Arrival in France

So while I deal with some apartment shenanigans, I've got some time to kill writing a blog post. Anyway, France has been a nice mixture crazy fun and just plain crazy. It's been evident to me from the start that France is a nation out of its mind. I say this honoring the fact that I hail from the most insane nation on the globe: the united states. Simply in lieu of "America's Next Top Model" and the French have chosen luis vuitton. That aside, France has been great. The most glaring difference between here and Burkina is cool weather. My first 5 minutes after my arrival at Charles de Gaule marked the longest I had gone without sweating in about 4 months. I was actually quite chilly the other day on my walk to the Sacré Coeur. Besides that, France has been a nonstop visual delight since my arrival. When I landed at CDG I actually felt like I had been catapulted about 200 years into the future. The stainless steel glass structures of the airport were a welcome departure from the mud brick, thatched roofed house of Burkina. I say this with love in my heart, but Burkina is not a pretty place. The burkinabé people are physically beautiful and their culture is a paragon of hospitality and warmth, but it would be quite the kind lie to say the country they live in is anything but ugly. Honestly I had forgotten just how rich countries in the developed world are. I walked through a cemetery on my first day in Paris and it was remarkable how just about every sepulcher was more elaborately ornate and all together pleasing to the eyes than any given building in Burkina. When a nation can houses its less than outstanding dead people in dwellings more elaborate than the kings of another country, you know there is a wealth disparity.
Another thing I might note is the culture shock. Parisians and the denizens of my community are quite different. That's not to say that Parisians seem to fit the stereotype of being overly pretentious, arrogant elitists- They just seem 'modern'. They listen to their ipods on the metro, they don't say high to people on the street.... they live highly individualistic, private lives. As a tick from my time in Burkina I can't pass someone on the street without saying hi to them (even if it's 10 people in 30 seconds) and yet no one seems to seems to say high to me back. Well I shouldn't say no one- The black people say hi to me back. I can only imagine that this is due to the fact that many of them are probably immigrants or decedents of immigrants from west africa and thus carry on some of the cultural traits of that region. I've actually chatted up quite a few of them and met a few Ivorians, Sénégalese and even a Burkinabé.

Its funny that while I met a couple Americans at the hostel, I definitely feel like I related more to the west Africans I chatted up. Maybe Its just because I'm at a different point in my life than many of the Americans I met- maybe it's because the idea of "OH SHIT BRO EURO TRIP WE'RE GONNA GET TANKED" doesn't really appeal to me. Anyways this was kind of a hurried blog post but I've got a phone call to make. more updates soon with a picture dump.

Of caterpillars and closing ceremonies

The end of my first school year and with it first year hear in burkina is quickly approaching. I must say it doesn't feel like a full year has past. During our in service training at the beginning of our term I recall some elder PCV warning me about boredom in village. I must say that in no way have I found this to be true. Not only do the months go by quickly, but each day always seems to come up a couple hours short.

I must say that I have far from mastered every aspect of burkinabé culture. I continue to make the occasional misstep and the actual rule that I violated remains recondite. For instance when explaining to someone that I went and bought some tigankouro (it's like rice and beans) for myself during lunch, on of my friends burst out "you went and bought it yourself! you didn't send a kid to get it for you?" and I responded "yes... is that bad?" he in turn responded "of course it is" as if I had done the most unnatural thing in the world.

On the other hand, I've definitely come a long way on the road to becoming a veritable burkinabé villager. I dedicate a solid couple of hours each day just to saying high to people, and my recent success in Djula/dafine has allowed me to communicate with more people than ever before. On of the things that has amazed me most about language learning is how variable your day to day performance can be. While it should be noted that I have no proclivity for language acquisition, and as such some of this inconsistency could be explained by that. However it remains quite bazaar that there are days when I can executed phrases which employ the figurative use of complex vocabulary, and other days I can't even seem to manage the pronunciation on the simplest benediction. Even with french there are days I talk like a hybrid of La Fontaine and Zola and other days when I feel like i just started speaking french.
In other news I recently acquired a predilection for Caterpillars. When I was in bobo I picked some up and have taken to preparing them for myself and my friends. Most of my neighbors don't care that much for my american dishes, the have applauded my preparation of caterpillars as some of the best they have tasted. The picture tagged is of one of my good mates, Seydou, chowing down on a recent preparation.

My art club is reaching its final performance as well. On the docket we have about an hour long one act, a couple dance pieces, a piece of poetry, and a couple songs. To be perfectly blunt this whole process my end in disaster, but I still think it should be fun for the kids.

I'm all registered for the GRE and wrapping up the affairs for my trip to Paris as well. While I do love my community, it will be nice to get out for a bit.

Lessons in ebullience

I'm winding down on the home stretch (mixed metaphors what?) of my first year here in Burkina Faso and while once again I find myself unable to articulate much of my experience here, suffice it to say that I still find the world around me worthy of the highest, most poetic adulation, even if I am incapable of expressing it.

