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Thursday, November 15, 2012

A Necessary Injection of Optimism

Things have been feeling a little dark around here lately. Looking back on some of these blogs begs a positive counterpoint. Because honestly, I am happy here for the most part. I have found my place and am enjoying an ever-growing work and social schedule. Life in Titao is good.

I have recently taken up some interesting projects which have somewhat restored my belief in what I’m doing here. I was introduced to the first by a colleague at the municipal high school where I now teach a beginner’s computer class. M. Sawadogo, the English teacher for the school, speaks beautiful English and believes passionately in the importance of the language and actively promotes it around town. He has started an English club at the high school, though at this point it is largely driven by his own energy. He would like the students to take a more active role (Sustainability! Yay!), but they are too shy. Having sat-in on a few meetings I think this is because the club is almost like an after-hours English class. I have been working with Sawadogo to make the club more fun, to give the students more of an opportunity to speak and take control using some of the techniques that were used during Peace Corps training.

Besides the club, he has reserved a time block at the local radio, Le Voix du Loroum, to present a program encouraging the use of English in the community, beyond the required classes in high school. He invited me to be a guest speaker on the show two weeks ago to talk about family and the importance of education. I helped him design the structure of the program and improved some of his grammar, but truly this is his gig and he is great at it. Saw begins by introducing the program, the topic of the day, and his very special guests. There ensues a discussion with the guests on the given topic to permit the listeners to hear real English in dialogue. He plays music periodically so we can regroup, with artists such as the South African Reggae king Lucky Dube, Simple, and well-known American stars like 50 Cent and Rhianna. After this Saw gives a short English lesson, providing key nouns, verbs, adjectives, and phrases relating to the theme of the day. The rest of the broadcast is reserved for listeners to call-in and chat or answer questions posed by Saw.

I count Sawadogo among my best friends in town. He is the perfect Burkinabé counterpart, asking only for my collaboration and creative thinking, himself bringing to the table durable enthusiasm and ideas and taking charge of his own projects. While encouraging the use of English may not be part of the Peace Corps’ project plan in Burkina, M. Sawadogo’s English club and radio broadcast are projects which I know will be continued after I leave Titao.

Coincidentally, Titao’s radio is awesome. The government installs and supports local radios to encourage free speech and spread local information, and Titao got hers set up just this year. Everybody has a radio or a compatible cell phone, and since other forms of entertainment are either too expensive or unavailable, they are turned on and tuned in almost constantly. After doing just two broadcasts, everybody I know complemented the show and said they had listened to me. Awesome; I’m now even more of a local celebrity.

Another project I’m in the process of planning is very big and very exciting (at least to me). I recently met a man who last year organized a community-wide plastic bag pick-up contest thing (this sounds better in French). He wrote a proposal, went around town to the different structures and asked for support and donations. Almost everyone was implicated, all the way up to the mayor and the high commissioner. During the week of the contest, he said that the whole town is mobilized to clean up, everyone vying for the prizes for collecting the most plastic by weight (shovels, wheelbarrows, etc.). After the collection is finished, he gives the small plastic water sachets found to a French NGO which uses them as plastic pots with which to plant tree nurseries. However, due to their main work of promoting school gardens, they are not able to use most of the sachets that are recovered.

Bing Bing Bing! Hi there, I’m a Peace Corps volunteer with Environmental experience.

This year after the contest, I’d like to take the water sachets to each of Titao’s five primary schools and teach the upper classes, probably 5th and 6th grade, how to plant tree nurseries and take care of trees while they grow. I want to give two lessons, one in March right after the contest to talk about the importance of trees and how to seed a nursery. For this session, I’ll give each student a seed and a plastic pot and we will all fill them with the right mixture of dirt, sand and cow manure. Each student will be responsible for his or her own tree over the following three months. In June, around the end of school, I’ll come back and talk about the effects of plastic on the environment and the importance of recycling and will teach the students how to plant and care for their trees over the next few years. We will dispose of all of the sachets in the least harmful manner possible, seeing this clean-up campaign to its necessary conclusion.

I’d like to do these sessions with a Burkinabé counterpart, either the teachers of the classes or an agent with the Department of the Environment and Sustainable Development, someone who can continue to do the lessons in the years to come. The problem with either of these entities is that their positions are temporary. Teachers and government workers operate under an illogical system of exchange, where one year you could be working in the north of the country, and the next in the east where you don’t speak the local language. I don’t get it but that’s how it is. I think I’ll go for someone local.

At this point I’m trying to figure out exactly what the best disposal method is for plastic. Everyone’s given me different answers. Any ideas? I’ll do some research when I’m back in the states. I’m also trying to come up with a good motivation for the kids to take care of their trees. Bonbons? A grade? A slap across the head if their tree dies (just kidding)? I’ll come up with something.

Well anyway, that’s what I’m up to right now. Keeping busy to stay happy, while still counting down the days until I go on vacation to the states to see and hold my lovely wife and if she lets me, everyone else. Oh, and eat bacon every day. And cheese. Yessir, life is good.

Friday, October 12, 2012

Bike Tour, Truncated


Well, bike tour is over and I am proud to say that I biked every single Kilometer of our 1,500 km route across the surprisingly diverse country of Burkina Faso. It was an incredible experience in so many ways. I’ve never undertaken something this physically demanding and I surprised myself at what my body can accomplish. I watched the landscape change; the idyllically open savannah of the Sourou Valley; the desolate sands of the north; the square, red mountains of the mid-west moving to the lush, humid forests of the south. I saw the true diversity of life here, from the smallest village to the capital city, from the largest ethnic group to those on the fringe. I saw a range of volunteer projects which expanded my idea of what Peace Corps is and does. We made neem cream, had dance competitions, organized mosquito net races, cheered on women’s bike races, conducted malaria sensibilizations, watched plays on HIV/AIDS, played soccer, read books to kids, and much more. Most importantly, my view of development and my place in it has changed, or rather solidified out of the grey blur of what it was before, into something real, something I can say with the authority of experience (see the post below).

Too much happened on bike tour for me to put into words. If you’d like a play-by-play of our exact schedule and all the activities we did, check out the GAD blog at www.burkinabiketour.blogspot.com. What I can offer is this journal entry from the first day of the tour. Hopefully it will give you taste of what each day of the tour was like. Enjoy!

