Goats on the roof

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.