We here in the Big L just celebrated quite the Fete- but this time it was a Christian one. As I may have mentioned before the Big L is approximately 4000 percent mulsim, so I ended up going to a nearby village to party the Paques (or easter as it is called in cracker speak). It ended up hitting two catholic masses- one on the eve, the other the morning of- both of which were entirely in Djulakan. While my Djula definitely has come a long way since my arrival, I still have a very hard time sorting through the content of things like sermons or other complex topics. I was quite reticent at the event as I didn't want to draw too much attention to myself (being the single white person there made this nigh impossible but I still tried). I don't like being scolded for not going to church every Sunday and Christians in general and burkinabé-christians in particular are quick to do that. It should be noted that Burkina is the kind of place where a Muslim will fulminate a christian for not going to church, not because he's doing some disservice to god, but rather because he is withdrawing from the community. I, who am a total misanthrope and hermit by burkinabé standards, try in vain to set aside a good chunk of each day to doing things by myself. Anyways, attempting to obviate being sucked into another time demanding community was my reason for being reserved at the fete. I realize that I sound quite asocial, and I am, but I do spend about 90 percent of my waking hours either working or chatting with people. It's pretty clear that if I want to preserve what time I have left to myself I have to be quite aggressive in pursuing it.
Any way besides the masses were quite fun. I learned a couple new djula phrases and rather enjoyed the periodic paeans of the the melodically challenged but rhythmically godlike church musical group. Listening to the sermon and getting about every 5th word reminded me of the fact that all Islamic prayer gatherings are exclusively in Arabic (god's language) which very few villagers speak. On top of that, music is strictly forbidden anywhere near mosques. All in all, I think being Muslim is a pretty tough job.
In the post mass, me and my fellow teachers had quite a feast of spaghetti and fish along with a never-ending supply of dolo. Quite good.
I gave my fellow teacher a lesson in greek phrases including those used around Easter and got an equivalent lecture in Djula.

Shortly after Easter, I negotiated another party. We recently got another addition to the crack squad of savy, motivated functionaries at the Big L CEG. He's supposedly here to manage the funds of our school but as far as i'm concerned he's really just a narc sent by the government to spy on us. First of all, if you're educated and you are pro government in burkina that you are obviously on their pay role. None of my fellow frontier teachers have much love for the burkinabé government- its wanton prodigality and hypocritical rehtoric is quite the turn off. And as for myself, I am quickly becoming a supernova of disenchantment fueled populist political outrage, and due to that, I have know love of governments, foreign or domestic.
Despite all of this, in the traditional burkinabé fashion he was given a hearty welcome. And I, grasping for any reason at all to have a party, found out that his birthday was fast approaching and procured hearty cuts of lamb and 2 bottles of wine with all deliberate dispatch. Like any party that Nick Rossi is behind, this one knew not dearth nor want. Everyone left feeling quite satisfied.

The end of my first school year and my trip to France are both coming up very quickly. I'm so excited so see the home of Camus (ok maybe not algeria) and Sartre. Not to mention, to be in a country where you can find cheese outside the capital.

So i'm sure you're all tired of hearing about...

Supporting Caste by Propagandhi and A People's History of the United States by Howerd Zinn. I've I kept in contact with you at all recently I've probably ranted about both of them for far longer than you wanted. Well guess what! It's not over!

First up, I really don't get that much new music here so it was quite a treat when I negotiated the download of the latest propagandhi album. Once again, I have to thank the woodbeck house for the itunes gift card- one of the many exceedingly insightful gifts they sent me. I'll skip the analysis of the album, the conclusion is it rocks. Supercharged anti-imperialist punk is the perfect soundtrack to my day (read: memorizing vocab, washing clothes, fetching water, deciding where to sit).
Second, A People's History is just a delight. Zinn's writing is clear and thoughtful and while he addresses populist themes throughout the work, he never comes across as preachy or overly empathetic. The work comes across as surprisingly sober without losing any of its readability. Long story short- Its a great book to be reading now that i'm living outside the united states and I've got the time to reflect on what the country means to me and in what way I am connected to its legacy.
On the school front things are going as hectically as ever. I was a little too bold in adding classes that were not in the program at the beginning of the year, and as a result i'm a bit behind in 6ème and 5ème. So to fix this problem I ended up adding 2+ hours to 6ème and 1 hour to 5ème every week. The kids are not too happy and as a result I've become even more draconian in class.
I should note also that now that I've had time to reflect on my trip to Bobo I have to say it's within my top ten favorite cites on the globe. Its got a really laid back feel and seems really accessible. I'm sure I'll make it back there again sometime this summer.
In other news I'm studying for the GRE and I'm not too worried. Compared to the stack of over 400 french vocab flash cards generated from "L'assommoir" by Zola, my current stack of 20 English words does not seem that intimidating. When I take the test however I will be coming out of a rather transport situation, and in a new country so there will be other concerns.

Well I suppose that's about it.
An bina kay donni

Maloude (sp?)