August 29th, 2012

We spent a forebodingly overcast morning in Dedougou setting up a tent for the notable invitees and waiting around for them to show up for the kick-off ceremony. Around 8:00 the Naba and the representative of the governor arrived and 31 Dedougou women lined up with their bikes to race for glory (and 10,000 FCFA). We placed our bets. At the sound of “Zero!” these women FLEW. The 1st back raced over the line, threw her bike to the ground, and fell into the waiting arms of the waiting paramedics. I have often overtaken, on foot, Burkinabé riding bicycles. This goes to show how unaccustomed these women were to riding this fast, to what they call, “sport.” The prizes were awarded and we eight starting volunteer riders quickly lined up for the ceremonial start just as the first few drops began to fall. We too raced the course, through the ever-intensifying rain and then hurried to find shelter in a local volunteer’s house. We all listened to the drumming on the roof and decided to make the most of it by talking, planning the day’s route, and playing darts and dorm-room HORSE basketball.

Even without the rain there were a few complications with starting the tour. First of all, the Peace Corps car, inexplicable, had been stuck in 5th gear the day before and needed to stay in Dedougou for repairs. Additionally, due to the Malian refugee situation in Northern Burkina, a rumored Al-Qaida threat, and the fact that we had posted our bike schedule online, we were to be accompanied by two armed National Police. We waited for this to be arranged.

Finally, with the remains of the drizzle, mud caked on everything, and the resolute click of a bullet sliding into the chamber of an AK-47, we pushed off. The mud and cold were cut through by the sheer joy of the beginning, the start. We splashed through puddles, singing and talking, enjoying the movement after so much inertia. The country flashed by, clear and fresh, the startlingly light green of newly-grown Savannah grass waving in the breeze. This was a different world here, biking up into the Sourou Valley. This was almost the Africa of myth, of popular consciousness. It was all around us and it was all alive. The moments when I suddenly remember that I’m in Africa have become few and far between, but now when they do com they’re surreal experiences, all in an instant composed of my old visions layered with the new pieces of understanding I’ve gathered.

These thoughts faded as my eyes searched for my companions receding in the distance ahead of me. I realized then that I’m a slow biker. Persistent, but slow. The novelty of the landscape was replaced in my mind by a growing consciousness of my calves and thighs. The sun broke through the white sky and the drip of rain gave way to the drip of sweat. Somewhere along the way my rear derailer decided not to move anymore and stuck me in 1st gear. The police and some other riders stopped to help and managed to move my chain to 4th gear which at least got me moving again.

We caught up with everyone at a fork, the well-labeled north road of which would lead us to Sono, our first site of the tour. We crossed a bridge over the brown, swollen waters of the Mouhoun and spent the last 10 km stretch on an amazingly consistent and smooth dirt road. We met Sami, the resident volunteer, who guided us to her small mud-brick duplex through the spacious, pastoral streets of her village. We were met at her door by her strangely young chef du village and her two homologues vying for first handshakes with each of us. A crowd of children, teenagers and interested adults began to surround Sami’s courtyard as we cooled off and sat around.

Since our stuff was still in Dedougou waiting to be picked up by a new PC car from Ouaga (meaning no showers or clean clothes), we decided to take a walk around Sono. We crossed a few courtyards greeting notables and friends, picking up more followers with each step. We passed many half-acreish gardens surrounded by interesting woven wood fences. I considered the possibility of doing this in Titao, but realized that we simply don’t have enough trees to make it feasible (or legal). And our gardens are huge. In any case, it was interesting to see this new, compact technique. We were allowed in the Mosque with our shoes on. It was beautifully laid out, with a half-covered inner courtyard, the moss-green stones and worn architecture suggesting an enduring tradition. We exited through the small back room reserved for women onto a small tree-covered square serving as a small marché.

We paraded over to the primary school with hundreds of children in tow where Sami had planned to do a mosquito net race. These races are very fun and demonstrate the correct method of putting up a mosquito net. We split the crowd into two teams of eight and ran through an example of the race to thunderous applause and laughter. Then the two teams lined up, someone counted down to zero, and the first pair of each team shot off with a mosquito net. They each tied a corner of their net to the waiting line and then ran back to tag the next pair who tied the other corners. These in turn tagged the pair with the sleeping mat who, after slipping the mat under the net, ran back and tagged the last pair. One from each pair dove under the net to sleep while the other tucked the favric under the mat for the win. This is what should have happened. These being kids, there were some ridiculous variations. In one case, a participant tied their corner on the wrong side, resulting in the net getting all twisted. This however did not prevent three kids from diving under it at the same time. At least they were all laughing and having a good time and seemed to get the main idea.

The clouds shifted and deepened in color as we walked through rolling green hills back to Sami’s house. In time with our arrival came the new Peace Corps car, amid much rejoicing. Dinner (rice, sauce, and huge fried catfish) came shortly after and we took turns eating and showering in the cooling, quietly descending evening. Here there were no streetlights, no chugging generators, no sudden blasts of music; just the mechanical hum of frogs, a slight wind, and the occasional approach and fade of a distant motorcycle. In that moment I knew peace.

We moved our things to the school where we’d be sleeping and set up our eight bug huts in a single class room. The National Police set up outside, preparing to spend the night in chairs, guarding our rest. Drifting easily into sleep but wary of the early wakeup call and the 45 km ride of tomorrow, we closed our eyes to the strangely comforting click of a rifle.

Monday, October 8, 2012

Full Circle


I opened my eyes to a blank white sky and the Harmattan winds blowing the memory of a feeling into my sleepy mind. I raised myself and blinked around, gazing at the drying weeds, the sorghum and millet stalks towering above my house, the yellowing bean leaves, hearing the crackle of it all shake together, smelling the almost subconscious fluttering of decay. And then it hit me; nostalgia. This day had the same quality as every other October I’d ever experienced, including that of last year when I first arrived in Burkina Faso. It’s a feeling tinged with sadness, of the beginning of the end, but carried forward with the anticipation of the harvest, of holidays, of familial warmth.

I got up and stretched and considered how odd it was that I should have such a familiar feeling in such an unfamiliar place. Had a year living in this country truly allowed me to feel the full cycle of things, to feel reminiscent? It seemed so. It took me all the way back to Sapone when Kellynn and I rode home for the first time to our host family’s house, dodging animals and ducking through the sagging sorghum fields. I remembered watching with delight the last rain of the season, at the time being my first encounter with the violence of African rain. How different things were then. How different a person I was. I cannot now venture to enter the mind that was mine a year ago. Certain things have become more certain, certain things less. What can I say?

