-land. You can literally feel the sun sapping away your energy here and having mobile shade-generation capabilities is a big plus. Currently the number of volunteers who have electricity is trending upward and I think we passed the 50% mark recently.

If you find yourself with extra room (ha!) your future malnourished trainee self (everyone loses weight during training) will be extremely grateful for any snacks you can tuck away in your bag. Anything that won’t melt or explode is good but protein especially (jerky!). If you don’t have room there are always those flat rate shipping boxes! My stash of cliff bars was just about all that kept me going for a week or two there. Training isn’t a cake walk. Get ready.

First Rain

The sunburned, parched land aches for rain. From the puffs of dust that dance in the air after every step to the wilted and nearly dormant plants it can be seen everywhere. It’s in the eyes of the half crazed chickens as they dash from shade patch to shade patch, mouths open panting. It’s in the desperate flight of flies, attacking anything that sweats, fighting for a little moisture. It’s in the dry, hot air, literally sucking the moisture out of every breath. It’s everywhere. And yet we can do nothing more but to wait.

The sun blazes its way across the clear, faded blue sky marking the passing of each day. There hasn’t been a cloud able to stand up to its bright, strong rays in months. And then a telltale breeze flickers through my hair so softly I’m sure I must be imagining things. And yet it comes again, stronger this time and this time with a touch of ozone. My eyes dart up the horizon seeing a looming wall of dark, strong clouds. I rub my eyes and look again, almost surprised to see its still there.

Minutes pass and the wind is coming in gusts, carrying with it the overpowering scent of clean, beautiful wet rain. I stand up and step outside – not wanting to miss what might be the first rain drop I’ve seen in half a year. And I’m not disappointed.

The first drop strikes the skin of my shoulder, stabbing me with a pinprick of coldness. Then another, and another and they are dropping fast and furious around me. I’m soaking now. The ground itself is dancing and alive as it absorbs its fill then starts to form small puddles. Fighting down the urge to shiver I smile. The first rains have come to Toma.

Seeing Red Again

I wake up to an eerily soft light filtering into my room. Something isn’t right. I reach for my cell phone sitting on the desk next to my bed and as I start to push aside the mosquito net a shower of dust cascades down, covering my hand. Well that’s not good.

After very carefully squeezing my way out of my dust trap of a mosquito net I take a look out the window at another world. A strange red glow has replaced the usual bright blue of the sky. The familiar trees and buildings around me were obscured by a reddish fog. And everywhere, small pieces of dust are precipitating down like small, red snowflakes. I close the window. I close all the windows. I’m really hoping they cancel class today but by the muffled sounds coming in the direction of the school it sounds like they haven’t.

After finding and dusting off a dust mask I that had laid dormant in my closet every since its first journey with me from Ouagadougou I stepped outside. The first thing I noticed was one set of footprints across our concrete patio tracked through the thin layer of dust gathered there. On the way over to the school I saw more - the solid tracks of motos and the thin ribbon of passing bicycles as well as two python tire treads. I want rain.

My students have taken on a variety of defenses against the dust. Most are covering their noses and mouth but some also insist on wearing a hat. One is wearing her winter coat. Whatever works. As we set off toward the computer lab several things are running through my mind. First I’m glad that I remembered to close all blind-like window coverings last night. Second I’m really glad that I had won my first battle to get equipment for the lab – sheets to cover all the computers and keyboards. Finally I was wondering how bad this is going to be for my dilapidated fleet of ancient computers. They’ve seen worse – I’m almost sure of it.

The room holds surprisingly little dust waiting for us – no more so than would accumulate in a couple weeks of inactivity. Class is over just as the students are starting to get a grasp on what I’m talking about as par usual. I spent the rest of the day shut up in my room trying not to breath.

Who’s to blame for this? I think Iceland. Asking around the jury is pretty split. I’ve gotten responses ranging from this is definitely the volcano to this is the Sahel and it happens every year to I don’t know but it hasn’t been this bad for twenty years! Whatever is the case, I’m relieved it only lasted a day and I’m really hoping we don’t see a day like that again here for twenty years.

My Spring Break 2010 – With selected highlights

Toma -> Pô -> Ouagadougou -> Bobo -> Sindou -> Ouagadougou -> Togo -> Ouagadougou -> Yako -> Toma

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Pô

“Hey kid, what are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Good well then come help me.”

Suddenly the task of cleaning the computer lab seemed a lot less daunting with six student helpers. The place was so full of dust and so poorly organized that I had really wanted to just clean everything out of it right away but I didn’t think I could do it alone and Neal was in a meeting for the next several hours. I knew that the students at my school would leap at the chance to work in our computer lab and evidently it was the same here.

