"Amy! Amy! Time to get up. People from the bureau are here."
"Huh...?" I roll over groggily, rubbing my eyes. "Not ready to get up yet..."
"Sheila (the Administrative Officer) is downstairs waiting to talk to us. Let's go."
Suddenly I am wide awake. Damn. Last night was not just a bad dream.
Around 3:00 am this morning another volunteer came back from a late night at the bureau, grabbed a towel and headed off to take a shower before finally going to bed. He walked into the bathroom, turned on the light, shut the door behind him...and turned around to find a Burkinabe man hiding behind the door. After the initial shock of seeing something completely unexpected wore off, he began shouting "Voleur! Voleur!" ("Thief! Thief!") and pursued him into the hallway. The shouts woke me up just in time to hear loud footsteps rapidly approaching the area where a large group of volunteers were sleeping.
I lifted my face from being buried in my pillow, confused by all the shouting. The man burst through the door and sprinted right past my bed, with the volunteer close behind, followed immediately by another volunteer that had woken up quickly enough to also start chasing. Without contacts or glasses, I am completely blind, and all I could make out were three figures shouting and running frantically towards the staircase. I thought I had woken up in the middle of some sort of riot. I screamed. Several other people screamed. Chaos ensued.
"What's going on?!"
"Who was that?!"
"Are you okay?!"
Despite only going to bed a couple hours before, we all woke up very quickly. After a moment, the volunteer who chased the Burkinabe came back up the stairs, visibly angry.
"Check your stuff, guys. That was a thief."
I remember thinking to myself that there was no way the thief could have gotten anything from me because my bags were all right next to my bed, where I had been soundly sleeping just minutes before. Nevertheless, I picked up my purse and rifled through it a little just to be sure.
Wait a minute...where is my camera? Damn. And where is my wallet? Damn, Damn. And where is my iPod? Damn, Damn, Damn.
All around me were murmurings of relief at discovering that nothing was taken, or cries of "my iPod is gone!" Or "my money is gone!" Some of us began to wander around to check on people who somehow managed to sleep through the ruckus.
We all convened downstairs, still in our pajamas, and waited to find out what to do next, still a little in shock over what had just happened.
"Someone call Congo (the Safety and Security Officer)."
After a few minutes, we had all settled down and were sitting in our common area, waiting for someone from the embassy to show up. Many of us were even joking around and laughing a little...mostly out of relief.
The security officer sent by the embassy was a short Burkinabe man, dressed in a large yellow raincoat. He asked few questions; he mostly just wandered around shaking his head. When we described how the thief had gone up the stairs to our second floor where people sleep he made a surprised face and said, "ce n'est pas vrai!" (it's not true!) Then we told him how the thief had come into people's rooms while they were sleeping and he again said, "ce n'est pas vrai!" We assured him, yes, sir, "c'est vrai."
Collectively, the thief got away with a large sum of cash, around $1000, both in American dollars and CFA, three iPods, one camera, and some other small electronic devices.
He managed to take something else though...a feeling of security. Volunteers spend so much time here that it is only natural to let your guard down a little and start to consider these surroundings to be like home. But many of the things that he took were close to sleeping volunteers. My purse, for example, was on the floor literally right next to my bed. There were two people sleeping next to an outlet where some electronics were stolen. Items were stolen from bottom bunks of beds when there were two people sleeping on the top bunks. And the volunteer who found the thief had one of my worst nightmares realized...walking into a dark room and finding someone who is not supposed to be there. Gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. And all of this happened with a guard at the door to our courtyard.
The silver lining in this cloud is that the thief, although bold enough to enter our bedrooms, was not carrying a weapon. He did not attack anyone when he was found, and even though he was backed literally into a corner, he merely ran away.
None of us could go back to sleep after all the excitement, so we stayed up for a while, chatting and trying to unwind. We surmised about what he was going to do with our stolen items, and quipped that he now has a salary for the next several years. Someone jokingly said something that stuck with me regarding how other Burkinabe might look at the incident..."He is like Robin Hood. He robbed from the rich to give to the poor." This is obviously not the case, as we are clearly not the "Prince John" or "Sheriff of Nottingham" type. And in fact, most Burkinabe strongly condemn theft against anyone. Thieves here are not necessarily arrested, but if they are caught, they are beaten if not by the police, then often by other citizens. However, the idea of a Robin Hood type thief gives me a point to consider to put this incident into perspective.