After breakfast I headed over to Philippe’s house. The mother of the proprietor of my house had passed away two nights ago and we went together to pay our respects. On the way back we passed another courtyard with a group of people sitting outside on nats, the customary way to wait to see someone. We stopped, took off our shoes, sat down and greeted everyone. We learned that someone in the Chef de Village’s family had passed away the night before and that the interment would be this morning. The Chef of a nearby village had also died in the night. Shocked by the concurrence of these three deaths, we expressed our condolences with dismay. Philippe told me he planned to go to the burial and asked if I’d like to go. As it was something I’d never seen before and pushed by the sentiment of the day, I said yes.

Titao’s cemetery lies around the base of a small, desolate hill on the outskirts of town. I had never ventured here before and was awed by the sheer number of dirt mounds stretched to the foot of the small, red rise. We made our way among these towards a large gathering of men and boys surrounding a hole. In typical Mossi fashion, three boys tirelessly dug while the crowd around them informed them of what they were doing wrong. I looked inside and saw a common grave, except the workers were in the process of excavating a small trench along one side of the hole. They soon finished and Philippe and I went to sit and wait for the body to arrive.

Cooled by the wind and delivered from the heat by the ever-overcast sky, we sat and waited. We talked of death and poverty and the difficulties of escaping them. I could hear the anger undercutting Philippe’s voice. Anger at what, I don’t know. Death? Frustration? Apathy? Tiredness? It became too much and we fell silent. Nudged by the fall breeze and these thoughts, the thread of remembrance began to unravel and I looked upon the last year as from on top of a mountain. Here is what I saw:

I had wanted so much to do something, to help, to learn. I came here full of hope, discouraged and cynical of the American life I saw around me. Everything was new and I devoured each new experience eagerly, knowing that it would nourish the person I wanted to become. Then Kellynn was forced to leave and I realized that this was never something I had wanted to do on my own. And yet there were still experiences here for the taking; still I had not done any actual work that I could be proud of; still there was so much to learn. I made a promise to myself that I would see this through for at least a year. I threw myself into work, starting projects left and right. I buried my loneliness in activity, and when that lulled, into the company of other volunteers and alcohol. I came out of each project with a new understanding of how things are done here and began to see patterns emerge. Speaking with other volunteers and seeing how they live helped me create a clearer, more comprehensive idea of what life here is and what we as volunteers can do within it.

I believe that the majority of volunteers are placed with organizations at the village level to ameliorate the larger, entrenched problems that the higher levels in the ministry do not care to deal with. For example, formal education volunteers take the role of teachers to address the problem of overcrowded classrooms. However, there are plenty of qualified Burkinabé eager to teach. The real problem is that the government will not pay the salaries of more teachers. So in effect, the Peace Corps is supporting this bad policy and volunteers are left to manage, as free labor taking jobs away from locals, classes of 100 students and more. I know less about the medical system in Burkina but have heard health volunteers complain that their job is to make sure that their Burkinabé counterparts do their jobs and that there is not enough oversight or support from the ministry. This goes for the Agriculture sector as well. We are placed with host associations, the majority of which are financed by American or Burkinabé aid organizations such as USADF, USAID and FAIJ, purportedly to be some kind of on-the-ground auditor. We are unwitting good-will ambassadors banging our heads against bureaucratic walls, filing quarterly reports for the benefit of our associations’ benevolent donors. This is not what I imagined service to be.

Besides our primary projects, I’ve seen the biggest impediment to getting anything done here as being the half-a-century-long culture of post-colonialism. For decades, motivated by institutionalized guilt, foreign organizations have come to poor communities, done on-the-fly community assessments, thrust large sums of money into a small number of hands, and left. The carcasses of these projects lay strewn everywhere, evinced by faded signs, crumbling buildings and silent, unmoving machinery. Where does the money go? With little to no follow-up and oversight, the funds for the new mill could just as easily become someone’s new motorcycle. Then here comes the Peace Corps volunteer, yelling, “Sustainable community development!” and what’s the first thing people do? Ask us for money. I am tired of hearing about someone’s “lack of means” to accomplish their dream project. But who can blame them? This is all their history has led them to expect; that nothing can be accomplished without outside aid. This is not the land of the self-made man. Goals are not to be reached for, but to be begged for. This view is probably shaped in part by the fact that I’m currently reading Atlas Shrugged. Nevertheless, I feel that if I am to truly accomplish anything here, it will be to convince someone, anyone, that they have the power to change their own life. To refuse to give someone money is one of the most important things I can do.

Dust rose in the distance and broke through my melancholic reverie. Everyone stood up as one. A truck with a covered bed backed up to the edge of the cemetery. Men began filing out and the last took hold of a stretcher within and brought it over to the grave. The body was wrapped in a straw mat and tied to the stretcher with a white cord. Two men started mixing water with some dirt to make a mortar. I was awed by the silence around me. Never had I heard a group of Burkinabé so large be completely quiet. That is to say that there is usually a lot of quiet joking that goes on or a phone ringing at least, but not today. The cord was untied and the body was lifted from the stretcher. An intricate, vibrantly red rug was pulled over the grave, held by about 20 men. Men inside the grave took down the shrouded figure and lay him in the shallow trench. Bricks were handed down one by one to cover the small opening. The last brick disappeared and the rug was taken away as the two men began delivering shovels of mortar to those in the grave. When the tomb was sealed and the grave vacated, everyone took turns heaving dirt into the hole. The wind threw dust towards where we were standing and we shifted around. With the hole filled and the mound created, there followed a slight pause and then suddenly everyone fell to a crouch, which I followed. Someone close by the grave said a few words aloud and then a profound silence fell once again. A minute or so passed. And then, in a dizzy contrast to the waiting that had preceded it, everyone got up and left.

I walked back with Philippe, immersed in my own thoughts. I asked a few questions about the burial, but was thinking of it in my own terms. I have been here a year. I have come full circle. What more do I want out of this? How much more can I endure by myself, without the support and presence of my best friend and wife? I feel that the hopes I came to this country with have been buried in the sand of the past year. Are there new ones to replace them? Are there new seeds to be planted in the next year? Honestly, I don’t know.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Camp des Leaders de l'Avenir

Hi all,

It's been awhile since I rapped at ya. I was extremely busy during the month of July planning and conducting a youth camp for 6th graders in Ouahigouya. It was great. We talked about gender, sex, hygiene, being a leader, malaria, nutrition, and a lot more, played games and soccer, had a field trip to a library, sang songs, etc, etc, etc. It was a blast and a great experience doing so many things I've never done before; teaching classes, planning activities to keep kids occupied 17 hours per day. It was exhausting but amazing.