The lab had all of the essentials of a lab, computers, fans, electricity, as well as some perks, windowed glass and an air conditioner. Unfortunately the air conditioner hadn’t been working for some time and the glass windows were pinned open by some computers, resulting in a nice pile-up of dust. I put my small army to work, taking first chairs and tables, followed by cables, monitors and towers. Then came the least fun part – sweeping.

The room was covered in almost a centimeter of dust in some places. Being in the room while it is being swept out is like getting a really bad seat on transport on a really dusty part of the road – you don’t quite end up as red as you do after transport but you feel like you do. I send three unhappy kids in armed with ‘village’ brooms – a bunch of grass or straw tied at the bottom with a cord. Sweeping the household is traditionally part of girls’ daily chores so I had chosen three boys to do the first round. I opened the windows and turned up the fans, hoping to get them some clean airflow and let them go to work. A giant dust-cloud and a few minutes later and the lab looked much better. One more thorough sweep and it almost looked like new.

By the next morning everything was back in the lab, sorted according to operability and I was madly dashing from computer to computer starting installs, entering details, testing CD drives and swapping hardware. Somehow the two days I had allotted myself to finish with the lab had slipped away under the mountain of small tasks and now I was working all out – something I really hadn’t done much of since my last big programming assignment was turned in two weeks before graduation. It was exhilarating and the teacher who came in and out the lab didn’t really know what to think of Neal and me running around crazily. And then it was time to go – I had a bus to catch.

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Ouagadougou

The next morning I was most definitely not catching the bus I promised myself I would wake up for. In fact I wasn’t doing much of anything besides feeling the effects of last night. Besides a massive hangover I had some scrapes from a late-night run in with the pavement on the way back. I struggled out of bed and forced down a liter of water before plopping right back down. I repeated this a couple times before I felt I up to the eight-hour bus ride to the other side of the country. By this time it was lunch, and after learning the next bus out of town left at 2pm, I decided to stay for delivery. After a delicious BLT and equally good grilled cheese with bacon and tomatoes I had my stuff packed out and was heading out the door. I had thirty minutes to get across town but I wasn’t too worried – buses down make a habit of leaving earlier than five minutes to five hours after they are supposed to.

Still I was quite happy to see the taxi pull up that was dropping off some other volunteers. After explaining that I was a little short for time the taxi driver was off on a shortcut to the station, only stopping once to pick up someone headed the same direction. We pulled at 2:00 on the nose. The bus was doing the ritual last minute get-on-the-bus-we’re-leaving honking and I jumped out the taxi waving them down.

Up until this point I’d never met someone running any sort of transport in Burkina that wouldn’t at least try and squeeze one more passenger on. As the bus pulled out of the station after some yelling for me to get out of the way I was shocked. Despite the two-hour wait for the next bus I was overall very impressed by the bus company, Rakieta. They stick to their schedules like clock-work, their buses were cleaner than most I’ve taken in the states, they were comfortable and best off all had air conditioning! These were all firsts for me.

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More to come later but I wanted to get this first part up because it’s been forever and a day since I posted something!

A day by numbers

4 times: I hit the snooze button
87 F: In my room at 7:30 am.
8 seconds: The average period of our rooster’s crowing
10 minutes: The duration of his crowing
2 rocks: thrown at him by me
62 students: My biggest class today
32 students: My smallest class today
12 years: age of my youngest student
22 years: age of my oldest student
2 minutes: time a student who misbehaves in my class has to wall-sit for.
6 classes: In my schedule today
16 computers: working computers in my lab
7 computers: computers working when I arrived
373 MHz: their average processor speed
12 GB: their average hard disk space
154 MB: the average RAM per computer
3 hours: time the youngest class spent raking up rocks with their hands in the sun
105 F: temperature in my room during the afternoon break
3 seconds: time on average to turn on the fan after entering my room
6 liters: water I drink per day on average
2 days: time left until I leave for vacation
20 hours: length of the bus ride to get to the beaches in Benin
5 days: time I will be spending on the beach
9 months: time I have spent in Burkina as of Saturday
5 months: time since I’ve seen rain.
2 months: time until it’s expected to rain in Toma.

International Women's Day

Today is international women’s day and this year I’ve never been more acutely aware of the world’s need to celebrate women and promote women’s rights.

Conversations that I’ve had in the past month in no particular chronological order (all participants renamed to John and all conversations translated into English, poorly):

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John: So Bovard, I hear in America that there are some men who can’t sleep unless they have had sex.

Me: I haven’t heard that. I think there are some people who need to have sex very often, but I don’t know if they need it to sleep, and they might not be able to have sex every day.

John: What do you mean they can’t have sex every day? Don’t they have girlfriends?

