26 years in Burkina – i.e. being 26 in Burkina.

Greetings from an arguably new and perhaps improved 26 year old Aaron.

‘Arguably new’ not by dint of March 7th ushering some signiciantly altered form of the platonic Aaron, so much as the constant recycling of cells that leads this e-mail to be written by, physiologically, a somewhat diffrent body than the previous (truncated) message.

‘Perhaps improved’ because, well, I like qualifying adjectives. Also I believe there was a running joke amongst my dad’s family where, as a reward for some sage behavior or useful activity, his father would remark, “you’re improving!”, and ergo avoid a definitive ‘good job!’ or ‘that’s great!’. A subtle-ish way of saying we are (hopefully) evolving for the good of ourselves and of others, but there is no way to know if we’ve ever quite ’arrived’.

Thus, accepting that I’m but a transient amalgam of gooey cellular bustle capable of adapting and interacting with our co-constructed realities (shout-out to my anthropologist cousin in San Rafel for that phrase…), I humbly submit these words as the first from an otherwise ‘human’ organism named ‘Aaron’, what has marked the passage of 365 sun-ups and sun-downs no fewer than 26 times.

Now send me cake. Oh wait, no. I made cake (banana). Instead send me candles that don’t melt simply by virtue of the standing heat in my house.

As for recent news, there are a couple tidbits worth sharing. In no particular order:

- There have been a series of really impressive and incredibly long community development meetings in Sabce. I don’t know who exactly orchestrated this, but a consulting group from the capital has been making the rounds in Sabce itself as well as (I believe) all of the outlying satellite villages, conducting town meetings and taking notes on what are the strengths and limitations of each place and what sort changes / additions the people think would help them the most. I managed to attend a couple of these sessions, and here is a bit what people had to say-

Environment / Ag: the soil is really really crappy, the population is growing too quickly to be supported by available fields, there’s no dry-season agriculture, difficult dealing with animals during rainy season when fields are in production, not a lot of physical materials (plows, good hand tools) for work, desertification, lots of litter

Animal raising: Not enough vaccines, not much food (i.e. plants) for them to eat, few/no good watering holes

Water: 14 pumps. 2 used only by the church. 2 don’t work. Waiting to get ‘heads’ on 3 recently installed ones. Several wells (oh man, you should see the work involved in getting well water. Damn….)

Education: two primary schools and one middle school. Too many kids (60-100 kids per class in primary schools), latrines are broken or in a bad state of affairs at primary schools, difficulties transitioning to middle school [if you finish primary school but have to wait a year to get enough $ for middle school then you need to repeat the final class of primary school], 3 pregnancies in the middle school this year

Health: CSPS [infirmary/maternity] ’insufficient’ (<— here I will insert a small opine of my own, which is given a choice between having a health care system like in Burkina vs. like in the US, I might very well go with Burkina. At the moment, I believe the infrastructure is frankly excellent. Granted the system is underfunded, and therefore suffers e.g. from ocassional ruptures in supply and from infirmaries and maternities without electricity. However the design of how healthcare is dispensed / offered here seems to me very well adapted to the conditions of the country. So when I write ‘insufficient’, I’m saying the funding isn’t thee to build/populate infirmaries enough to prevent people from walking/biking say 20km to receive care. If you think about the state of health care in the US, however, on some levels our issues on similar - ask yourself if you’ve had any trouble getting a doc apt recently, or used the ER for unforseen care and had to wait around in triage, or had a medical bill that represented a good chunk of your income. Note this is not at all a detailed comparison of the US and Burkina health care systems, but rather just a little suggestion that our American process of ‘development’ is not necessarily progress. More on this latter train of thought later … I hope… it’s a big topic, and deliciously philosophical to boot! Also nuanced.), crowding in the maternity, no overnight chambers for the night midwife (have to go by her house to say you or someone you brought is having a baby)

That’s a bit of what went on at one meeting. They gathered assembly also decided health and the CSPS (infirmary) were priority number one out of five. I suppose that means I’ll need to be doing some work, and not just figuring out the best place to see camels in Mali. Not that I’ve been doing that. yet. Once again I wonder if I’ve made Sabce and Burkina Faso as a whole seem like a crap hole with only problems and constant struggle, even while the vast majority of people seem pretty happy (or is it resigned?). Any rate, there are fewer people on antidepressants. Not that the pharmacy stocks them, or villageois come to the infirmary for psych concerns. But man, I love not being around advertising (sorry, somewhow antidepressents, psychological difficulties, and a constant barrage of audio-visual messages about what is good and makes you content/excited/whatever in life are tied together. Silly me. Uh-oh, now I’m getting downright cyincal and quippy…)

So I’ll move on Also I need to catch a bus.

Look, I give you pictures.

1.) Me with four village midwives at an AIDS training. Hopefully we’ll start giving AIDS talks in Sabce and the surrounding areas soon, given that was the point of the training…

2.) Pretty picture of a baby. I forget her name, because the mother (Claudine, with the earing) had a different baby slung from her back the next few days and I got confused.

3.) My friend Bokary and some of his sheep. Bokary just went down south to Gawa (google it!!) for the next 2-3 months to mine for gold. Sabce has a decent number of somewhat itinerant gold miners, where ‘itinerant’ means they have family here, and go look for gold for several months of the year, then return and perhaps work in the fields until money runs out. Incidentally, Bokary freaking paid for my transport to the capital this time around, which is just ridiculous. I’d barely seen him spend a cent of money in all the times we’ve hung out, and so far as I know it’s not because he’s sitting on a huge pile of Francs from striking 6kg of gold and just being miserly.

4.) Another pic from Bokary’s household. He bought a cow to fatten up, then sell. If all goes well, he could make a good 100,000cfa on the endeavor, which is about $200.

5.) Bike race for international women’s day. Sabce was the site of the celebration for the entire province, and the governor even came by. Big doins.

6.) Example of Catholique-themed pagnes here in Burkina. Lots of different styles to choose from, and you too can have shirts and pants proclaiming the glory of Jesus, Mary, and faith in general in all sorts of horrific patterns and colors.

7.) A visit from lots of village midwives on my birthday! One of them came to my party where I provided 20L of local hooch and 20L of local delicious sweet drink (both millet based). She spread the word to the others, and lo and behold I had a cadre of like 12 dancing women outside my house. Awesome. Incidentally, the 20L of local hooch (dolo) was drunk liberally, which means I’m an enabler and got my local health board and a couple midwives pretty sloshed.

Gotta jet. Be well.

Thanks to all for letters, birthday wishes, and delicious gifts. And as ever, thank you mom for sending boxers. I have a sneaking suspicion at 32 things will be no different. In some ways we (are content to) never grow up…..

Cheers

Aaron.

PS – it seems several of you have been passing on these e-mails to others. This is really wonderful, and I highly encourage you to continue doing so. Likewise, if you work with any organizations or especially schools, and think you there might be some way to more formally link work, students, etc between the here and there, please let me know and we’ll work on it. Needs not be more than an idea or a whim at first – never know where things will grow.