The video above is a song I wrote for the camp called "Nous Sommes l'Avenir" (We are the Future). Super cheesy and probably poor French, but catchy and the kids seemed to like it. Sorry the video sucks.

Here are the lyrics:


Strophe 1 :
Nous nous couchons sous nos moustiquaires pendant tout la nuit
Ce que nous mangeons est bien nutritif
Et quand nous quittons le latrine nous lavons les mains
Comme il y a quelque chose de faire lendemain

Refrain (x2):
Nous sommes l’avenir (écho)
Nous sommes les leaders (écho)

Strophe 2 :
Comme une fleur nos corps vont faire beaucoup de changements
Et avec ceux, les nouvelles sentiments
Nous devenons des hommes et femmes mais nous n’avons pas peur
Car nous voyons nos places dans le futur

(Refrain)

Strophe 3 :
(Les Garçons) : Nous aidons maman préparer le Tô et faisons le lessive
Nous les voulons pour améliorer la vie
(Les Fils) : Si nous étudions bien et travaillons dur et levons nos voix
Quand nous devenons grandes nous pouvons faire n’importe quoi

(Refrain)


After the camp finished I suddenly found myself with nothing to do for a month. The first week was nice and relaxing: I gardened, helped my homologue cultivate a little, played music, and read a lot. But I am not one to remain idle for long and started getting bored and antsy. I went out looking for work and actually found a women's group which somehow found time away from the fields to make some soap. I want to talk to them about some other product possibilities like Neem Cream or Moringa Powder. I also just met some guy that organized a campaign last year to clean up all the water sachets and other random plastic shit littering the town and use the sachets as tree nursery pots. I literally had this same idea a few months ago, but had no idea how to motivate people, since Burkinabe do nothing for free. The way he did it was to make it a contest: whoever collects the most sachets by weight wins a wheelbarrow, a shovel, and some other goodies. He gives the sachets to schools, the idea being that they’ll plant trees in them. Genius. I’m going to help him with next year’s edition by providing seeds and doing tree planting demonstrations at the schools and helping him tighten up his budget a bit. I’m really excited about this.

So things are slow, but well. I'm looking forward to the upcoming Bike Tour in September and should have some pretty interesting things to report after that.

Love,
Dan

Friday, June 29, 2012

How Do You Say, “Yin and Yang” in Moore?


The past two days have been a study in duality, and a test of my nerves. I awoke yesterday morning out of an intermittent sleep, still a little damp. A dust storm had woken me up around midnight the night before followed quickly by a deluge of rain. After running around grabbing my things outside, throwing them blindly into the house, closing the curtains and shutting the door, I lay down on my bed and listened to the storm hammer out its violent mixed-meter music on my tin roof. Not wanting to get too far away from the dream I’d been having, I closed my eyes and tried to drift off. Then I felt a drop on my forehead. I opened my eyes to more darkness and the beginning of a light spray from above. Apparently my roof was not designed to withstand this much water. At some point, somehow, I fell asleep. Now I got up and stretched. Lifting my arms above my head elicited a strange, foreign pain in my armpits. I felt around and found a cartilage-like lump surrounded by loose swollen flesh under each arm. After a short bout of sleepy confusion, my limited knowledge of human physiology led me to the tentative conclusion that my lymph nodes were swollen. I had been sick the week before and felt that this made sense, though darker prospects came to mind. I called the medical officer who told me to take 800 mg of Ibuprofen with every meal to reduce the swelling, keep an eye on it and call her in a few days to rule out the most benign possibilities.

 After a quick, distracted breakfast I set out for a meeting with my association. I arrived ten minutes late to an empty office, which is not unusual. After another ten, our accountant showed up and said that the meeting had been cancelled. The consultant was not able to come due to the flooded roads and would have to reschedule. So, unsure of who was going to show up anyway, we had to wait as a slow trickle of association members came to the office just to be sent back to the fields they’d come from. I took the opportunity to add to my comprehensive contact list for our association, a rather lofty project consisting of amassing names and phone numbers of all 2000 plus members, which would ideally prevent such communication problems in the future. Part of me was glad to not have to sit through a meeting as I was now free to go help my homologue in his field. He would be planting beans today.

Leaving the accountant to inform the late-latecomers, I headed out to the bush. My homologue met me at a bridge and I followed him further down the road. Almost immediately I heard a squeak and a sharp pop and felt my bike veer. I stopped and looked down, hoping for jammed gears. What I saw instead was a broken quick-release. The screw had snapped in half. Deciding to deal with this later, I left my bike with some friendly cultivators and we headed to the fields together. “I’ve never seen this much rain!” my counterpart remarked, jolting through rocky streams and getting stuck in the wet sand. “It’s a gift.” “I must have brought it with me,” I said, thinking of the fires currently engulfing my home state.

We made it to the spot and found Philip’s wife, Wendende, sitting unhappily on a donkey cart. We greeted each other and as I reached the limit of my Moore, the couple began to talk and argue. I heard something about “tomorrow,” “rain,” “cultivate,” and “kids,” but wasn’t sure about their connection. So I used the time to take in my surroundings. It was an amazing day, a cool breeze circulating the humid air under the graciously mostly overcast sky. All senses were alive; the high multi-layered mingling of bird song; the sweet heavy smell of rain and some kind of spring bloom; the familial, earthy feel of other cultivators in the distance; the green, the GREEN, everywhere. It was truly beautiful. Suddenly Philip said, “Okay, let’s go,” and started walking back. “Wait…what? Why?” I asked, perplexed. He replied, “It’s too wet to sew. We’ll come back tomorrow.” This is something I never thought I’d hear here. All we’d talked about since I arrived in Burkina was how dry the past few years had been, how terrible the harvests were. Now it seemed we had the opposite problem. This morning the Chef de Village, a member of our association, had told me that the water level in the dam was higher than expected and that all the rice he’d planted would die as a result. No good. For everything else though this rain is a God-send—assuming that it lasts through August and that people can actually get their seeds in the ground.

