Last week I had my first encounter with public
transportation in Burkina and I would have to say it was never boring. On Sunday I left the training city for the
capital, Ouagadougou (pronounced wah-ga-do-goo) to meet my counterpart. A counterpart is someone selected from the
village to work alongside the volunteer on both primary and secondary
projects. My counterpart’s name is
Rasmata and she seems very enthusiastic about working with me on projects at
the preschool. Rasmata does not speak a
lot of French so we weren’t able to talk all that much. We spent two days in Ouagadougo getting to
know each other and going through training sessions. After the two days we set out on our
transportation adventure to my village.
In order to get to my village from the capital there are
two legs in the journey. From
Ouagadougou there is a bus almost every hour that leaves for my regional
capital, Kaya. I traveled to my capital
with my counterpart and a friend and her counterpart. We left Ouaga at 9:30 and arrived in Kaya two
hours later. The road to Kaya is pretty
well maintained, so this part of the journey was not too bad. After we arrived in Kaya we had o wait three
hours before we could catch the only bush tax that goes from Kaya to my
village. The bush taxi journey was
pretty crazy. About thirty minutes
before the bush taxi was supposed to leave it started to pour down rain. Usually I am wishing for the rain because it
cools things down, but I was so tired of sitting around and was ready to get to
my village. After about 45 minutes the
rain subsided and people started loading up the bush taxi. A bush taxi is essentially a 15 passenger van
that gets jam packed with people and animals.
I was surprised to see three goats, giant rolls of rope, and a few bikes
all thrown on top of the bush taxi.
After the top of the taxi was loaded people were packed inside based on
the order in which they would be getting off.
Luckily, my village is one of the first stops on the road so I got to
sit near the front.
After a bumpy 30 minute taxi ride Rasmata calls out to
the driver that he should stop. I look
up and see nothing but a small shack. Rasmata turns to me and says, “C’est ici”
or “It’s here”. I turn to my friend and
we both laugh because there is literally nothing there. I get off the taxi with my counterpart and we
start walking. After a minute or two I
start to see a few buildings and realize there is more there than just a shack,
but not too much. My village is very
small. If I had to guess I would say
there is under 1,000 people living in the village. A few months ago I was thinking the College
of Wooster was small and I am about to move to a community even smaller than my
college. My village consists of the 7
mosques, a primary school, and the pre-school. That’s it. In order to get my food and anything else I
may need I will have to bike 5 kms to a neighboring village. I think it’s a good thing that I will have to
venture to another village because I will probably go stir crazy if I never
left mine.
The two days I stayed in my village were full of greeting
people. Rasmata and I walked around the
village greeting the chef (chief), Imam (head of the Mosques in the village),
and other people I will be working with in the preschool. This was exhausting. I am used to having to greet people all the
time but trying to do it in Moore was really tiring. There are very few people in my village who
speak French, so my Moore is going to be awesome after two years. Moore is a very challenging language to learn
because it is so foreign from anything I have ever heard. In Burkina there are four main local
languages that are spoken in areas where a large majority of the same ethnic
group live. The ethnic group of my
village is Yarce, but this is not a common ethnic group in Burkina. The Yarce live in a vary Mossi area and as a
result have taken the language of the Mossi, Moore. There is a lot of history between the ethnic
groups in Burkina, but in present times everyone gets along well with each
other. This is something that I love
about Burkina. There is so much diversity
but everyone is open to the ideas of others.
There is no religious tension and the people get along so well with
everyone. It truly is amazing how
accepting the people of Burkina are of each other.
After spending two days in my village it was time to head
back to training. In the morning my
counterpart and about 8 people of my village walked me out to the road to wait
for the bush taxi, the only one that goes into the capital that day. After an hour the bush taxi arrived and my
village was there to see me off and on my way.
It was nice to see how excited my village is for my arrival and provided
me with a lot of encouragement.
Now I am back at training and model school has officially
started. During model school I practice
teaching in the preschool from 8-12 everyday.
This has been going on for 5 days so far and it has been great. The children are adorable and most of them
have gotten used to my presence in the classroom. I am working in the petit section which is
the three year olds. Most of the
children only speak local language but I have found ways of communicating with
them that don’t require any words or I use the few key phrases I know, such as
“waka” (come here). On Thursday I will
be teaching my first lesson on my own and I am starting to plan fun activities
with the children. If anyone has any
suggestions for games or songs (in French) that would be good for children ages
3-6 feel free to send them my way. I
have a lot of lesson planning to do and could use some new ideas. For the next five weeks, until the end of
training, I will be working in the preschool and finalizing last minute tasks
until I will officially be sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer and move to my
village.