Although by American standards we are living like paupers, it is impossible to deny the fact that in Burkina Faso, even our meager salary makes us very, very rich. This is exemplified by the fact that our conversation eventually turned to how we would go about replacing these stolen items. It is an inconvenience (albeit a large and costly inconvenience)...but it is possible for us to do. Many Burkinabe will never see an iPod or a digital camera. I do not at all condone what the thief did, but I can see how, as the old saying goes, "when you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose..."
With that said, though, many Burkinabe who have nothing would never resort to stealing. Crime rates here are very low, especially considering the violent crime rates of some of Burkina's neighboring countries.
Burkina in Moore translates to "Men of Integrity". I find that most Burkinabe uphold this title. Even in the wake of the incident last night, I consider myself very lucky to be in a country where poverty has not destroyed integrity.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Friday, July 06, 2007
Highs & Lows
More than four months have passed since my last blog. Four months...so much has happened that I am not sure where to begin filling in the huge blank space. Rather than trying, and inevitably failing, to describe everything, I will instead try to condense four months into a game called "Highs & Lows".
The name itself is pretty self-explanatory, but just in case you have never heard of it, you play by choosing the one highest and one lowest point of your day and sharing them. It is not exactly a game of skill...or really necessarily a game at all...it is usually done at summer camps, or with a family around the dinner table, or facilitated by a teacher at the end of the school day. While it may seem a bit elementary, I cannot think of a better way to describe the roller coaster of experiences of the past four months.
Because I still claim to be an optimist, I will start with a high point. At the end of February, I finished my three-month étude and headed off for our month long In-Service Training (IST) armed with project ideas and high expectations for what the next several months had in store for me. I hoped that IST would provide me with insights into how to start a successful project in a small village...However, my high point was immediately followed by a low point when I discovered that IST was, pardon me for being blunt, completely useless. One full week was dedicated to theater training...one week, eight hours a day, dancing around a room and learning how to make different facial expressions. Seeing as how my village neither has nor is interested in starting a theater group, I failed to see how this was relevant to my work. I sought extra guidance from my program director, showing her a specific project that I was interested in starting, and her only advice to me was "Don't bite off more than you can chew..." It seems as though she has no interest in supporting me in anything other than Acting 101.
This low point was, unfortunately, followed by another low point of returning to village. Having finished the only task assigned to me, the étude, I came to the sudden harsh realization that I had: absolutely. nothing. to. do. In a village of my size, there is the big problem of having very few French speakers...meaning a very limited number of people to collaborate on projects with. I continually approach the same few people I am able to communicate with and ask if they would be interested in starting one of the many projects we discussed during the étude period...and I am continually met with shrugs of disinterest. I figured that once I pinpointed the problems to work on with the villagers, they would be eager to start to work on them, but I was sorely mistaken. After my counterpart at the CSPS left Saoga, citing the reason that "Saoga n'est pas interessante..." the already small number of French speakers shrank to literally only a handful. Left with only frustration and, most of all, boredom, I decided to seek out a new high to pull me out of this slump.
My new high point came about through travel. I went on several small trips, starting in the Western region of Burkina to visit volunteers in other villages. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I really liked their villages. Although I tend to lose sight of this in the face of frustrations with my own village, I really do enjoy the simplicity of life here, and especially the warmth and friendliness of the people.
Immediately following this high point, I took a trip to Ghana with six of my closest friends here. I was absolutely shocked at how developed it is. Crossing the border was like entering a different world, a world of education, cleanliness, running water, and electricity. I had heard the comparison that Burkina is to Ghana what Ghana is to America, but I did not believe it until I actually saw it...although Ghana is still in Africa, it is drastically different from Burkina. After spending ten days in a big city and beach induced high, I should have anticipated that the next low would be loooow. And it was...
I returned again to find Saoga unchanged and seemingly unreceptive to the idea of change. I assumed my former role as observer at the CSPS, trying to educate or help out where I could, and wondering if the work that I anticipated doing would ever be possible. The unwelcome realization that I am not making any sort of difference in Saoga finally hit me. Baby weighing and vaccination sorties are interesting and all, but they are things that occur with or without me there.