We retrieved my bike and wheeled it back the 2 kilometers into town where we found a blacksmith who soldered the quick-release back together. Upon trying to refit it, however, we discovered that the axle had snapped as well. In the Burkinabé’s typically hurried helpfulness, many hands were set upon my wheel, ball bearings went flying, and parts got switched around before I knew what was happening. After a short while everyone admitted that they had never seen a quick-release or a hollow axle and that we should talk to the bike guys in the marché. I probably would have cried at this point had it not been for Philip, who led me to the bike boys and when they also didn’t know what to do, patiently helped me reassemble my back wheel, though still broken, and walked beside me back to his house, pushing his motorcycle the entire way. “We have a saying in Moore,” he said. “Rise early if you want to get your work done on time. You never know what will happen on the way.” I thought about this as together we ate the Tô with Baobab sauce and Pork that Wende had made, each of us pondering this strange, frustrating day. My only positive thought was that I really have a family here, that I have a Burkinabé father and mother that truly care about me. It really means a lot. This however did not prevent me from labeling the day as a fail, locking the gate when I got home, getting drunk and watching Arrested Development until my computer’s battery died.

The next day I woke up weirdly refreshed, ready to right the wrongs of the yesterday. The first good sign was that my armpits were no longer sore. Always a good thing. I put on the coffee and, today being a grande marché day, made a huge shopping list. After breakfast I headed out on foot, saying hello to all the strangers who come into Titao on Fridays and aren’t used to seeing me around. Because I was early, the place wasn’t too crowded yet and I made my way easily through the milling Friday shoppers. I found everything I needed; a new, regular axle, a number 15 wrench, extra ball bearings, grease, bananas, even eggs, which I hadn’t seen here since my second week at site. Feeling good, I stopped at my neighbor’s house for some samsa, a delicious fried dough ball made with onions and bean flour. These I ate and then went about fixing my bike. Due to my never having repaired or seen the inside of a bike axle before, this took some time before I figured out the theory behind it and got my bearings (pun points!). It took a few test rides and adjustments, but I finally got it in riding order.

Now able to get about town easily, I went and visited each of the four elementary schools in town collecting the permission slips for a camp some other volunteers and I will be doing in Ouahigouya in July which I had distributed earlier that week. I met two of the boys that will be going who seemed bright but reasonably shy in front of their director and a strange American. One of them had recently received the highest mark in the entire province on his Certificat d’Etude Primaire (CEP), the test which allows one to move on to middle school. Bon Travail, kid!

With all four permission slips collected, I chatted with the director who had read me some of his slam poetry before, M. Sou. I asked him how the poetry club was going. “Unfortunately, with summer vacation, the work in the fields, and some teachers and kids returning to their villages, it’s on hold for the summer,” he said. “We’ll recommence next year.” He told me that in the meantime, what he really wanted was to work on his slam, to find some musicians, a guitarist or balaphone player to accompany the poetry. This sounded amazing to me, like folk rap where the words and music are tied only by feel, not flow. Always on the lookout for new waves and surprises in music, I was about to suggest myself as his man for the job when the words “sustainable development” popped into my head like a subliminal warning from training. I mumbled something about hearing one of my neighbors playing guitar sometimes when suddenly I thought, fuck it. I’m here for a year and a half. Why shouldn’t I be selfish and start a crazy band? “I play guitar. Do you want to play a little tonight?” I asked. “Pourquoi pas?”

Back at my house we sat outside in the fading light and I played him a few of my songs, finding them hard to explain in French. He seemed impressed. Then he read me one of his slam poems entitled, “l’herbe n’est pas toujours verte chez le voisin,” which we turned into a kind of slap-happy shuffle. I was really loving playing music with someone again, feeding off someone’s energy and contributing my own. We also tried a slower, sadder one called, “un preservatif pour ma sœur,” (a condom for my sister) about the social taboo surrounding the discussion of sex in Burkinabé society and how it leads to the augmentation of such problems as HIV/AIDS and teenage pregnancy. I was amazed. I had never talked with a Burkinabé about this kind of thing before. Here was a leader, a social deviant who wanted to shock, to shake things up, to encourage change by creating music and art. An African punk-rock-art-folk-slam band. Never thought I’d see the day. The additional beauty of it is that this could be considered a project. This is VRFable. This is WORK. I love the Peace Corps. We played until dusk, discussing recording possibilities and playing on the local radio station in the near future, until Monsieur Sou said goodnight and headed home.

To top off this day that more than made up for the day before, I made myself a four-egg veggie omelet with vache qui rit. That night, I dreamt of how we would sound with the resonance of a balaphone and djembe behind us.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Le Tour de Burkina 2012


Greetings from Burkina, family and friends and readers!

I'm writing to inform you of the 3rd edition of the annual PC Burkina Bike Tour, kicking off on August 29th. This year the tour will cover 1500 km of Burkina's finest paved, semi-paved, and dirt roads, visiting 30 volunteer's sites over the course of 24 days. I will be (attempting to) ride the whole way on my Peace Corps issued Trek Mountain Bike. Wish me luck!

While seeing this country, getting in shape, and visiting volunteers' sites are the major perks for riders in the tour, the main goal is to raise money to fund Gender and Development projects for the upcoming year. In years past the tour has raised almost $6000 and this year we hope to top that. Examples of projects funded in the past by bike tour include providing the start-up costs to a women's group for an independent income-generating activity, and youth camps, such as the one which I will be helping run this summer in Ouahigouya.

If you're one of those who has always wished to donate to a worthy cause but were unsure how the money would be spent, now is your chance! ALL donations go straight to community projects. There are no administrative expenses (we are volunteers after all). Each full-time rider, like me, is encouraged to raise at least $150 before the tour starts. That's only $0.10 per Kilometer! A little bit goes a long way here, and it's all tax-deductible. For more information on the bike tour and how to donate, please visit the bike tour blog at http://www.burkinabiketour.blogspot.com/.

Thanks and love

Saturday, June 9, 2012

An Attempt at Art


Hey all. I think the time has come where I can begin to see Burkina with an artist's eye, to begin to comment on what I see here. Perhaps it is the artist's folly to say he has created art, but there it is. Before delving into the human part of this, I have began with an (arguably) easier subject; nature. This is for various reasons.

Firstly, technology here is at the awkward stage where it is widely known of, but hard to acquire. This means that pulling out a camera, say, is an act that can set you apart. For example, during the hour or so that I was out taking these pictures, a man came up to me, and without going into any of the usual greetings, asked me how much my camera costs. This camera is a Kodak C340 digital camera that I inherited from my grandparents five years ago and which they in turn had used for awhile. It's a nice camera and fits my needs perfectly but is not the newest model by any means. To this man I said, honestly, that I didn't know, that it was old. He went on to say that I should give it to him when I leave, and continued to insist on it despite my repeated jokes and refusals.