Me: Yeah, but sometimes their girlfriend might not want to have sex.

John: What!? How is that possible? Here the girls always have sex with us if we want to.

John 2: Oh man that would be terrible. How do you live like that?

Me: Well sometimes they want to do something else or they don’t want to, maybe they are too tired from working.

John: Are you serious? Why would you want a girlfriend like that?

Me: Like what?

John: One that you can’t have sex with whenever you want.

Me: Well having a girlfriend isn’t just about having sex.

John: You Americans are odd.

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Me: So you are telling me that you have girlfriends, but you don’t want to be seen in public with them?

John: Yeah.

Me: So what do you do together?

John: Well usually they come over and they sweep my house, do my laundry and cook for me and then we have sex.

Me: But you don’t ever want to be seen in public with them?

John: Of course not! If we were ever seen in public they might start thinking that I would want to marry them or something. It would be too complicated. I like it the way it is.

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Me: But you guys are glad that the number of excisions (read: female genital mutilations) has started to decrease, right?

John: No! Everything was fine until you white people came and started telling us that it wasn’t right to do that.

Me: What? So you think excision is a good thing?

John: Let’s just say that if I were to become king tomorrow I would clip all women in Burkina Faso.

Me: Why? Are you serious? You know that would kill a lot of people right? Why would you want to do something like that?

John: Well take pornography, for example. Have you ever seen pornography with a girl that is clipped?

Me: Have you ever seen a guy with no balls in pornography? Do you want me to cut off your balls?

John: Sure go ahead.

Me: Alright. (Pull out my key ring). Which key do you want me to use?

John: Laughs

Me: But that’s your choice. Why force this on hundreds of women and only women?

John2: It’s not just women that are circumcised, men are too!

Me: But that’s not the same, men can still enjoy sex after being circumcised. And there are much lower risks associated with men being circumcised and health benefits. There is no reason to circumcise women.

John: But that is a reason why we want to do it! It calms them down.

Me: It calms them down? So you want all women to be docile?

John: Yes

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I find that as I discover that more and more men in Toma have attitudes similar to those held in the conversations above, the less chance I think I have at finding a male friend whose attitudes toward women I respect. I try the best I can to put it in perspective and imagine myself talking to male Americans in the 19th century. I imagine that a century and a half will bring change similar to that seen in the US. I hope that it doesn't take that long.

In any case, happy International Women’s Day! Here’s to all the women around the world and to all that they do to make it a better place to live in.

In which I do battle…

Warning: The following post may contain strong nerd language which may be unintelligible to the average reader.

There is a lot of dust in Burkina Faso and it seems a lot of it tries very hard to make a home in my apartment. There is constantly a layer of dust on every surface in my house except maybe my bed. And even there after a couple days you can shake the mosquito net hanging over my bed and a shower of fine dust particles go showering down. I’m sure that’s healthy for my respiration system.

To counter this I do my best to dust and sweep my apartment whenever I can, which varies in frequency from a couple times a day to a couple times a week depending on the week. Luckily I don’t have too much floor space and do my best to make sure I keep things off of the floor. When it’s all said and done I have a nice collection of dust in my dustpan which I throw outside, just begging the wind to blow it back in my house over the course of the next couple days.

I was planning to dumb the dust in one of the small gardens at the base of my porch. As I emptied the pan over the small wall I jumped back as a fury of brown and red shot straight up in the air from below with a loud “BAACAAAACK!” A mother hen with feathers puffed out to the max, wings locked in attack position and a crazy look in her eyes came straight at me.

Luckily from my many days spent collecting Crushbone Orc Belts in gfay (Greater Faydark) and crush the shock of aggoing a mob quickly wore off and I assumed battle stance. I was a little bit worried because I was only wearing cloth, was OOM, and my Fine Plastic Dustpan and Brush weren’t exactly fear-inspiring but I didn’t have too much time to worry about it as she attacked.

I blocked the first attack, using the dustpan as a sort of shield and in combination with the brush tried to push her back gently. I felt that she was one of those stupid mobs that if you actually killed would cause you to lose a lot of hard earned faction, in this case probably with the Frères. As she attacked again my mind began to try and think of the nearest place to zone. I guess I usually did stop in place for a while when entering the compound, but that was too far away and I didn’t have SoW. I decided to try walking into my house and closing the screen door.

I quickly realized the folly of my action as she banged head first into the screen door, which I felt probably wasn’t able to hold up to much punishment. Opening the door again and staving off another attack I prayed that she was more like a WoW mob – limited aggro range – and ran toward the kitchen. Looking back I was relieved to see that she wasn’t following me.

I waited a while, watching from out of aggro range as she moved away from the house, taking with her 12 peeping little chicks. If a mother hen gets this defensive about her chicks I would hate to get between a mama bear and her cubs!

