Ouahigouya Letter 2 dated 6-23-09

Hello Everyone,

Since my parents are forwarding this on, I figured I'd address it to everyone. I hope everyone is well and I welcome emails and letters! :)

Okay, so I've been here a little under 2 weeks and as I've said before it feels like so much time has passed. Maybe that's because so much has happened, so much has changed, and I have learned so much. I'm getting more comfortable here and with my family. This place is becoming more and more familiar and the language is coming slowly but surely. My language classes are taught by a woman named Zara and I take these classes with one other young woman named Carolyn. She and I were talking today and she said she notices improvements every day and I agree. I am able to understand more when Zara and others speak and I'm beginning to talk more and increase my vocabulary. My end seems to be crawling toward improvement, but it's something. It'll be interesting to see where I am in 2 weeks or in 4 weeks. I am currently in week II according to our schedule and I'm supposed to start teaching a 5 week class during week VI, so we'll see.

The food is much better than I was expecting. I have more variety and I'm getting fruits and vegetables on a regular basis which is nice. I'm trying new things and learning what I do and do not like. As of now there are very few foods I don't like. I need to also learn which foods agree with me and which don't. I will not be eating those that don't for obvious reasons!

I started SE (secondary education) classes this week. We read about a form of teaching that's called the 4MAT program which discusses how to teach to a group of different types of learners. It tries to incorporate a cycle of experience, reflection, conceptualization, and action in order to cover why, what, how, and if questions. All of these are necessary to truly learn and retain something and not just memorize information like the kids do very well here. It'll be something I need to focus on and be aware of. I'll have to find ways of getting my kids to think outside the box and think beyond simply memorizing facts. For example, if I'm teaching an equation in math or physics, after giving them the equation and its applications, I can give them the answer and have them solve for another variable in the equation. If I teach them how to solve for density, which equals mass divided by volume, I can give them the density and mass and have them solve for volume. This will force them beyond route memorization and push them more towards actual learning.

Today we covered lesson plans and had to write our own lesson plans following a specific format. The format includes review, new information including objectives, and practice/evaluation to get the kids involved. We'll see how that goes. I have model school in 4 weeks, so I hope my language and comprehension is good enough by then.

Hmmm.. What else? Quoi d'autre? I washed my clothes for the first time here on Sunday. And no, they don't have washing machines here - not even where I live. So this was my washing experience. You get two big plastic bowls and one plastic bucket. You go out to the back of the house where the hose is and fill the plastic bucket full with water. Then you bring it to the bowls and pour some in each bowl so they're half full. The bucket will be a quarter to half full by this point. Then you grab a few items of clothing and throw the into the first bowl of water. You soak them. Then you grab your bar of soap (aka Burkinabé detergent - they use this soap to wash everything I believe) and you scrub your item of clothing with the bar of soap. Then you stretch a small area of it between your hands and scrub one side on the inside of your wrist and then the other on your other wrist. You do this with all parts of your item of clothing. Then you ring it out and drop it in the next bowl. Then you repeat, using less soap and probably not spending as much time on it. You ring it out and drop it into the bucket. The bucket is the rinse cycle. You rinse out your clothing and ring it out again. Then you shake out your item, turn it inside out if necessary and hang it on the line. They even have plastic clips for the windier days. Then you repeat with the rest of your clothes, possibly emptying out your rinse water into a bowl, if you want less soap-filled water for rinsing. I'm not sure if I got all the soap out, but I'm wearing an entire outfit today of my Burkinabé-washed clothes and I'm not having any issues. And they smell clean. The only thing is that some were a little stiff after drying, but no biggie. Oh, another thing, all clothing including bras can be hung on the line, but your underwear cannot - that you leave to dry in your room. I found a nice little someone hidden spot on the bottom shelf of my table because it was a wire checkered shelf. Oh, also, my khaki capris were filthy. They were covered in dirt/sand and had taken on a darker tan color and the bottoms had dirt all over them. ?So, Nadesh (my sister who actually helped wash all my clothes, except my underpants - she might have helped with those, too, but I didn't want her to) pulled out the wash board and a large scrub brush and went to town on my capris. She did a fantastic job and got everything out!. They look just like new. I wonder if I'll be able to do as good a job as she. Well we'll see. I think I may do laundry ever other week, because I'm cheap (don't want to buy soap every week) and I don't think I need to wash my clothing more than that.