I should say that this is quite common here, but as a joke. People will tell you your shirt is nice and tell you to give it to them. You pretend to take it off, they laugh, you laugh, it's over. It's a compliment. But sometimes it goes further and it's in these situations things can get tricky. Usually if you stick to the joke line, they'll take the hint. With this man, however, I had to walk away.

Secondly, some people take offense to having their pictures taken. Rightly so, and it is always necessary to ask people's permission before taking a picture. While I was taking the picture of the bricks drying in the sun, a man yelled to me that they belonged to him and said I should pay for taking the picture. This is ridiculous. I told him it was just a picture and I could erase it if he liked. Luckily he didn't press the issue. Another half-joke.

So you see why I started with subjects that can't directly ask me for money or take offense. Anyway, here is the link to the "show" in my flickr "gallery." Enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mollyquixote/sets/72157630024716633/

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Wedding Season!!!

Yesterday- a mix of good and bad, as usual. Woke up with the wife on the mind, fearing the results of this huge decision I have to make. Without going into too much detail, I, ahem, despaired for awhile, listened gratifyingly to Counting Crows for probably the first time in my life, and then went off for the day's work.

I visited every elementary school in town (4) to ask the directors to choose one top student to send to a camp some of us volunteers will be doing in Ouahigouya in July. I got some good ideas for sessions and guest speakers and field trips and am excited to plan and do this camp. It's my only real planned project for this summer, though I have a lot of ideas and leads that are pushing against my mind with potential like water on a dam. One director read me some of his interesting, somewhat literal poetry (apparently if it rhymes, it's poetry). I could see a good session coming out of this. He's very energetic and would make a good guest. One director told me he wants to start a correspondence program between his class and an American class. An interesting idea. Because of the language barrier, perhaps it would be good to match his 6th year class with a 2nd or 3rd year French class, maybe 8th grade, I don't know. For them, it would be good French practice, and for all the students, an interesting cultural exchange.

That afternoon I was disturbed from my repose by some loud music coming from about a block away. Earlier, I had seen a huge crowd at the Catholic Church when I went to visit the Saint-Mary's Elementary and later saw the horn-blaring motorcade heading to my neighborhood, leading me to the conclusion that there was a Catholic wedding afoot. Here that means lots of drunken madness and dancing. I decided to crash it. It's okay to crash a wedding here as long as you greet everyone and dance. This I did.

Even before I reached the courtyard, I was stopped by an extremely drunk man who told me to come get a drink with him at the dolo bar across the street. I accepted the pregame offer (postgame for him), a mistake I realized as he commenced to tell me to take him to France with me (and pay for his dolo) despite my repeated attestations that I was American and didn't have enough money to go to France myself. Also, here if someone invites you for a drink, it's them who pays. After two calabashes, I was rescued from this man by  some slightly less-drunk guys who pointed out these things to him and escorted me to the reception. There was no less craziness there; music, drinks, colorful matching family pagnes. I greeted the father of the groom, a groovy tall guy whom I had talked with before, but apparently the bride and groom had gone out to sign the wedding papers and as I found a beer in my hand, I decided to wait to greet them. This waiting took awhile and after about an hour I somehow found myself in a dance-off with about a million kids. One of my dolo bar rescuers was pulling kids one by one from a massive circle around us into the center so that I could try to imitate their dance moves. Pretty soon the whole wedding party got involved and I danced away in the eye of a Burkinabe hurricane with infants and grandmothers alike. Sweat poured and I hurriedly replaced it with Laafi bottle after Laafi bottle. This lasted until I could take no more. I broke free and sat down, declining more drinks, and though the true stars of the day hadn't yet arrived, I decided it was time to go. There's only so much thunder I can steal in one day.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

(pa) Soma (ye)

I'm all by myself...

My wife has been Medically Separated from the Peace Corps because a medical condition that took her back to the states was not resolved within 45 days. So it goes. I believe things are getting better now as she accepts this new turn. She has some job interviews next week and has an amazing support network at home.

But I'm still here and it goes without saying that I'm incredibly torn. Obviously I want to support my wife during this extremely hard time. It pains me every day not to be able to work with her through this. But I also made a commitment to the Peace Corps and really want to learn from and have this experience, especially now that I'm getting into my groove, doing projects (see www.flickr.com/photos/mollyquixote/ for some photos of a workshop I just did) and bonding with Burkinabe. I feel like I will either fail as a husband or fail my village. What to do.

At this point, my idea is to stay. This can change at any time (we are volunteering after all), though I risk losing the Interrupted Service option, which is kind of like an honorable discharge and still involves many of the benefits of volunteers who complete a full term. Mrs. San wants me to stay, but what I really need to figure out if I want to stay. Will what I get out of this be greater than what I can do at home? Would I do more harm going home anyway? Will I be a better husband, our marriage be stronger because of this? I can't answer any of these, though I kind of have to.

Update to come.

Monday, April 30, 2012

(Rain) Storm


I arrived back at site at dusk. As the crew violently extricated my bike from the belly of the bus, my friend the director of the Arab college, with whom I’d been riding, remarked in English, “We will have rain tonight.” Still thinking in French, it took me a moment to understand, but then I followed his gaze south to where faraway monstrous heads of cloud appeared out of the darkness in intermittently quick flashes of white. “Yes, good. I hope so,” I said, genuinely eager for a real rainstorm. Last year’s rains were terrible and a repeat this year could mean famine, among other things, so a head-start on the moisture would be a great thing.

We said goodnight and parted, I mounting my now suspiciously squeaking bike. I came through the Neem grove by Ecole “A” onto the broad sandy soccer field and was presented with the full panoramic storm front edging slowly and silently towards us. Finally, some rain! I got home and prepared for bed, hanging up my mosquito net over my cot and air mattress with my plastic mat on the floor. Our porch faces south so I sat for a while just watching the way the light streaked through the clouds, wondrously bulbous and rounded like a bunch of grapes. The town was strangely quiet for this time of night (something I probably should have taken note of); not a single donkey whining, child crying, guitar and synthetic drums straining the speaker of someone’s phone to muffle the soft swish of the coolish breeze through my net. Under such rare favorable conditions, I must have fallen asleep, only to be woken up about ten minutes later by something markedly less soothing; my mat flying into my face and my mosquito net collapsing around me.

