Happy Independance Day, Burkina Faso

Hello dear readers! Bonne Fete d’Independence du Burkina Faso, et bon
cinquantennaire! (spelling?) That’s right, Burkina Faso (or ‘Haut
Volta’ up until a couple decades ago) just turned 50. Kind of funny
considering Sabce has probably been around since approximately 1200
AD. International politics makes for a very special sense of time.
In somewhat related state news, the incumbant president Blaise
CAMPAORE has been reelected with about 80% of the popular vote. He has
been president since 1987, and arguably had significant power starting
a few years prior. Everyone’s big question is: will Blaise attempt to
change the consitution, allowing yet another run as president in the
2015 race? Stay tuned . . . (and yes, I have more to say on the
subject, but politics and being an informative PCV is a tricky thing.
Ask me in person.)

I have four (4) days left in country. It’s an incredibly strange
feeling, because on the one hand I’d love to just drop everything
cold-turkey, and get out of my Burkina life. There’s such an
interesting attachment to this place (good lord, what do I even mean
by ‘This Place’?), and such discrepancies in ways of life between
hither and yon, that the urge to simply say GOODBYE and I’M GONE is
very strong. But I’ve handed out my NJ phone number to at least 10
people (dear parents- I hope this doesn’t get annoying…). Others
have my e-mail. I’ve been ‘blessed’ by the chief and several village
elders. People always ask if I’m coming back. Hell, in the past couple
hours I’ve gotten 2 calls from the people in village, just to check if
I’m ok. I don’t even know what level of separation is possible, and
what makes sense for myself vs. those with whom I’ve lived and worked.
Hopefully I’m making too big a deal out of this, and it’ll be somewhat
like any other ‘era’ in one’s life – you establish a sense of place
somewhere in the physical world, you develop ties with people that are
not always maintained, and you just kinda hope there’s a good vibe
when you think back on time spent wherever you were. I have to wonder,
though, how much the whole weird Westerner – West African relationship
plays into my variable feelings on leaving. It’s maybe one thing to
move out of a place where you are mostly on a level with the people
and the things around you, i.e. y’all share a fairly common history
and set of expectations about the way things work, such that there’s
little/no sense of a hierarchy at work when you’re just sitting down
to talk with someone. (Sweet Christmas that was a convoluted
explanation…. yea, I still have some pondering to do here). Point
is, close to 100% of my energies have been focused in a fairly limited
area and on a fiarly limited cast of people, with the subtle
acknowledgement that it’s mostly at my discretion how long I stay
(i.e. the PC contract) and how well I keep in touch. Speaking of, I
need to call my host parents, those who gave me the name Harouna
SAWADOGO and were my first legit connection to Burkina. I went back to
see them once, but it was extremely brief and not what it needed to
be.

November 9th was my final night in village. ‘Twere spent having beers
and cokes with the infirmary staff and village health committee while
playing with…. GLOWSTICKS! That’s right, nothing says cross-cultural
exchange like discussing bendy neon bracelets in a local West African
language. Had I been really on my game, I would’ve brought out
speakers and put on some electronica – one must wonder how many raves
go on in Burkina Faso (answer: none).
We ate a rather impressive amount of sheet-metal-grilled sheep meat,
and decided that one of the nurses was more American than I was -
sporting a US-Burkina friendship shirt, jeans, and a Los Angelos hat
I’d given him as a gift, how could one say otherwise? I believe his
words were, “I am a pretty young boy!” I don’t know why this phrase
exists in peoples’ limited english vocabularies here, but that is only
one mystery among many.
I gave a small (now fairly normalized) speech in Moore about living in
village and being accepted as a “Sabce biiga” (child of Sabce), and
generally thanking the crew for the work we were able to do together.
I tried to get somewhat more heartfelt about what it’s like being both
a foreigner and a local at the same time, what it means to be
‘accepted’ by a community but never really be ‘of’ the community. .
but of course I only had the vocab to express a fourth of what I
might’ve liked. Hopefully my gesturing and staring at the stars
anytime the words failed gave a sense that I was at least attempting
to honor a connection we’d made.
Any rate it was a celebratory event thinger, and as much as I love
philosophizing, I just said my piece and we had a toast: ‘Sante!’