So, I'm more comfortable now and I'm coming into my own. I still need to spend a lot of time on my language, but I think I'll try to spend some extra time on it each night or something like that.

I hope you're all doing well. I miss you. I do miss home and a lot of the food because I just love US food. So, you can send chocolate, nut mix, candy, anything yummy to snack on, tuna/salmon in a bag, organic drink mix to add to water (Lib, you know what it is :)), breakfast bars (especially the peanut nature valley or the ones with yogurt, or anything organic) I'll let you know more later. Maybe I'll try mac and cheese out of a box once I'm at site....

Stephanie

Ouahigouya Call

We called Stephanie on Saturday after extensive research into international phone cards. It seems these are many different plans that appear to be designed to be as complicated as possible to make it difficult to compare. This, I suspect, is yet another shining example of creative marketing. There are plans designed for calling Burkina Faso line phones and different ones for calling cell phones. The obvious card issue is the per minute charge. Looking beyond the obvious there are other charges. Some cards carry an annual fee. There are some with monthly charges and some with weekly charges. We looked at one-minute rounding, two-minute rounding . three-minute rounding and even four-minute rounding. This rounding concept is not really explained anywhere. They must assume it to be fairly straight-forward but I think they should tell you anyway. They do not. We found cards with PIN numbers and some without. Then there are other hidden fees and surcharges than need to be evaluated.

We settled on the nobelcom.com plan which seems to be the best deal for our projected usage To put this into perspective, we have the Time Warner all-in-one plan for our home phone for domestic calls just about for free after you factor in the costs of cable and the internet. The rate they quoted to add international calling, when I inquired, would be six times the cost of the nobelcom card for three hundred minutes.

Once the international phone card decision was made, we waited for one of the times Stephanie had said would be available to take our call. After some confusion over which number to dial (the 800 number is more expensive than the local number we were provided with), we punched in the 31-digit sequence required to reach her Peace Corps-issued cell phone and counted the rings until she picked up.

She said her host family is doing better than some others in that they have a house with a shower inside. She lives in a small bedroom in a single-story house. The bed fits in her room with a few feet to spare on either side.

In addition to the family of four, there are several other people who Stephanie suspects may be cousins living with them in the clay house. She ran down the names and it sounded like there may be as many as 10 people living under one roof.

Emma is the trainee living with a host family across the street. Kathy mentioned how that was her grandmother’s name.

The host family is catholic. Stephanie has not been to mass with them yet but is looking forward to going to see how mass in French compares to mass in English. One of Kathy’s co-workers thought it might be faster to learn Mooré if she attends mass in that language.

Some of the training takes place in classrooms at ECLA which is a non-governmental organization or NGO that is an acronym for Etre Comme Les Autres or “to be like others”. ECLA has a "care and support" medical center and several schools that teach skills like cabinetmaking, carpentry, sewing and handicrafts. Its activities range from ARV treatment (Antiretroviral treatment) to emergency assistance. One of the primary activities of this organization is to work with PLHA or Persons Living with HIV/AIDS. ECLA works to satisfy that group’s needs with an integrated and global approach. Having learned this, it seems logical that the Peace Corps would coordinate the training of each generation of volunteers with such an organization.

The Burkinabe in Ouahigouya speak French and Mooré. They smile a lot and laugh a lot. Stephanie and Carolyn, another Peace Corps Trainee are working with a Burkina woman to become more fluent in French. Nadesh, the 14-year-old daughter of the host family is also helping with her French.

There are outdoor shelters called hangars that the Peace Corps uses for some of the training. The trainees can be outside where the temperatures are more comfortable than they would be indoors. The hangars have slim wooden columns supporting a structural frame with a thatch roof overhead to provide shade for the concrete benches below. Language, medical and cultural training begins at 8 a.m. Monday through Friday with 2 language sessions on Saturday. Lunch lasts an hour and half before the afternoon sessions begin.

