Back from the "Training of Trainers


Ouais Maintenant je me sens mieux. Quelques uns ont fait des commentaires sur mon blog-là. À ce moment iI semble que j’ai une raison d’être. Je vous jure que je vais vous donner mon meilleur. Merci à el flo flo pour m’avoir salué. il est en train de vivre la vie française et pour cela je suis jaloux. Alors que je suis au centre du Sahel en train de souffrir. Mais ça va aller quand je serai au Sénégal j’aurai la belle vie moi aussi. il me faut de la patience…
Introductions aside…I’m just getting back from the conference that was for organizing the curriculum of the trainees that will be coming in a couple days. It was very interesting because it gave me a bit of perspective on where I am and what I’m doing here. I can’t tell you how much I doubt what I’m doing here at times. A part of the time it feels like I’m just wasting taxpayer’s money by being here. When you break it down it takes about $30,000 a year to support the average Peace Corps volunteer (about 15,000 in Africa and much more in more developed places like Eastern Europe). At times I feel that it is well spent and others it feels like a waste. It’s definitely not a waste overall because the Peace Corps approach is definitely the way to go (instead of giving a man a fish, teach him how to fish). More so than that we as Peace Corps Volunteers are integrated and living with the people we help. I can’t tell you how many times well intentioned people have come and donated this or that only to have it stop working the way they intended once they leave. For example a group of people come and donate computers to a town for students…however when they leave it turns out the computers are hoarded by the Mayor’s office who charges money to everyone to use them (that touches on corruption and that is another post altogether). Another example would be an NGO that comes and builds a sophisticated water pump in a village where women in the past had to walk 2 miles to the nearest water source. Soon after the pump breaks (they always do), and no one in the village knows how to fix or maintain it. Therefore in the end its as if you haven’t done anything for the villagers. So as I was saying the Peace Corps approach to development is the best way to go. The only problem I think Peace Corps goals don’t line up with George Bush’s goals for Peace Corps. It seems that he thinks of it as a program to market America to the world. “If we spread out Americans all over the world and almost everyone knows one personally or has one as a teacher at some point they won’t think that we are all that bad.” That’s something I can imagine him saying to himself. The opposite position is taken by Peace Corps. It takes itself as an organization that seeks to develop the world from the grass roots approach. The conflict between the two comes into fruition with the budget that PC gets from Congress…a measly 300 million (not even one percent of the defense budget). If PC was a program really equipped to help the common man I feel that there would be a much bigger budget and more organization in how the work is carried out and monitored. I’m telling you if I wanted I could just chill and do nothing everyday as long as I write a good quarterly report. When they said it was going to be the hardest job you ever loved I didn’t know that it was going to be hard on all sides.

The job
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stood up for a rendez-vous with someone that I agreed to help out. Whether it is how to set up an email account, or general accounting people just don’t seem to be all that concerned. I guess that happens when your services are free and only based on someone’s personal motivation. So in order to get the job done you gotta be persistent
Health
West Africa has the most germs per capita than whatever place you thought had a lot of germs. I’m constantly fighting off intestinal problems, boils, hair loss, heat rash et al.
Life
The weekend doesn’t exist in my town. It’s just another day no activities to go out and just kick it. The people don’t have any real hobbies outside of talking to one another. La belle vie n’est pas developpée ici.

But I digress, I’m still here and trying to find my way and I’ve even signed up for another year (however that new village will be a city on the beach with a lot of amenities I lack currently, so not too bad). Also its fun getting pity points from you guys from describing how life is for me ;) But I gotta to tell you all things aside it is fun living and working in Africa. Everyday is an adventure and the people are really cool. To live here you got to be on your toes and you are constantly learning and using what you learn to make it from day to day. Then the real fun starts once you understand the culture. Now that I’m fluent in French and can express myself comfortably there still are 80 other languages in Burkina (only about 30% speak French fluently). My goal is to learn a bit of the local language here before I leave (it has been harder for me since I live in a big town pop 25,000 in which a majority are French speaking). Moreover, I wasn’t motivated at first because once I step a foot outside of Burkina the language is useless. But something I’ve noticed is that if you want to understand “a people” and their culture you’ve got to learn their language. What and how they say can teach you a lot….it’s kinda like how in Inuit languages there’s 100 words for snow. Anyways I’d better stop before my thoughts get too disorganized and irrelevant.