So here I am in Ouaga, wrapping up lots of paperwork and such, and
creating a last few goofy memories with other volunteers passing
through. (There’s also the ocassional convo that comes up which
basically asks: ‘what will it be like to hang out together in the
States?’ We’re told that other returned volunteers will be our friends
for life, what with the whole shared-experience thing, but we shall
see. I do already have plans for Valentine’s day, albeit
non-romantic). The major tasks of this weekend are: Description of
Service (summarize 2 years in 2 pages), Letter of Reccomendation (I
have to draft it… ugh), and grant reports (yay!).
Speaking of the latter, well, the original point of this e-mail was to
give you a small update on everything that’s gone on with the Peace
Corps Partnership Grant we did. Here’s the nitty-gritty:
- We raised 2,230,000CFA.
- One day after the money got to my account, I went to Ouaga with
three counterparts and we bought professional sound equipment for
under two million cfa.
- The surplus was used to add: a television for film showings, stands
for the speakers, surge protectors, and a couple cables that were
lacking from the stereo set.
- A two-month-long theater and health forum program has been set,
hitting 30 villages between early January and March. The overarching
theme will be Hygiene and Sanitation. The volunteer replacing me will
be attending most (possibly all?) of these performances, and submit a
report to Peace Corps in April.
- The stereo equipment has already been loaned out for community
events and for a health talk on HIV/AIDS done by a youth group in
Kongoussi.
- An added personal note: My friend Souleymane (a.k.a. ‘DJ Million’)
sat down with me on my last day in village to say his goodbyes. In
addition to saying that he didn’t have the words to say how he really
felt, and that if he could open his chest and show how happy his heart
was with our time together he would do it (holy sh*t… pardon the
language), we also talked about the HIV/AIDS forum he was the DJ for.
We went over the messages the youth group from Kongoussi passed along
(they were the usual checklist of necessary info), and I congratulated
him on knowing all the key points. Then I asked if he had any more
questions. “Nye! Sukre n be be” (yes, I have questions!) We discussed
medicine, testing, fidelity, monogamy, condoms . . .bouncing between
French and Moore and somehow making sense of what needed to get sensed
(I like destroying english!). At the end of our exchange, he was going
on about how as a DJ he could go around and tell people this
information and that the more accurate info he knew, the better he’d
be able to get the word out. It was kinda very cool. On a personal
level, it’s amazing how some people here really express when they’ve
been touched by my interactions with them. On a professional level,
the idea of having DJ Million (i.e. a young flashy dresser, smooth
talker, good singer… the guy can be straight up suave) as a partner
in community health is awesome. Defniitely has an ‘in’ with a certain
(target) audience.

Phew… I must be off to do other works. Thanks for letting me
word-vomit at you. I feel a bit better for the moment (like I
mentioned, mood is highly variable…), and the feeling better is
probably due to simply talking about the close-of-service process /
final dayz in country. Trust me, when I hit the ground in the States,
we can have some really awesome convos. You just have to promise not
to glaze over in the first twenty seconds, or I’ll feel like
everything I’ve gone through here is marginal (unfortunatly, this is
typically what happens for returned volunteers, so this is just a
heads up..

I am attaching awesome photos of our stereo equipment in use. Yay!
Also, a kitty picture because it turns out I will miss her kind of a
lot. I’m not used to this, I think.

Aaron’s schedule -
Dec 15 – fly to Paris
Dec 18 – London
Dec 29 – Amsterdam
Jan 4ish – Padua
Jan 15ish – Rome
Jan 18 – New HELLA AWESOME Jersey!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Jan 21 – quite possibly, DC)

I remain your humble servant.
Much love.
Aaron