Follow up ….

The fates are working with me at the moment… I think. At least insofar as only 15 minutes after truncating my last email, I am seated at another computer that is arguably faster than the previous. Of course, this one is hiccup-ing with my camera…. eh well. I call it a victory.

 

So where were we-

Biking 40 miles. Short story is, it took about 5 hours, I met a prison-guard-in-training along the way, it was dusty, became hot, and reaching my friend Lauren’s village was a very welcome thing. She also made two fantastic meals, which basically put me in heaven. All in all, glad to have done the trip, and glad that I won’t be compelled to do it again…. Although there is always the 65 miles between Sabce and the capital…..

 

Turns out the second picture from the previous email was taken during a porridge demonstration. The Burkina govt encourages mothers of young children (i.e. starting at 6 months) to start making these enriched porridge concoctions, consisting of local ingredients and encompassing the three main food groups. Yep, here in Burkina there are only 3 food groups, which is kind of nice. The groups are: Energy, Construction, and Protection. All your grains and sugars and oils fall under Energy. All your proteins fall under Construction. All your fruits, veggies, and leaves (NB- ‘leaves’ are important enough in Burkinabé cooking to warrant their own categorization) fall under Protection. So if you want to make a quality porridge for your kiddy, you take (eg) some corn flour and some bean flour, boil’em in water, add in some sugar, boil again, add in some baobab leaves, boil for just a bit, and finally throw in some oil at the end. Remove from fire and watch your kid fatten up like a champ.

Before cooking got underway for the day (i.e. picture) in question, yours truly gave a small sermon to a bunch of women about the wonders of the three food groups. I was aided by a woman working with a burkina NGO, and we actually made a pretty neat team. Interestingly, the talk was 90% off the cuff and 10% based on a fantastic visual aid made by an older volunteer. I need to track down a good artist in village and have him or her make a replica of said visual aid. I did a similar talk in Sabce yesterady, and it didn’t fly quite as well…

Oh, and as for all the little pots and stuff in the picture – that’s Burkina for you. Interestingly, people seem to love their serving vessels.

 

Brief update on the school liason side of things - My old elementary school is totally in, although there is no conrete plan what exactly will be done as yet. A few teachers in East Windsor, NJ, are also pumped to make an exchange, and one even went so far as to suggest linking students via a WIKI. This is exciting, if logistically challeneging (but nonetheless feasible).

In general, I remain very impressed with the responses I’ve been getting regarding this venture to link hither and yon, and think that perhaps we’re on to something good here. Feels as though something truly durable could come out of it. Oh, and did I mention there will probably be a story about this project in one of the local papers back home? Indeed. I need to go take a picture with me and a bazillion school kids to really seal the deal. Hopefully by next week that pic will happen, and soon afterwards my parents can go tell all their friends that I am a rock star. Woohoo!! 

 

Oh oh oh!!!! Christians and playdough!!!!!!!!!! Almost forgot!!

I have had some VERY amusing conversations with people here about Playdough. There was a church group from the US who I guess organized some air drops of play dough and Disney-themed math flash-cards and letters and such, both in my village and in a couple ones near by. The day of the donation, there were lots of kids, and the radio station came by, and much celebrating a huzzahs in general. The aftermath is extremely amusing, and let me try to recount this properly.

I show up at my counterpart’s (Daniel) house one evening, and there are two small girls visiting with their mother. Daniel greets me as per usual, and our friend Amadou puts on some tea (NB – tea here = 1 part EXTREMELY strong tea to 8935430789 parts sugar). Daniel then asks me to take a look at some gifts the girls received from said church group in the States (he thinks Protestants, for what it’s worth).

First they show me a letter that came with the gifts, written by a 14 year old boy and extolling the glories of Jesus and Christmas and Love in general. The New Testament was quoted twice, if I remember correctly, and the boy seemed very sincere.

Then came the My Little Mermaid and Snow White themed math cards, each with a Disney Character and a math problem. Fair enough. (I would later learn that other cards had entire multiplication tables on them, tables using a system of math that is distinctly different from the system taught here. Also, there apparently was some confusion over the word “check” printed somewhere on these tables, and that they could possibly be cashed for money at a bank)

Finally comes the play dough, in its lovely yellow container, and smelling in its typical play dough way. Now, please bear with me for a small mental exercise, and pretend you don’t know anything about playdough. Also pretend you are in general not a doll-playing-with culture, or very toy-centric in general. Plastic bottles are exciting in their own right (‘Pets’ often consist of kid draggin a plastic bottle around by a piece of string … it’s really cute, actually), and mud is used to make bricks, not so much artistic endeavors for the young-uns. Also, much of the locally produced soap you have grown up with is a similar color to, as luck would have it, yellow play dough. Finally, pretend you think playdough smells kind of sweet, almost cakey.

Are we there? Well, lets just go ahead anyway.

Now pretend you are me, trying to explain what in gods name this gooey American innovation is, and what should and should not be done with it. The particular night in question was innocuous enough, and involved a couple rambunctious kids threating to eat the play dough after I made clear it shouldn’t really be eaten. They then proceeded to copy whatever I tried to make out of the play dough, or else would make ‘soap’…. that is, round balls… verrrrry clever of them. I should mention these two kids are very well to do, already speaking french at like age 4 or 5, and to my mind would be among the most likely to do something interesting with playdough. Or maybe not.

Next day I mention the play dough escapade to the lady who works in the pharmacy – she runs off to tell her sister not to let the kids eat the play dough. Also, that it is not soap.

This was like a month ago, and still every once in a while I will catch word of some playdough question or just that someone would like to come talk with me and translate a letter or whatnot. It’s, em, intriguing.

Happily, I have somewhat maintained my distance from this round gift giving, and not become a US-based Protestant church group. Sometimes we Peace Corps ‘Nasaare’ (ie ‘westerner’) have our identities suddenly fused into a passing group of other Nasaare, and must then work very hard to extricate ourselves from the idea that we are an excellent source of Disney flash cards. Really weird.

 

It occurs to me my brain is refusing to write intelligibly at this point, and that I should end this behemoth of an email. I will send some more pics soon, and an awesome video of women making a new courtyard. Excellent thwacking sounds, to boot. You will see.

 

As ever, please please please keep the emails and letters coming. Tis how i thrive. No bit of news is too small… trust me!

 

oh i am taking suggestions for cat names

 

Best

 Aaron