Section 3 and 4!

Section 3! Back to work missy.

On Monday after the party I decided I wasn’t going to waste a single day and that I would go to the Ouagadougou office of my organization. Rushed to pack up everything to move to my coach’s house and grab a taxi to work. That taxi ride was in average a two hour adventure for the three days I stayed in Ouaga to do some work. I got to talk to some of the other Project Leaders and fieldworkers of my organization and I got to finally meet the president. It was great to finally get some real answers on the organizational level. I managed to get some reports and the budget and it helped a lot in trying to identify where I should really concentrate my attention.

I planned a meeting with the president twice before we actually got to talk, but once we started talking it ended up taking 3.5 hours. He is a great character, full of potential and determination and ideas! We got along very well and when I mentioned I had gone to the match between Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso at the stadium he was really happy. He mentioned that he was looking forward to seeing my end of placement report but that he might not wait till then to start initiating some changes within the organization. I was so pleased to hear this and it really got me more pumped for work.

The end of that day didn’t end so well however, I had a talk with another member of the team and just wanted to run out of the office, then the two hour taxi ride was brutal with a stop at a corner that ended in about 7 young men putting their arms inside the taxi trying desperately to get my attention and being very rude and finally seeing the result of a motorcycle accident. Let’s say I got a bit troubled by the last bit of my day, but it will not lessen my desire to work harder during the last two months of my placement!

Et puis cette soirée la j’ai pu célébrer la Saint Jean!!! Poulet et macaroni, musique québécoise et … du vin rouge, désolé pas de bière. Jean-François, Maxim et moi avons chantés et discutés et but à la santé du Québec!

Le lendemain ce fut le retour à Koudougou, puis une rencontre avec les animateurs et mon homologue qui fut interrompu par mon début de maladie. Fausse alerte de palu, mais finalement le Cipro fut réponse a tout. Trois jours plus tard et je me sens bien mieux. Doigts croisé, je ne veux pas avoir le palu cet été!

Section numéros 4! La cramba! La famille!

De retour à la maison. Oh que ça fait du bien. Rosa fut la première à courir ver moi le sourire aux lèvres. Vu que j’étais un peu malade j’ai du me coucher très vite mais je me sentais déjà un peu mieux d’être chez moi.

My host family is absolutely great. The father is always asking to make sure everything is alright. The mothers are always speaking the local language first to help me practice and get better. The children call me by my first name instead of Nasara and I have been getting closer to the older ones and learning more about how it is to be a person my age in Koudougou. They have introduced me to some other people from their family and are interested in me going to their village to help with the sowing of the seeds and other such things and really just see the rest of their family. They also welcome the help for house chores which means I am learning and integrating much better. I was talking to Justine, the oldest in the house (not a daughter of the father but a niece), just last night. She loves sports and gives blood every year! However, she cannot play with her soccer team during the summer because there is too much work to do in the field.

Last section. I will be answering some questions that my chapter has asked at the end of my next few posts.

How are you adapting? Do you feel like you are experiencing any culture shock?

I feel as though I am adapting fairly well. This being said I still had a lot of trouble during my village stay because of the different means of conveying emotion (which was no way at all) and how people react to certain things. Being able to understand that and not get upset at people’s reaction helps me stay focused on my work, I think that is what adapting means since I do not wish to take on that behavior, I truly believe in hugs (now… ). As for the culture shock, it’s some little things that will make me uneasy, such as the beating of animals like dogs and donkeys, or the work transferred to younger or “lower” members of the family which I always start by wanting to take on the load for them and then have to stop myself from disrupting the hierarchy. It’s also slowly getting to me the lack of means of entertainment here. I never thought I’d say that I missed St. John’s because of its diversity in entertainment. That being said I think I just need to discover more about Koudougou, and this is something my older sisters are doing with me.

What is your most exciting experience so far? (I answered this one two weeks ago… so now I have a few more exciting experiences as you might have read above)

The birth of a baby girl during my village stay!!! The mother had been working and doing everything as if nothing was in her way and so I had assumed she had a few more months before giving birth but nope! She was making lunch when her stomach started to hurt and she said she had to go to the clinic; she got her things ready and finished a few more chores before hopping on a motorcycle with her husband to go to the nearest health clinic (around 5 km away). She gave birth that night and the next morning I was able to go visit her. I saw how vaccinations are done and where mothers are kept with their children. It was such a great experience to see this medical part of life in Burkina. The best part is that when she came home later that evening she was still doing housework! The mothers are so strong here, never complaining and getting the work done (Not saying that mothers in Canada aren’t strong). She was caring for her child while cooking and organizing things around her. Perhaps it is that this was her 7^th child that she was so calm about it, but either way it was very impressive.

Well that’s all for now, hope you enjoyed it! Bilfu!

Random pics because I didn't have any for the above post:

Brick making:

The moon: (yeah I wish i could take a good picture of the moon haha)

Truckload of mangoes!

And a bird for my mother. :)

Les enfants qui nous suivaient lors de la ride to charette d'ane. (Rob et Pascal en arriere)
Les "jolies" ongles a Eli:

Moi et le bebe a la coiffeuse lors de l'aventure des ongles. (Je suis un tout tit peu fatiguee)
Les reves de toutes JF apres la bachelorette:

La belle gagne en dromadaires!
A ce point mon dromadaire avait decide que nous alions devancer le guide... J'ai presque tourne un mauvais coin...