I copied my chat log here for your enjoyment.

Bovard has dropped 8 ounces of dust.
Mother Hen becomes enraged.
Mother Hen uses Battle Cry! Mother Hen’s Attack Power is increased!
Bovard blocks Mother Hen’s attack!
/w Bubs Dude I aggroed one of the stupid chickens, you want to send me a port?
Player ‘Bubs’ not found.
Bovard blocks Mother Hen’s attack!
/who friend
0 player(s) found.
Bovard blocks Mother Hen’s attack!
/y “Where is the nearest zone?”
No one hears you.
Bovard blocks Mother Hen’s attack!
/con
Looks like a reasonably safe opponent.
Bovard blocks Mother Hen’s attack!
Bovard tries to use Hide. It fails!
Mother Hen attacks a screen door for 2 dmg!
Bovard blocks Mother Hen’s attack!
Bovard uses sprint.
Battle Cry fades from Mother Hen.
Mother Hen is no longer enraged.

Festima

The green leaves of the mask rippled in waves to the sound of the drum beat as the dancer’s feet flew, pausing only momentarily to strike the ground. Kicking up clouds of dust he made his way across the field, sometimes floating, sometimes bouncing but always embodying the pure rhythm of the eight drum players playing nearby. This is my first night at the mask festival in Deadougou and I’m blown away.

Hearing the words ‘mask festival’ I’m excepting to see someone wearing a mask parading around for everyone to see. I wasn’t expecting this – mask troupes from eight countries, hundreds of dancers, a wide variety of drums and whistles and of course a staggering variety of intricate masks and consumes.

The dance floor is a dirt patch about the size of a soccer field which is surrounded by people. The event offers three types of seating. For about $.25 you can stand in the sun and watch, $.50 buys you a seat under a shaded hanger while a dollar buys you a seat in the shaded, makeshift risers. We had decided that since this was a once in a lifetime kind of thing we’d splurge and get a weekend pass for the stadium seating.

What started out as a small group of people talking about going had surprisingly grown into a group of about twenty from all across the country. We were all staying together in two very crowded bunk house style rooms – two rooms each with sixteen beds, four windows and nothing else. The spoilt volunteers, such as myself, who were accustomed to a blasting fan all night long complained about the heat while the truly “HardCorps” volunteers had no problem.

The heat of the midday sun was an equalizer, drawing complaints from everyone. But mostly we watched. The masks costumes were made from everything from leaves and straw to reeds and leather. There were dancers on stilts, dancers doing back flips, dancers spinning for minutes straight. It was an awesome experience.

Taking pictures was supposedly forbidden without first buying a photo pass. We all chipped in and got one, giving it to the person with the best camera, Leslie. You can check out the pictures she took here.

Why Microsoft fails Burkina Faso

Beep. Beep. Beep. The deaths throws of a rapidly deteriorating UPS are the only sound audible over the soft humming of the fan – who’s gentle breeze isn't quite strong enough to keep trickles of sweat from running down my back. I glance over at Karim, who is staring blankly at the screen in front of us, waiting for me to work magic. I'm at the office of the Centre d'Action Social, though it could be any of the several offices I've helped out here in Toma. As always the back story goes a little something like this:

There was a little extra money and a sore need for a computer and somewhere someone ordered a nice shiny new computer from France for use here in Burkina. It arrived in a nice shiny box with a nice shiny preloaded copy of Windows and Microsoft Office installed and ready to go. Caution is taken to try and make sure the computer is cooled and kept relatively dust free. Everyone is really excited. They hope it will last for a long time.

From the mounting numbers of random programs, poorly placed files, and other problems stemming from lack of computer knowledge people have noticed that the computer is getting slower and slower. Most civil servants have heard of computer viruses and know that they are bad, but that's about it. Maybe the organization will institute a "no USB key" rule, which will last for all of a week or two. And for the first 45 days, or however long the 'free' virus protection lasts, things will be alright - just long enough to build up a critical mass of important files. Then one day someone starts up the computer to the warning signal that the 'free' virus protection period is over. They need to log onto the internet with a credit card to get renew it. This is problem in three regards: first very few people have internet, second even fewer (if any) people have credit cards and third there isn't any money to pay for it. If the person who realizes that the virus protection is down is really computer savvy perhaps they will know how to install a free anti-virus (which can't actually be updated so it can't do much) but this usually isn't the case.

And then after the next person with a USB key comes close to the computer it's all over. Within a day's time the thousand dollar, state-of-the-art, computing workhorse has become a useless lump of metal, rendered inoperable by a host of viruses now residing in the very fabric of what once was a functioning copy of Windows and taking with it close to two months of files.