I shot up with a start. In the flashes of lightning, now directly overhead, I saw a great hurtling fog of sand and dust blowing laterally through the trees and buildings around me, already piling up a layer on myself and my bed. I never heard the sound of the thunder for the roar of the wind. I grabbed all my things, as quickly as possible and threw them into the house, chasing my pillow as it blew into the yard. I shut the door behind me and stood for a minute trying to process. I must have been gaping outside because when I closed my mouth to swallow, my teeth closed on fine grit. Dust was literally everywhere. Nature had undone in five minutes what it takes me two hours to do every week. Laying down my air mattress on the floor, I listened to the bangs and strains of the tin roof and became afraid. What if it blows away? Does that happen? What if a roof beam falls down on me? Could I choke on dust in my sleep? But for the absolute and disappointing dryness of the storm, I felt like I was in a hurricane. Unable to sleep, I lay for an hour listening to the cacophony of elements, before that too became just another thing to get used to and I drifted off.

I woke in the morning in a layer of dust.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Update and Malaria Month


Hey everyone. It’s been awhile. How’ve you been? Myself, I’ve been extremely busy out of the gates of IST. I was so excited to finally start working that I kind of overbooked myself. Oops. Here’s a run-down: I’ve been working furiously on an all-day workshop that I plan to do with my association on Environmental issues in their lives. I’m tailoring the content to appeal to my association’s agriculture base, i.e. “Planting trees can improve your crop yield and save water (it’s true).” However, I’m a little uncertain about the actual doing of the workshop, as the guy who’s supposed to take me around to meet all of the interested parties has been in Ouaga with a sick child for two weeks now. So it goes (and meilleur santé á son enfant). I’ve also been teaching basic computer competency classes to the teachers at one of our local high schools which have been fun. I just hope that if I reinforce the teacher’s knowledge it will trickle on down to the students. We’ll see. In addition, I finally went out to meet our local CSPS (health clinic) and the director was intrigued by the idea of doing Neem cream lotion demonstrations. So on Thursday I went out with all of my ingredients and made cream for the health agents, with the idea that I would do the same in front of some regular Janes the next day, but I was informed that being the grande marché day, the women’s attentions would be elsewhere. So I’m booked for Monday the 30th. In Moore. Wish me luck.

For those unfamiliar with Neem, it is a tree native to India that grows like a weed here in the Sahel. Despite being somewhat invasive, it actually has many practical applications including a naturally pest-repelling chemical bouquet. Considering that Malaria accounts for nearly half of all health center consultations and 60% of the overall deaths in Burkina Faso, making this particular aspect of the Neem tree known is a major goal of Peace Corps Africa. Oftentimes people know that the tree has this mosquito-repelling quality, but don’t know how to harness it. That’s where Neem cream comes in.

Incidentally, April is World Malaria Awareness Month and April 25th is World Malaria Day. So here’s a little awareness for ya: Malaria is a completely curable and preventable disease which nonetheless kills thousands of people in Burkina Faso every year. Malaria especially affects pregnant women as their acquired resistance decreases during this time, as well as children under the age of five who have not yet developed a natural immunity to Malaria.

About it being curable and preventable- The easiest way to prevent contracting Malaria is to sleep under a treated mosquito net, as the species of mosquito that spreads Malaria feeds after dusk. Neem cream is really for those who plan on staying up after dusk listening to music on their phones and gossiping (this includes the bulk of people here). You rub the cream on your skin and BAM you’re mosquito-free for about 3 hours, by which time you should probably go to bed anyway. One of the problems I’ve found with kids is that they like to get up and wander around in the middle of the night. I’m still working on how to solve this one (mosquito net cribs?). Prevention-wise, pregnant women (should) receive FREE Malaria prophylaxes when they go to their FREE pregnancy consultations at the CSPS for the duration of their pregnancy. Whether or not this actually happens, I have yet to delve into.

So how do I, an American with no acquired resistance, beat the ol’ Malaria blues? Well, every day I pop my tiny little Doxycycline tab at breakfast. The Peace Corps insists. And always, I sleep under our huge mosquito net. When we sleep outside it feels so exotic, like a Saharan bungalow or something. Preventing Malaria can be fun! It also helps that Mrs. San is like ice cream to the little blood suckers and takes the majority of hits for us. Ah, the undreamed-of benefits of marriage.

If you’d like more information on Malaria (I don’t know why you would. I just handed you a gleaming sphere of knowledge), check out Stomp Out Malaria, a continent-wide campaign to increase malaria prevention across Peace Corps countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Visit their Tumblr page to see highlights of Peace Corps projects across Africa. http://stompourmalaria.tumblr.com.

Take care and slap them mosquitos.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Three Cheers for Moringa Man!!!

Here's a fun project I helped out with recently. The Moringa is a hardy, nutritious tree that grows well in Burkina Faso. As the planting of this tree helps fight against malnutrition and deforestation, two of the Peace Corps' main goals and two major problems in Burkina Faso, Moringa projects are popular among the PCV's of Sub-Saharan Africa.

My role in this was pretty small. That's me in the beginning as "Moringa Man," and I play some viola during the song. This video was produced by TheSingingNerd, a current education volunteer in BF. Check out his other awesome videos on youtube.com. Also, if you want some instructions on how to use a latrine, the importance of learning local lang, or other intriguing things, go to PCBurkinaFaso on YouTube.

Love ya and enjoy!


Friday, March 9, 2012

My First Day as a Volunteer

So here I've been, at site for almost three months now living in what the Peace Corps calls the "etude" period, where we settle in, integrate, make contact with potential local collaborators, and generally make a place for ourselves in our community. It has gone pretty well for me in most respects. I feel like I've integrated well, my Moore is coming along, and I've made friends and professional acquaintances alike. I have an amazing homologue who is patient, kind, hardworking, sharp, and basically one of the greatest people I've ever known. Life is good.

But something has been making me anxious ever since I got here, and that is the constant internal question of "what is it to be a volunteer?" Now, I've met plenty of volunteers here and the only thing that seems to unite them is how different they all are. There's no type, no norm. So how am I supposed to know what I should be if I have no standard? This lack of clear objective has troubled me. Until today. Here's what happened:

This morning I went out to the professional lycee to talk with the program director about an IT class my wife and I will be teaching there to help make good use of some new laptops recently dropped off by a Swiss organization without even instructions on how to double-click. This project came as a direct invitation by the directrice of the lycee upon our first routine visit. This was not our idea, but we are refining the original plan in such a way that we will be able to pass the baton off to the Burkinabe teachers before we leave.

After this, I bought vegetables at the bustling Friday marche, speaking Moore almost without thinking and seeking out my favorite vendors, usually the ones who routinely give me an extra carrot or two.

