Swear-In... Its official!

We made it through training and have officially sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers! The last two weeks have been very exciting for us, full of changes and transition. We left our training city of Ouahigouya on August 23rd for the capital city of Ouagadougou. In Ouaga, Tyler and I enjoyed ourselves immensely with Chinese food, hamburgers, pizza, burritos, and even fried calamari (all the sort of things you can’t readily find outside of the capital)! Our swear-in ceremony was on August 25th and was held at the U.S. ambassador’s residence, which is right next to the U.S. embassy. There were nearly 200 people at the ceremony, including Burkina’s Minister of Primary Education. It was, in my opinion, a very successful event that really pumped us up for the next two years of service. The day after the ceremony, Tyler and I headed for our new home, Tougan.

Since our visit to Tougan last month, our opinion of the small city has remained positive and optimistic. We have had an extraordinary time in Tougan so far with visits to the marché (market), friendly conversations with neighbors, and meals eaten with my homologue Alice and our tutor Yaro. Almost everyone we interact with is incredibly kind and good humored. Tyler and I have found ourselves at one of the local cafés, Vis-à-vis, several times to partake in what we believe is the best yogurt in Burkina. We have also discovered a very scrumptious chicken soup (which is more like a big piece of chicken in broth than the noodles, meat, and veggies that people in the US usually consume) at Hotel Nerwaya, and a very acceptable ground beef sandwich, again, at Vis-à-vis. (Yes, we recognize that we have talked about food several times already in this blog, but it’s always a treat to enjoy something here that is not just rice! – yes Tom, I admit it, rice can be quite a bore J)

Life in Tougan, more than it has afforded us with good food options, has finally allowed us some of the independence we lacked during training. We have had a blast cooking for ourselves again (tuna melts have never tasted so good), organizing our new house, and having significantly more control over our daily schedule. Tyler has done a fantastic job searching our plants for our courtyard – lemon grass/citronella (which mosquitoes don’t like) and mint (which flies don’t like – both of which will make an exceptional tea). We are also looking forward to planting numerous flowers and trees, most of which produce fruit, but of course not before we leave Burkina. Perhaps some of the familial green thumb has finally rubbed off on Tyler (though he is skeptical to see if anything he has planted will survive). We also painted the inside of our house with a turquoise-like color, all with the help of our new friend Salam, the son of our landlord.

Salam has been a great help to us in our first few days here, fixing broken lights, painting, negotiating difficult rope for our clothesline, and dealing with our still broken French. All of it he has done with great enthusiasm, never asking for anything in return, except to practice some of his English. Salam, like many Muslims here right now, is also fasting for Ramadan. Fasting meaning no food or water during day-light hours. It is an amazing feat considering that those observing the fast still work all day in the fields, often in the scorching heat!

Fortunately, it has cooled down the last few days with a sudden downpour of rain. Unfortunately, however, that has meant major flooding for Ouagadougou and other parts of Burkina. The damage is significant, including impassable roads, falling bridges, and destroyed homes. Alice, who is originally from the Ouaga area, says she has never seen a flood like it. No flooding has occurred in Tougan, but we are worried about our Peace Corps comrades in and around Ouaga. We hope to hear more updates soon.

Other than that, Tyler and I have been spending most of our time getting comfortable in our house, having furniture made, doing two weeks worth of laundry, and all in all relishing in the time spent “making home” in our first home together.

Jessi

Two weeks left of Training?

Our Washing Machine at Tyler's host family

Jessi's host sister and her daughter

Tyler's Host Family at Alim's 1st birthday

Jessi' Host Sister Marriam and son Issouf

Jessi's host brother Adama, Issouf, and one of the many village kids that hang out at her house

Jessi and her host sister who never leaves her side

It is impossible to believe, but two weeks from today we will be leaving our host families and leaving training. Two weeks and two days from now we will be sworn in as members of the Peace Corps at the US Embassy in Ouaga, and it is hard to believe that over two months have passed since we left the US. The prospect of leaving our rigid and rigorous training schedule, the “parenting” of the Peace Corps training program, and starting our home in Tougan is a welcomed one, but the idea of leaving our host families and friends that we’ve made here is not one that is easy to embrace either.

I’ve completed two weeks of teaching math in French at model school. Though it is only one class of one hour each day, it has been challenging. However, when I think about the fact that I spoke no French 3 months ago and now I’ve taught a bit of math to those 35 students in French, its downright amazing! (Note: model school classes are really small… typical class size in Burkina Faso is 70-140 students in one classroom) Model school has forced some improvement in my French because I have to answer questions off the cuff, and there is no one in the room to translate for me or otherwise help me if I don’t understand. We have two more weeks of model school left, and I’m hoping that my vocab will continue to increase with it.

We’ve both been under the weather a bit the past couple of weeks, and we don’t know what to attribute it to. Could be food, or a bug, or who knows what. Being sick here means lying down in an unventilated room that could double as an oven and sweating profusely until you can’t tolerate it any more.

Because of aforementioned scorching rooms, we’ve been talking about buying an oscillating fan for our site, and decided it is probably a good idea to get one while we’re at training since we’ll have somewhat of a better selection (well, that and because when we are forced to sleep inside here, even at night, it is a sweatfest). Today I decided to go out and browse around for fans. I was checking out a fan at a street vendor today and noted that the box (which was in English and Russian) promoted a two year warrantee that came with this fan. I chuckled to myself and asked the vendor if it was true. He smiled and said (not in English) “Ha! This is Africa. Things don’t work like that here.” In reality, if I took it home, plugged it in, and it quit after an hour I would have no retribution. I have no retribution with the vendor because he has no retribution with the manufacturer.

Though I held off on buying the fan, it really segued into one of the things I often struggle with here: a lack of guarantees. By guarantees I mean simple assumptions too, such as if I decide to buy 100cfa (25 cents) worth of Bissap and pay with a 500cfa coin, the likelihood of the person having change for me is really low, even at a restaurant. Similarly, when you go out to a restaurant that advertises various items on its menu, it is likely that 30% of the items won’t actually be available, though they may have been 10 minutes before. In my mind, I wonder why they couldn’t stock a little extra (there truly is a lot of potential business lost). However, there really is no guarantee for the vendors either, and if nobody buys their products it is simply food that you can’t afford to refrigerate, and thus money down the drain, something that no one can afford here. It is petty but its one of the little quirks here that has taken some adjusting, and I can’t believe how much I enjoyed that simple consistency and reliability back in the US. Both of those qualities are truly the mark of wealth I am now realizing.

So I know everyone thinks that Jessi and I are off living this incredibly exciting and adventurous life in Africa with the Peace Corps, and that may be true to some extent. However, I just want to mention again how much we enjoy hearing anything from home. It is seriously good for our mental health, even the simplest of notes. Thank you to everyone that has written, emailed, or called us.