I had managed to start this particular computer started and after backing up some documents I tried reinstalling a free antivirus ( Avira found at free-av.com). Immediately after installation the warnings started rolling in. My jaw dropped. There was at least one virus attached to almost every single executable and many of the dlls. It was a nightmare. And on a restart to try once again to get into the now disabled 'Safe' Mode the viruses had devoured Avira.

Time to reinstall Windows. I sighed. It seems that no one has Windows disks here and those that do never have a key for them. I hesitated, but decided to ask Karim anyway. He left for a moment and to my pleasant surprise came back holding a stack of CDs, one of which was a Windows reinstall disk, saying it didn't require a key! I popped the disk in and started the reinstall. After an hour more of small talk with Karim we had done it and I triumphantly started up Windows. Only to be asked to validate the key.

Our only option was by telephone, and I started by looking for Burkina's recommended telephone number to call to validate. Instead of a +225 number up came the country code for Cote d'Ivoir. I asked Karim if he could make the call, he said he had enough money in his cell and after a brief fumble to choose the correct cell (most civil servants here have at least two phones) he produce the correct phone and makes the call. The number has been disconnected. I looked up the number for Mali - disconnected, Senegal - disconnected, Benin - disconnected, Togo - disconnected, Niger - disconnected. I was getting desperate and since I knew English we tried Ghana. You guessed it - disconnected.

I told Karim we might have to make a call to France. He said he would have to go out and get some more credit put on his phone. Five minutes later he was back, assuring me that his phone now had enough money to make a short call to France. There were two listed numbers. We dialed the first. It was disconnected. And so was the second.

After another trip to go charge his phone Karim said there was enough money to make a short call to the US. I hate to think what this was going to cost but dialed the number and was soon talking to the wonderful voice of the Microsoft activation robot lady. A short but expensive five minutes late every last digit had been yelled into the phone and the response field was full. I held my breath and pressed Enter. It worked.

So all's well that ends well right? Not so fast! Unfortunately for Karim, he hadn't been given the installation disks or a key for Microsoft Office 2003. All of his virus-ridden but back-upped files were still useless! And it didn't look like any of the Microsoft vendors in the area were available for business let alone willing to help. Luckily for him I had just happened to find a key and instillation disk in the woods next to my house. Attached was a note that said something to the effect of:

'Dear Karim, We're sorry that you're computer came preloaded with an OS with no virus protection (even though we could have loaded a free one on it!) that has only slightly more vulnerabilities and viruses than the amount of money we rake in from sales to impoverished African countries like yours every year. To make up for it we're giving you this CD with an install of Microsoft Office 2003 (we thought you'd like it more than 2007, everyone in the US seems to) and a valid key usable for commercial purposes. I hope this helps! Love your caring software solution provider, Microsoft'

Sometimes this heat makes me question some of the things I think I find in the woods next to my house.

I recently heard that the 100-dollar laptop project is going to be distributed with a Windows operating system. If this is true I think they should rename it the 100-dollar-paper-weight project. Or better yet the make-a-dime-at-the-expense-of-the-poorest-people-in-the-world project.

Edit: So this post was written, as you can probably tell, with a lot of frustration and probably less thinking that is generally advisable. After thinking on it a bit I now realize that Microsoft probably hasn’t changed their activation phone number in France and every country in West Africa, it’s more likely that Karim wasn’t adding the ‘+’ to the beginning of the number, thus trying to dial locally. What I think I was really trying to say is that Microsoft isn’t a viable software solution for West Africa given the realities here- low computer literacy, lots of vectors and opportunities for viruses to spread, limited monetary resources and limited internet connectivity. The thought of them making money selling their software to people here when there are free, virus-free alternatives is depressing.

Just Dance

I turn off my headlamp as I pull up on my bike, braking a little too hard to cause my bike to skid across the dirt of the road – needlessly adding to the large amount of dust in the air (but it sounds cool!). After a quick scan I see Dieudonné waiting for me at our usual table. Unusually he isn’t accompanied by Alex and Jean Luc. As I sit down he explains that they are on their way, as if it is perhaps the most pressing news of the evening. And perhaps it is.

It’s Saturday night and I’m in Toma. I’ve been traveling or sick for six of the past eight weekends and it’s really nice to be here and just relax. Saturday nights in Toma are “clubbing” nights for me. There are two dance clubs in town but I only frequent to one, called “La différance.” It has the essentials of a dance club – music and alcohol – without having anything I look for in a dance club in America – music I like, anything besides beer, a gender ratio better than 10:1. Despite this, I usually quite enjoy myself. There is something really fun about a bunch of guys dancing together and enjoying themselves on the dance floor without the American gender roles. On top of that any way I dance here can only be silly to me – to everyone else I’m just being an American.