We had lunch and then I went out to the gardens to help my ever busy homologue harvest potatoes for tomorrow's Tenth edition of the Faire de la Pomme de Terre. I ended up slicing through about half of what I uncovered, but it felt good to dig through the soft earth, side by side with men and women casually working twice as fast as me, slowly uncovering these golden orbs...until the blisters came.

Not wanting to destroy too much of his crop, I bowed out of the work to go have a chat with an English-speaking friend who I hadn't seen in awhile. While we sat over fruit juice and beer, I met a rotation of new people, including a teacher and a doctor and explained what I do and listened to their stories in a strangely comprehensible jumble of English, French, and Moore. 

Returning home, I picked up the sign I had painted for my association and walked with it over to tomorrow's fair grounds. the sign was also not my idea, though wanting to show my association that I am willing and able to work, and seeing an opportunity to do something simple and up my alley, I offered my services. I arrived at the fairgrounds shaking hands with and greeting a slew of folks and realized just how many people I know in town now. The association saw my sign and approved of it greatly, thanking and congratulating me. I even got a smile out of our old animator who had been kind of distant with me ever since I arrived here, dazed and blurry eyed and misconjugating everything. A camera crew was on the scene surveying the fair grounds and asked to interview a few members of our bureau. We drove over to the office and the newsmen interviewed our secretary and vice president about their work with the cultivators of potatoes and afterwards there was a camera sweep of the bureau members- there I am on the bench to the far right (check out your local listings). We filed outside and seeing the sign, the newsmen wanted to get a shot of it. I couldn't have been prouder. As my colleagues hoisted the sign in the air I finally felt like I had become a part of this bureau, simply by fulfilling a basic need of my bureau using skills natural to me. And then I looked back on the day and realized that I had really done more than that.

Maybe I can't wield a daba very well and maybe my Moore (and French for that matter) is a bit shaky and limited. Maybe I'm not exactly sure how to go about teaching a computer class to beginners and maybe making a sign isn't exactly sustainable development. But hell, I'm trying. I'm doing something. I'm volunteering. This is my damn service. The Peace Corps may have their project plans and overall goals, but in the end I'm working with the people who have asked me to work, doing the things that they want to do. There is no program. There is no standard. Being a full time volunteer means embracing whatever you find when you go out our door every day and making yourself generally available.

Some say that just coming here, living here is sacrifice enough, but I don't buy that. There's a difference between an ex-pat and a volunteer. So I guess my point is, if you want to become a volunteer, are thinking of joining the Peace Corps or an NGO or maybe putting in some hours at the public library but are unsure what to expect, don't worry. Don't expect anything and work will find you. But you have to take the first step out your door.

Friday, February 17, 2012

A Look at the Conveniences that Make Our Lives Easier

Shower
 Dishwasher
Hot Water Heater
Food Processor
Garbage Disposal

Water Treatment Center
Running Water

Dryer

Washing Machine

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Africans Are Way More Hipster Than You’ll Ever Be

There’s something I’ve observed during my three months in Africa that I find surprising, hilarious, and somewhat ironic (ironic because of the predictable and non-funny means by which it arises) and that is that Africans, at least Burkinabé, are extremely hipster.

You may also find this surprising, as well you should.

Let me explain: There is a massive trade here in used foreign clothing, mostly from the United States and Japan. I’m not sure which aid organizations decided that Africans needed all of our old Cabo San Lucas T-shirts and faded jeans when similar clothing can be made in situ for a comparable price (not to mention employing the multitudinous tailors here) but this stuff is everywhere. And they love it. The Mrs. And I have decided to take a picture of a T-shirt from every state that we see being worn. Had we started already, we would be halfway done by now. Everywhere you look is a thrift-store rat’s wet dream. I’ve talked to a 40-year-old farmer wearing a pink, poofy, sequin-studded hat and a multi-colored neon windbreaker. I’ve seen a motorcycle fly past bearing a man with a flailing Santa’s cap and fingerless gloves. I’ve seen T-shirts so old and faded that even whoever designed them probably couldn’t recall the reference. Handmade skirts are all the rage. If someone wears glasses here, they’re Buddy Holly glasses. Matching and color-coordination are concepts which simply do not exist.

The picture wouldn’t be complete without the rusty fixed-gear bikes, and lo and behold, they’re the major mode of transportation. My homologue jokingly suggested that we trade my brand-new Trek mountain bike for his old, red, white and blue single-gear and I found myself strangely torn.

And of course, you’ve never heard of any of their favorite bands. They’re super underground (except for 50 Cent and Rhianna).

Here’s the really ironic thing: The Burkinabé don’t even know how hipster they are. All of these things flow from coincidental matters of necessity. These guys are wearing these awesome hats not as a statement but because they’re cold (for some reason). Fixed-gear bikes are not widely popular because of their “superior maneuverability” but because their simplicity makes them the easiest things to maintain in this world of dust and pot holes. The Burkinabé have succeeded in the struggle for critical mass not because of their rebellious nature or organizational skills but because cars are so rare. And you’ve never heard of their favorite bands because, well, let’s face it, they’re just not that good (though you could say the same for many a hipster). No Burkinabé has ever tried subtly or non-subtly to draw attention to what they’re wearing (though they will often ask you to give them your pants or skirt), and no one has tried to make me feel bad or ignorant about not knowing some band from their hometown, or the specific nuances of the issue that they’re currently interested in. It is this indifference, this self-confidence which every hipster I’ve known strives for, pretends to have, and ultimately fails to achieve and which makes me cringe every time I’m around one and later just makes me pity them. What a waste to spend your time trying to define your identity using these things stolen from past generations and cultures. What a shame to go through life trying desperately to be cool when it’s the trying itself that makes it so you never will be. Burkinabé are cool simply because they are. And they have no idea.

(Note: This post may have upset some friends who exhibit hipster-like qualities such as an affinity for fixed-gear bicycles and thrift-store clothing. Do not dismay: Chances are, if we are friends, you are not a hipster. As the content of this post suggests, it is not the things themselves which define a hipster, and annoy the shit out of me, but the exclusive, self-absorbed attitude which surrounds them. Indeed, I myself have huge glasses and like old T-shirts, but because they are practical and comfortable, respectively. I don’t know. Perhaps my definition of a hipster is too narrow. Maybe this calls for a hyphenated category extension such as “asshole-hipster.” Either way, I have never met a self-proclaimed hipster, so this post will probably go unnoticed by those who should be offended and who need it the most.)

(Cultural Note: Obama Girl T-shirts are also extremely popular here- and not just with the ladies…)