The food in Burkina Faso is very good. One of the recent meals she ate included fish, cucumbers, onions and tomatoes. She eats green vegetables once a day.

The Peace Corps provided the trainees with filters for water. Stephanie has been careful not to drink any unfiltered water and has not experienced any unpleasant side-effects as a result. She said others have not been as lucky.

The first night in Ouahigouya, the trainees were invited to dinner at a local physician’s house. The host gave a speech in which he mentioned the avocations of some of the visitors from across the ocean. At one point he said, “There is a beekeeper among you and also a basketball player”, referring to Stephanie. When he mentioned that she was from Syracuse, a cheer was heard from another trainee toward the rear of the room. Stephanie found out later that the person cheering was a young lady named Jennifer, also from Syracuse.

Stephanie was disappointed to learn that the information about jewelry she was given while preparing for her trip was not accurate. She said she could have taken some of her favorite jewelry with her after all. Her host mother let her borrow a pair of earrings. She is preparing a list of items that we may wish to ship to her that will include specific items of jewelry.

Stephanie said she gets to bed by 10 or 11 p.m.

We plan on calling again in a week to catch up.

Stephanie's Trip

The day finally arrived. We have known about this for quite some time.

Our daughter is passionate about life. She told us she wants to make a difference. She wants to immerse herself in a different culture. She became a Peace Corps volunteer or will be in three months. The path to this point involved all the paperwork, finding sponsors, interviews and waiting.

Her original expectation would have had her leaving in the fall or 2008. That would have been only four short months after she graduated from William Smith College. Things changed. There were delays. Then the invitation letter came and her excitement grew.

As I write this, she sits on a plane in the Philadelphia airport that is readying for takeoff. Its destination: Paris, France. Then, following a brief layover, on to Ouagadougou Airport in Burkina Faso, Africa by way of Niamey, the Capital of Niger.

We drove to Hancock airport in Syracuse yesterday morning a little after 8 a.m. in two cars. After checking in, Stephanie met the rest of us on the second floor and we waited. I walked over to the flight schedule board to check on the status of her flight. Under status it said "DLYD/ATC" with no time specified. I thought that

could mean delayed by air traffic controllers but I was not certain. Going back downstairs to see what that meant, she discovered that they had switched her to an earlier (also delayed) flight without telling her. A flight which had not left yet

but was about to. She had to hurry.

As luck would have it, airport security asked her to move to the side for more in-depth inspection of her things. Her mom

switched into full worry mode as we waited for security to finish with her.

About five minutes after we watched her disappear from sight as she made her way to the gate, we received a text message

from Stephanie that said "I'm on the plane - luggage actually fits this one . . . Love you all. Miss you already" and just like that, worry mode ended.

With that, I headed to the office and Kathy took Matt, Carolyn and Libby to get something to eat.

I tracked the flight on the computer from the office until it landed then texted Kathy to let her know only to find out I was conveying old news. Stephanie had called a few minutes earlier from the plane that was taxiing toward the terminal.

The rest of her day in Philadelphia involved training then dinner with our friends Bob and Tracy at an Italian restaurant that Kathy had been to on a recent business trip.

Today began early for her. After checking out of the hotel around 6:30 a.m., they were off to the clinic for the required innoculations. There are 30 people with her headed for Burkino Faso.

She had lunch at the Reading Terminal Market then tried to shop for a power converter or transformer that she learned would be needed for her surge protector when she is in Africa.

The bus left to take them to the airport around 1 p.m. to allow enough time for the party to check in for the flight and make it through customs.

Stephanie called just as I left work and filled me in on the additional charges Delta hit her with because her carry-on exceeded the weight limit.

And now she has begun the next leg of her 27-month adventure. Once she arrives in Ouahigouya, Burkina Faso, she will meet her host family and begin the three-month training period before being sworn in as an official Peace Corps volunteer. Until then, she is a Peace Corps Invitee.