Alex and Jean Luc arrive shortly after I do, and they decide to move inside, citing the excess amount of dust to be found outside. I’m a little disappointed; inside is fun, but loud, very loud. I’m also skeptical that the amount of dust constantly raining down on us is somehow less in the opened air club, but I don’t say anything and in we go.

And let the dance party begin. There are perhaps twenty young men on the raised, tiled dance floor, surrounded by a ring of beer-drinking spectators sitting at small metal tables. Our table is, as usual, unoccupied. Then comes the next important part of the evening: ordering beer. Service in restaurants, bars and the food industry in general is slow, if it comes at all. Tonight a server walks close to our table and we’re able to get her attention through a series of yelling and hissing (a sound that it seems you never quite get used to). Tonight they only have one kind of cold beer. I’ll take it.

Our server returns carrying two of three beers we ordered, hovering with the bottle opener above mine for me to give permission to open it. I reach out – feeling to make sure the beer is indeed cold – and nod my head approvingly. An average bottle of beer here is about two and half times bigger than a bottle of beer in the states. It took a bit of getting used to, but now when I see an American sized beer (which they call “small” sized here) for sale I wonder how I’ll ever go back to paying so much for so little beer.

The music has been so far par for the course but suddenly something American comes on. I’m stunned for a moment – the only time I’ve heard American here is after begging for it several times – before jumping up to the dance floor. And I’m dancing, trying not to pay too much attention to the ring of gawking spectators around me. I like to think that they are impressed instead of just surprised to see a white person. Hopefully they are a little of both.

And then something happens that I did not expect, someone dances over to me in a slightly spastic but unmistakably Western style. And he’s in my face. Dance off! A few minutes, several-hundred calories and a few cries of surprise later I’m out of breath and pleasantly surprised, that was completely unexpected and a lot of fun!

ISO Softball

I dug out divets in the soft sandy ground surrounding the large black mat used as home plate. I glanced up at the pitcher, preparing myself. Keep your eye on the ball. I put my bat up and the pitch is up. It’s slow and over the plate. I swing and connect, glancing to see a grounder heading past the pitcher and sprint towards first base. Safe.

Whew. I’m quite happy to get on base. After not playing any form of baseball/softball since T-ball as a seven year old I’m quite bad. Luckily a softball is pretty big and most of the other people playing aren’t exactly softball champions as we’re playing in the non-competitive league.

About a month before I had gotten a text saying there is going to be a softball tournament at ISO (International School of Ouagadougou) and that Peace Corps is going to have a team that we could join if we were interested. I was a little bit worried about the softball thing, but really excited about ISO. ISO has green, beautiful grass, a nice pool, lots of English speakers and a ridiculously priced American restaurant. How ridiculously priced? Well if I ordered what I wanted to every meal for a three day weekend probably more than half of my month’s salary would be gone. But in America terms probably a bit more pricey than a Perkins.

The thing I loved most about ISO was being on the green, wonderful grass. Playing Ultimate Frisbee barefoot on grass is one of the things I look forward to the most on my monthly weekends there. Though I’ve had an aversion to all things baseball I decided it would be worth it to get on that field for a weekend. And it turned out much more pleasant than I was expecting. Softball is FUN.

With raw competition coursing through my veins I took a look around from first base. I had been the first hitter of the inning and this was the third time this game I had gotten on base. I was quite proud of myself as this was a much needed departure from my normal hitting. And our team needed every hit it could get. It was the bottom of the last inning of the semi-final (which happened to be the fifth). After getting off to a rough start (11-0 at the start of the bottom of the second) our team had made a comeback and now it was 9-11. We had three outs to get two runs – three would send us to the finals.

Next up to bat was Tim, our only lefty on our team of 15. Crack. A grounder sends me on a quick sprint to second. Our next batter misjudges a pitch, which is really easy to do. After three games I don’t quite still understand what a strike looks like. We have a giant black mat placed on home and if the ball hits there it’s a strike. But sometimes it isn’t. And the mat is very large. Unfortunately for him we start off with a strike and a ball, making the count 2-1. The next pitch is up. It’s headed for the mat. Whiff. Our first out.

The next hit sends me scurrying to third. I greedily eye home plate. Batter up, the pitcher winds up. Please get a hit, please get a hit. And I’m off down the home stretch. I demand all I can out of my legs atrophied from months of laze. Two more steps. And I’m past it and running up the batting cage. YES!

Unfortunately Tim doesn’t quite make it to third. Two outs. Bottom of the ninth (fifth). Bases (almost) loaded and at the top of our batting order. The anticipation is palpable. I’m suddenly very glad I’m not up to bat. Very glad.

