I like lists. A Lot. So I’m going to do some lists about life in Burkina. We’ll go with top 5 because creativity is hard when it’s over 100 degrees in your bedroom and you can’t tell if your sweating or just haven’t dried off from your shower 3 hours ago.
Top 5 weirdest things I’ve eaten here so far:
5) To (pronounced tow): It’s basically millet flour mixed into water for a long time and then glopped onto a plate where it thickens into sort of a firm mush that you pick with your fingers and dip in a variety of sauces.
4) Dried fish: People here seem to love to use tiny pieces of dried fish as a spice. It is pretty weird looking in your meal, since it’s skin and all. It also doesn’t taste…great.
3) Bushmeat: Since my host father is a hunter, I’ve been eating lots of meat, which is a huge plus. The downside, I rarely know what animal I’m eating. I’ve been taking pictures and asking Burkinabe to identify it, and they respond that it’s just bushmeat, aka any animal that you find in the bush.
2) Chicken heart: That was an interesting one. But when someone kills a chicken for you and tells you that it’s really good for you to eat the heart, you do it. So that happened. It had a weird texture, but the taste wasn’t terrible.
1) Bushmeat tongue: Again I had no idea what animal this came from, but tonight I had a tongue. It was definitely a tongue, that much I’m sure of. It was REALLY chewy and kind of hard to eat. But it wasn’t so bad.
Top 5 biggest surprises:
5) Laughing cow cheese doesn’t need to be refrigerated: FUN FACT! I can make mac and cheese here with Laughing cow cheese because it is more or less shelf stable. It has quickly become a staple of our diets.
4) Condoms here cost 2 cents a piece. Depoprovera shots cost around $6 USD. In the states, I think Depo costs $300/injection. Birth control here is so incredibly cheap, mostly because it’s not in high demand BY the actual women. The government wants women to use birth control, however, so it is heavily subsidized, whereas in the states, birth control is a luxury and for the most part in high demand by the consumer, so drug companies can jack up the prices.
3) Despite being ridiculously hot and dry, Burkina has some of the best access to water in all of Africa. Every person lives within several hundred feet or yards (I’m not sure which), of a water pump. This is amazing. There is no walking miles to get water. For the most part, even in the north, water is not scarce. I’m not sure how they pulled it off, but its great that among the many problems Burkina has, access to water is not one of them.
2) When you’re biking by yourself and you pass by a young man (age 15-30), they will speed up and follow you right on your tail. In the states this would be moderately terrifying. But here, they do it to sort of escort you home and make sure you get to your destination safely (only in village, I would imagine in the capital or other large cities this would be weird). Today, for example, the nice young man that followed me got the cows out of my way and told me when a moto came, but never attempted to talk to me, or harass me at all. When I got to my turn, he just said have a good day, in French and continued on his way. It was very nice and very gentlemanly. This is an almost daily occurrence, but always with a different person. It makes me feel very safe and very well cared for. (Don’t worry, I always turn off before my actual destination, so they don’t know where I live or where I work/spend time, just as a safety precaution).
1) It has taken me very little time to adjust and create a new normal here. I seriously love it. This place could not be more perfect for me.
Top 5 favorite parts of my new routine here:
5) Biking to and from Kayero as the sun rises and sets. It just seems like this is way the world should be. People wake up much earlier, but also go to bed much earlier. I like living with the patterns of the sun. The bike ride is also awesome. The road is full of…I would say potholes, but that doesn’t really describe the massive ditches that are all over the road. It’s basically like a mountain biking trail, except with motos and small busses. And three BIG hills each way. Its 14k of pure bliss each day.
4) The tofu lady coming during our morning break to sell us tofu brochettes. There is a tofu association in Leo, and for 50CFA (10 cents) we get a skewer with three pieces of tofu, stacked with onions, marinated, and flavored with amazing spices and some mustard to put on top. It’s awesome to get tasty protein each day. She’s super nice and sometimes even brings soy yogurt. We all love the tofu lady.
3) Drinking “café au lait” with Moodi, the 21-yr owner of a little maquis (kind of restaurant, usually along a road), and practicing Moore (More-ray). He introduces me to everyone that comes in when I do and makes me feel very comfortable. I can see this becoming a routine at a maquis once I get to village. Café au lait here is about ½ an inch or so of sweetened condensed milk, 3 small spoonfuls of bad instant coffee, and 3-4 inches of steaming hot water. It’s amazing.
2) Playing cards with my host siblings every night. They love teaching me the game, that still doesn’t make a ton of sense to me, but I do win every now and then. It’s a really fun activity and helps me bond with them.
1) Saying hello and how are you to everyone on the 14k route. And actually, everywhere all the time. It’s awesome. I hated how in the US people would look at you like you were crazy if you said hi to them as a perfect stranger. Here, it’s kind of insulting if you don’t do it. And I love it. It makes me so happy every morning.
Top 5 reasons why Peace Corps Burkina Faso gets the most street cred:
5) We are landlocked, which means not a ton of money coming into the country. No real tourism, no real imports or exports. Not a lot fresh fish or other fresh things.
4) Most sites don’t have electricity. This is unusual for most Peace Corps countries these days. Some sites are even without reliable cell coverage. In addition, we don’t visit our sites before we move in. We swear-in to the Peace Corps and then the very next day get driven to our sites and dropped off.
3) Everyone in Burkina gets issued a mountain bike because our sites are that remote that we need these bikes to get around.
2) Everyone has to learn at least two new languages—French and a local language that can only be taught through French. Some local languages literally have no structure and many are just spoken in Burkina. Many volunteers end up learning 3 languages here.
1) We’re pretty much surrounded by countries in conflict: Mali, Niger, and Cote D’Ivoire are all extremely volatile right now, and Burkina has now pledged troops to go into Mali. There is a high possibility that at some point in our service we will be consolidated (meaning that we’ll all have to go to our regional capitals for an unknown period of time until it is safe for Americans to be living on their own again). At this point, at least from our understanding, it’s not a matter of if, but of when. We’re just hoping it doesn’t escalate to the point of being evacuated from country. Because that would really stink.
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