As if this rude awakening was not enough of a low, I received news that sunk me to an even lower low point. Two of my closest friends were going home. Other volunteers provide the only support network we have here, so losing two friends (on the same flight, no less) was a huge blow to morale.
Faced with this new low and knowing that a high point was unlikely to be found in village, I decided to go back to Ghana. The trip was absolutely amazing and was just what I needed to bring me out of the funk of the last low. However, when I left Ghana, I had to say an extremely difficult goodbye that brought me right back to where I was at the beginning of the trip.
Back in Burkina, less than thrilled with the idea of returning to village, I decided to re-evaluate what I was doing and try to figure out how to make these "lows" that I experience in village less low...or better yet, turn them into "highs". The reason I came here in the first place was to, as trite as it sounds, make a difference (or as some might say, to "save my village..."). I remember feeling several high points during staging from working on successful projects, and the rewarding feeling that came from giving a sensibilization to a receptive and participatory audience. It was the wonderful feeling that came from actually feeling useful and being able to do something. I wondered if it would ever be possible for me in Saoga...
In a last ditch effort to figure out what to do, I traveled to another health volunteer's village to get an idea of how her CSPS functioned and what she did there. I was blown away by the differences. There were motivated people working at the CSPS, four nurses in training who were also ready and willing to work, and many villageois who spoke French. I left her village for Ouagadougou to speak with my program director, on a new high, that perhaps I could still do something here after all.
I felt, after seeing villages in other parts of the country, that I could be much more useful, much more productive, and much happier in a different environment. While I struggled to make Saoga both a home and a working environment, it just was not right for me. For these, and many other reasons, I requested a site change. My program director said that I presented a fair case, and after reading the letter explaining my reasons, she said that she was definitely "inclined" to give me a site change..."Howeeeever"...with a new group on its way in, another program director out on maternity leave, and two other site changes in the works, she just could not do it.
It was an all new low for me.
The realization that I am stuck in a village that I do not feel I can do anything in is the lowest point I have experienced in the past four months. All I could think leaving her office was, "Now what?" After a great deal of reflecting and questioning and just plain thinking, I think I have found the answer to this question...but I am not ready to divulge it just yet.
My current plan for this question of "now what?" is to simply take things one day at a time. So far, the plan has been a success. I have had a great time in the past few weeks; traveling, visiting other volunteers' villages, spending time in my own village and preparing for the summer school coming up in August. The pressure and stress I felt from being in village has lifted and I am able enjoy simple moments, laughing with other volunteers, looking out the window on transport, sleeping under the stars, or drinking tea and having "causeries" with villagers.
Living happily in high moments makes it easy to forget about the lows.
The name itself is pretty self-explanatory, but just in case you have never heard of it, you play by choosing the one highest and one lowest point of your day and sharing them. It is not exactly a game of skill...or really necessarily a game at all...it is usually done at summer camps, or with a family around the dinner table, or facilitated by a teacher at the end of the school day. While it may seem a bit elementary, I cannot think of a better way to describe the roller coaster of experiences of the past four months.
Because I still claim to be an optimist, I will start with a high point. At the end of February, I finished my three-month étude and headed off for our month long In-Service Training (IST) armed with project ideas and high expectations for what the next several months had in store for me. I hoped that IST would provide me with insights into how to start a successful project in a small village...However, my high point was immediately followed by a low point when I discovered that IST was, pardon me for being blunt, completely useless. One full week was dedicated to theater training...one week, eight hours a day, dancing around a room and learning how to make different facial expressions. Seeing as how my village neither has nor is interested in starting a theater group, I failed to see how this was relevant to my work. I sought extra guidance from my program director, showing her a specific project that I was interested in starting, and her only advice to me was "Don't bite off more than you can chew..." It seems as though she has no interest in supporting me in anything other than Acting 101.