I miss the first pitch, but turn around to see the umpire calling a strike. 2-1. My heart is in my throat as I watch the next pitch is thrown. It’s maybe a little short. He’s swinging. Strike.

After a good team shoulda-coulda-woulda session we headed to the pool to drown our sorrows. After a few hours of excellent sunbathing, swimming, and a couple good cocktails I felt like a hundred bucks. But I still wouldn’t have minded taking that trophy home.

Test Day

I look around my dusty lab at a sea of lost, confused and sometimes fearful faces. It’s test day. Every Friday afternoon two hours is set aside for tests and the schedule of tests is prepared and distributed at the beginning of the semester. This is my first test of the semester and the first time I’ve attempted a practical test – that is actually using computers.

This afternoon I’m with my youngest class, 6eme, who don’t quite get computers, but are sure excited to mess around on them anyway. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part I’m forced to repeat myself a lot, and use very simple language. For example, in my older classes what once was a long drawn out, five minute process of me explaining every step to them has now become three words, “Arrêtez votre ordinateur” (Shut down your computer). In contrast, most of 6eme hasn’t quite got the double click down perfectly yet and ‘shut down your computer’ remains a five minute explanation.

Going into this test I knew that I would have to make the test pretty easy, and I thought I had done a pretty good job. The test was broken into ten steps which were divided into four groups. After you had finished all the steps in a group you were to raise you hand and I would come around and check to make sure you did it correctly. Then you could move on to the next group of tasks. For each step you did correctly you got a point, giving a possible of ten points. Here is the English version of the test.

1. Open the Recycle Bin (1)
Minimize the Recycle Bin (2)
Raise you hand.

2. Close the Recycle Bin (3)
Open the calculator (4)
With the calculator calculate 79-49 (5)
Raise your hand

3. Close the calculator (6)
Open Encarta Junior (7)
With Encarta Junior find the number of countries in Africa (8)
Raise your hand

4 Close Encarta Junior (9)
Open Paint and draw a dog (10)
Raise your hand

I thought it would be a cake walk to get a passing grade (50%) as we had done each of these things in class, many of them several times. As I walked around the room, I saw that my students begged to differ.

Almost every screen I looked at the students were doing one of two things. About half the class had found the recycle bin on the desktop, but instead of double clicking on it or using one of the other ways of opening it we discussed and practiced in class, most were clicking and dragging it across the desktop. This was remarkable in that the concept of clicking and dragging had been the concept that had given everyone the most difficulty, and now they were pros. Many right clicked on the Recycle Bin, bring up the menu which included such helpful options as open. No one actually clicked on open, but several raised their hands to show me that they had opened the Recycle Bin. Several clicked on “Create a shortcut” which led to much confusion. Now there are two Recycle Bins!

The other half of the class had opened the Start Menu and was bewilderingly looking around at the submenus opening and closing as they moved their mouse around. I asked several of them where the Recycle Bin was, and they hesitantly moved their mouse over to rest on it. When I asked them how to open it, the mouse eventually moved back to the Start Menu and resumed their browsing.

At the end of the allotted fifteen minutes I looked down at my checklist. Out of fourteen students here, there were four checks. I gave them a few extra minutes. I was testing both classes of 6eme each which has about 40 students. Breaking them into three groups each and at fifteen minutes a group the whole affair took just over two hours. By the end I was exhausted.

Watching my students who I knew knew somewhat what they were doing languish painfully on step one was a bit depressing. But I think there are mitigating factors such as the novelty of the test format, the stress of a live test, and poor ability in French (mine and in some cases theirs, French is a second language to most) that took their toll. When I added up the results 26 of 76 students passed, with the average of the number of steps completed being 3.

There were some brighter moments though: the first student to get to the last group, the look of triumph on the face of a student who had taken the last ten minutes desperately trying to open the Recycle Bin and had just figured it out, shooting his or her hand in the air with pride, the first drawing of a very sickly looking dog.

This test has shown me a lot and is going to lead to some changes in the way I’m teaching, specifically what I’m doing in lab. Giving them all the instructions for a lab can only teach them how to follow instructions. I think the first step to moving beyond that is attaching concepts and names to these instructions so that a series of steps becomes a phrase, shut down your computer, or, as was lacking today, double clicking on an icon becomes launching or opening the icon. I haven’t been pushing them enough towards that transition. Or at least that what it seems like to me. Anyone out there skilled in the art of instruction have any advice?

Welcome Back

After too long a time away from blogging, I’m back at it, this time with internet at my site so there are no excuses!

Unfortunately there are a few things that have passed that I don’t have a good enough memory to describe them. This is going to be an entry of mini entries of the things I was going to blog about, but didn’t get around to.