So happy birthday Mohammad (I really hope this casual opening does not incite demonstrations in saudi arabia). Yes it was the birthday of the prophet recently and the big L celebrated in it's own unique way.
I'm a big fan of parties in general and religious ones in particular, and this one did not disappoint. When my budy Adama invited me to the mosque at 10:30 the other night I was quite excited. He explained that everyone gathered there livestock, bikes and motorcycles and circled the mosque for a bit, and then after that everyone read the Qua'ran until dawn. I was not too thrilled about the Koranic readings, but the first part kinda sounded like a fourth of july parade and I was all about it. So before I left for the event I made sure that I was looking fresh in a respectful way. I was prepped to bow in reverence.

However, I realized upon my arrival that this event was not at all how I had imagined it. First off, this circling of the mosque was not the solemn mournful procession that I expected and would be fitting for an Islamic holiday. Rather, It was a completely chaotic tumult of man and beast hurtling at top speed around the temple. People were mounting there bikes, motercycles, cows and donkeys and then proceeding to drive them as fast as possible around and around the mosque. The fact that few of the bikes had breaks and the livestock particularly appreciated this process guaranteed that the madness would reach pretty astonishing levels. About every 20 seconds there was a collision. Some of them were pretty minor, such as when a young burkinabé decided to pop a wheelie on his bike before loosing control and hurtling into the crowd of onlookers. Others were a little more serious, such such as when 800 pounds of bull decided it didn't really appreciate the game and opted to start rushing against traffic, goring motorcyclists and fellow animals as it went. There were also some other brave souls that had the gumption to enter into the fray on foot, sprinting for their lives amidst this chaos.

I found this whole process endlessly entertaining, especial when one considered that it was to be followed shortly by koranic readings and solemn prayer. At the party, there were some pious, long beard types that disapproved of this kind of behavior on such a day but I think people like that are lame. I think a little bit of socially condoned madness is good from time to time.

Biking and Biotech

So in an effort to save 2500cfa (5 US dollars) I opted to ride my bike to my site from Ouahigoya. The ride was a glorious 135k of sun bleached gravel punctuated only by the occasional mosque. It it totally depressing to see that much of the burkinabé country side in one day as you begin to realize that it all looks the same. The landscape is composed of 3 main ingredients at this time of year: dehydrated vegetation, dust and sun. However, the good news is I found perhaps the best bread and coffee in all of burkina faso. Located at kiembara, a town about 45k from ouahigouya, one can find absolutely divine café au lait and the BON pain which feed the body and nourish the soul. The people in that village however spoke samo so I can't comment so much on the make up of the town. It's still amazing to me what barriers language present in this country. Even though I speak french decently and djula passably there is still a large portion of the country that I am entirely incapable of communicating with, not to mention the problems that exist across boarders. For instance, a random American would have an easier time getting around in Ghana (an anglophone country) than the vast majority of burkinabé even though burkina shares a boarder with Ghana. It is no wonder languages such as french and Swahili are expanding so much in africa, it is so convenient to have a common tongue.

Forgot to mention that when I was in Ouahigouya I started looking into grad schools. I'm pretty sure I'm going right back into the fray upon my return to the states but not quite sure what program. I want to work french into my degree somehow but it seems as though it might be a bit too ambitious (read: suicidal) to try to pull off a french major and a microbial engineering masters. There is still some time left to decide though.

february winding down

So presently i'm in ouahigoya where i'm typing up a quarterly report about my work at the big L. Apparently peace corps washington needs to keep tabs on me to make sure I don't abandon my classes for arms dealing or drug trafficking. The report is full of some rather fun questions like "are you a) very well integrated b)somewhat integrated etc". I totally understand why they have to do it but all in all it does seem silly.

The upshot is I actually have quite a bit to write down on this report as more and more things have been coalescing on the work front. My art club is starting to take off in a manner of speaking. It seems to simultaneously be completely out of control and also quite a bit of fun (a suitable summery for all my school associated activities). We are narrowing down to sketches to be performed and we have also composed some poetry together. I was a little slow on the ball with regards to national womens day (march 8th) and unfortunately our performance will not be ready by then. I'm thinking if we wrap it up towards the end of the 3rd trimester we can throw a pretty off the chain party for the school. I would like to incorporate as many branches of art as possible while keeping theater at the core (it seems to be what they feel the most comfortable creating on their own).

The art club is pretty fun but I have also set my sights on a few more practical objectives. First and foremost I have decided that before I leave BF my site will have a proper library. The rate at which students devour my books that I lend out is really only a taste of what dire need for resources there is in my community. The bulk of my students seem to be in the same position as I am with regards to french level and yet they have none of my resources for improvement. I've started working on a grant with the help of my director that would bring together both funds from within and without a the community (it's called peacecorps partnership and is a pretty common avenue for projects like mine). I'm hoping to have the grant done before the end of the school year so i can work on it over the summer.

I've also received a small grant to buy some musical instruments for my school. It's not a whole lot but it should be enough to buy a couple djembé and a balafon which is an increase of infinity percent of the the musical resources of my school.

Hopefully the upshot of all of this is my site will get a little bit out of me being a volunteer. Learning french and djula and studying are, at their core, selfish activities and while it's important for my sanity to devote some time to those things each day, I hope to do a lot more 'volunteer work' over the next year.