This low point was, unfortunately, followed by another low point of returning to village. Having finished the only task assigned to me, the étude, I came to the sudden harsh realization that I had: absolutely. nothing. to. do. In a village of my size, there is the big problem of having very few French speakers...meaning a very limited number of people to collaborate on projects with. I continually approach the same few people I am able to communicate with and ask if they would be interested in starting one of the many projects we discussed during the étude period...and I am continually met with shrugs of disinterest. I figured that once I pinpointed the problems to work on with the villagers, they would be eager to start to work on them, but I was sorely mistaken. After my counterpart at the CSPS left Saoga, citing the reason that "Saoga n'est pas interessante..." the already small number of French speakers shrank to literally only a handful. Left with only frustration and, most of all, boredom, I decided to seek out a new high to pull me out of this slump.
My new high point came about through travel. I went on several small trips, starting in the Western region of Burkina to visit volunteers in other villages. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I really liked their villages. Although I tend to lose sight of this in the face of frustrations with my own village, I really do enjoy the simplicity of life here, and especially the warmth and friendliness of the people.
Immediately following this high point, I took a trip to Ghana with six of my closest friends here. I was absolutely shocked at how developed it is. Crossing the border was like entering a different world, a world of education, cleanliness, running water, and electricity. I had heard the comparison that Burkina is to Ghana what Ghana is to America, but I did not believe it until I actually saw it...although Ghana is still in Africa, it is drastically different from Burkina. After spending ten days in a big city and beach induced high, I should have anticipated that the next low would be loooow. And it was...
I returned again to find Saoga unchanged and seemingly unreceptive to the idea of change. I assumed my former role as observer at the CSPS, trying to educate or help out where I could, and wondering if the work that I anticipated doing would ever be possible. The unwelcome realization that I am not making any sort of difference in Saoga finally hit me. Baby weighing and vaccination sorties are interesting and all, but they are things that occur with or without me there.
As if this rude awakening was not enough of a low, I received news that sunk me to an even lower low point. Two of my closest friends were going home. Other volunteers provide the only support network we have here, so losing two friends (on the same flight, no less) was a huge blow to morale.
Faced with this new low and knowing that a high point was unlikely to be found in village, I decided to go back to Ghana. The trip was absolutely amazing and was just what I needed to bring me out of the funk of the last low. However, when I left Ghana, I had to say an extremely difficult goodbye that brought me right back to where I was at the beginning of the trip.
Back in Burkina, less than thrilled with the idea of returning to village, I decided to re-evaluate what I was doing and try to figure out how to make these "lows" that I experience in village less low...or better yet, turn them into "highs". The reason I came here in the first place was to, as trite as it sounds, make a difference (or as some might say, to "save my village..."). I remember feeling several high points during staging from working on successful projects, and the rewarding feeling that came from giving a sensibilization to a receptive and participatory audience. It was the wonderful feeling that came from actually feeling useful and being able to do something. I wondered if it would ever be possible for me in Saoga...
In a last ditch effort to figure out what to do, I traveled to another health volunteer's village to get an idea of how her CSPS functioned and what she did there. I was blown away by the differences. There were motivated people working at the CSPS, four nurses in training who were also ready and willing to work, and many villageois who spoke French. I left her village for Ouagadougou to speak with my program director, on a new high, that perhaps I could still do something here after all.
I felt, after seeing villages in other parts of the country, that I could be much more useful, much more productive, and much happier in a different environment. While I struggled to make Saoga both a home and a working environment, it just was not right for me. For these, and many other reasons, I requested a site change. My program director said that I presented a fair case, and after reading the letter explaining my reasons, she said that she was definitely "inclined" to give me a site change..."Howeeeever"...with a new group on its way in, another program director out on maternity leave, and two other site changes in the works, she just could not do it.
It was an all new low for me.
The realization that I am stuck in a village that I do not feel I can do anything in is the lowest point I have experienced in the past four months. All I could think leaving her office was, "Now what?" After a great deal of reflecting and questioning and just plain thinking, I think I have found the answer to this question...but I am not ready to divulge it just yet.
My current plan for this question of "now what?" is to simply take things one day at a time. So far, the plan has been a success. I have had a great time in the past few weeks; traveling, visiting other volunteers' villages, spending time in my own village and preparing for the summer school coming up in August. The pressure and stress I felt from being in village has lifted and I am able enjoy simple moments, laughing with other volunteers, looking out the window on transport, sleeping under the stars, or drinking tea and having "causeries" with villagers.
Living happily in high moments makes it easy to forget about the lows.
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