September 2nd?, 2009

I sat under Andrea’s thatched hanger watching drops hurl themselves against the concrete floor. It was drizzling out, something I’d never really seen before in Burkina. The strong winds and dark clouds that were a hallmark of rain had disappeared, giving way to a light breeze and soft, grey, streaky clouds.

The ride over had been wet, at times the water was so high my feet disappeared into the muddy water as they reached the nadir of the cycle. I remember looking down into the water and shuddering, remembering some of the pictures we saw during the medical sessions in training. I could practically see the parasites swimming around, looking for an opening.

The bike ride to Andrea’s is a short 13km but with most of the road underwater it had taken me the better part of an hour. The road itself could be found in some of the more remote parts of Montana. It’s navigable but the combination of rains and relatively heavy traffic has taken their toll. Put a foot of water on top of that and you’ve got yourself a challenging road.

What is around the road is much more interesting. Every shade of green imaginable painted on plants, trees and bushes. What was hard packed dry dirt broken up by a few trees and shrubs etching out a living has come alive. And everywhere there is water.

I learn a few days later that there was so much rain that week that there were heavy floods in Ouagadougou and elsewhere, sweeping away hundreds of mud-brick homes and leaving thousands homeless.


October 14th, 2009

I’ve never been that afraid of spiders. I remember once when I was a kid we found a black window in our garage and we brought it outside to look at. I’ve always admired the way spiders look – sleek, graceful and deadly. I decided it would be a good idea to pick the black widow up with a leather glove. The spider started to crawl upwards toward the skin of my exposed arm and I flung that glove off so fast I think the impact maimed or killed the spider. I tell you this as a precursor.

A couple days ago I needed some socks. Not the most glamorous start to a story but it is true none the less. I’m quite lucky to be able to use the Frères’ laundry service, a guy named Luke who comes around once a week. Every Tuesday morning he drags out three giant dented metal bowels and fills them with water and the local laundry detergent Omo which is the central theme in many wonderful commercials on RTB (Radio and Television of Burkina) and which I unfortunately have burned into my memory. A few hours and a lot scrubbing later he breaks out the iron and gives everything a professional once over. The next day we have a clean, ironed pile of clothes awaiting us in the common room where we eat our meals.

This pile was now sitting on one of my two giant green trunks. I haven’t quite got a good system for storing my cloths, and on top of the chest they stay off of the dirty floor and high enough to stay out of the mini floods that take over my room in especially strong rainstorms.

I knew that my socks where somewhere in the middle – I could see their white shapelessness sticking out from the middle of neat creases and folds. I lifted up the first couple shirts and stopped. There, sitting calmly on my sock was a spider. A camel spider. A large camel spider.

The first, and really only thing you notice about camel spiders are their two giant wickedly curved fangs. They would seem almost comical if they weren’t attached to a creature inches away from your hand. At this point in my service I was still at peace with the critters living in my apartment and not wanting to break the truce now I picked up the sock and headed to the door. I got about halfway there before the thing moved.

As I vainly hurled the sock toward the door I tried to remember if camel spiders were poisonous. I didn’t think so, but I seem to remember some pictures floating around on the internet that didn’t bode well for those unfortunate enough to be bitten by a camel spider. I didn’t want to find out.

He hit the ground running and was gone. I didn’t realize that camel spiders where so fast.

I adopted a ritual the next couple days. Each night before bed I would take my only sheet and shake it, then thoroughly check my pillow and look over my mosquito net before determining that there was no camel spider present and it was safe to go to sleep. I figured that he must have left the apartment by after a few days went by with no sign of him and my routine slowly began to break down.

One night I was extremely tired and couldn’t be bothered to do more than a precursory check before plopping my iPod speakers in my ears, starting up some soothing music and setting my weary head to rest. Even though I’m close to half a mile from the nearest dog, donkey or dance club, a lovely mélange of the three make their way into my room at night. At my host families house in Ouahigouya I thought I could find nothing worse than the call to prayer at 5am. I was wrong. And thus I fall asleep each night with the sounds of music from America land soothing me to sleep.

Tonight I heard something that I didn’t expect – a faint scratching sound. Oh man, please don’t let that be my ear buds, I need these. Scratch, scratch. My head popped off the pillow like a cork as my ears found the source of the scratching sound. It was coming from in the pillow.

I ran across the room and flipped on the light switch, turning back to the pillow as the sole florescent light in my room blinked into existence. I lifted it up gingerly, hoping that I wouldn’t find what I knew I would find. Two large beady black eyes stared back up at me from behind two fangs which I swear had grown a little bit. Camel spiders are tough, but they go down pretty hard when you hit them with a Chaco.

Edit: Sorry the picture upload isn't working. I'll try and get one up later.