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!