Some FAQs

What's your water source?

There are a couple water pumps in my village, and I live pretty close to one of them!!! And by "close" I mean, it takes about three minutes to walk there, and about five to walk back with water. Not bad! 

I have this big, yellow, plastic container called a bidon (bih-DOH-n, rhymes with "phone"), which I take to the pump and fill with approximately 25 L of water. Then I strap it onto the back of my bike with a rubber strap, and ever-so-carefully walk it back to my house! 

I think I mentioned in my post about site visit that my neighbors make dolo (a beer of sorts made from red sorghum); well as you might guess, making dolo requires a loooot of water. So really, most of the times that I go to the pump, some of the neighbor kids are there pumping a water into 10 or so bidons, and if they're there, they pump it for me. :)

Depending on which/how many kids are there, sometimes they also insist on walking my bike/water back to my house for me. The last time this happened, I told the boy who started to walk my bike back that I could take it, and he just really quietly says, "Non."

Hahaha ooookay fine by me!

Round trip usually only takes 15 min, and I usually need water every other day or so.

Do you have to sterilize your water?

You bet I do, but it's super easy! Peace Corps gives us water filters, so I just have to pour water in the top, let that water pass through the two filters, and put bleach (two drops per liter) in the bottom.

**Some day I promise I'll post pictures!

How do you cook?

I have a gas tank and a little gas stove with three burners. The awesome PC driver, Moussa, who dropped me off at my site, set up my  tank/stove and demonstrated its use. He then made me try it so he could make sure I did it correctly, which I very much appreciated. So basically, Moussa is the reason I can eat at site.

PS Can you tell that I adore Moussa?? He also called each of us after our first nights at site to make sure we were doing okay. Angel. 😍

How do you bathe?

I pour water from my bidon into a bucket, and use a little plastic cup to take water from the bucket to rinse with.

Sometimes I heat some of the water (as much fits in one of my cooking pots) and then pour it back in the bucket - and man does it feel gooooood!

Sometimes when I want to spoil myself, I use this pressure shower thing, which was super cool care package gift from my sister. Basically you put the water in this little tank, hit the seal, and then push this little foot pedal to pressurize it. There's a little hose that connects to a sprayer - almost like one you'd see at a kitchen sink. You just keep pressing the foot pedal to add pressure! 

It makes washing my hair a LOT easier so I definitely use it for that, but I don't use it every day because quite frankly, I'm pretty good at bucket baths. Its reeeeally nice to be able to close my eyes and pretend I'm taking a shower, though!! I seem to use it in spurts - I'll use it every day for a bit, and then one day I'll forget to fill it up before it gets dark so I'll just do a bucket, and then I get on a bucket kick for a while, and so on. 

How often do you wash your hair?

To this I say...don't ask questions you don't want to know the answer to.

How do you wash your clothes?

I have three buckets. I fill each one 1/2-3/4 full, and put three light articles of clothing in the leftmost bucket. I take a bar of laundry soap, and scrub it on key areas of the first garment (collars and under sleeves for shirts, waistband and pockets and hems of pants/skirts).

After each key area is washed, scrub soap indiscriminately over entire garment and scrub fabric together. Rinse, wring out, and move to middle bucket. Repeat with garments 2 and 3. Add three more garments to left bucket before doing another all-over scrub of each in the middle bucket. Rinse, wring out, and move to bucket on the right.

Continue until all clothes are in the rightmost bucket. Dump soapy water from middle and left buckets, rinse them out, and fill middle bucket 1/2way. Take item from bucket on the right, rinse and wring out REALLY well, and wring out in middle bucket. Add a couple more if you want. Rinse and wring out items from middle bucket, and dump in (empty) bucket on the left, until all pieces of clothing have been rinsed and wrung out a final time. Turn items inside out and pin on clothes line.

NOTE: as you may have noticed, it takes a good amount of water to do laundry - almost a whole bidon. I'm not a big fan of going to get water, so needless to say, after a couple weeks at site I was OVERJOYED to see my neighbors washing their clothes AT the pump!!!!! And then just hanging up at their houses! Talk about a game changer!

How long of a bike ride is it to Tenkodogo?

Tenkodogo is my regional capital, so it's a pretty sizable town/city - and it's only like 35 min away!!!! I mapped it, and it's only about 8.something km. It's a dirt road for probably 7m, and a paved road for 1+. 

Going into Tenkodogo on the dirt road, there are two slight downhills (one steeper and one more gradual) and one slight gradual uphill.

On the paved road, there's a crest, I would say, and it's closer to my dirt road than to Tenko.

All that said, it probably takes 30-35 min to get into town, and more like 35+ to get to my village - so not bad at all!!

I'm pretty sure that every time I make the trip I do it a minute or so faster, so it's probably going to become my personal speed challenge. I mean, I kind of figure that I'm going to be drenched in sweat upon my arrival no matter what, so I may as well get there faster, and with more of a biking-created breeze!

Let there be light

Solar panels.

Glorious, god-sent solar panels.

I would like to share with all of you my epic journey to solar power...

Monday, Aug 18: day before Swear-In

We're discussing the logistics of Affectation (the delivery of 30 new volunteers to their respective sites). Among this is the fact that we now have access to our Peace Corps bank accounts, and our Affectation money has been deposited. 100mille for old sites, 200 for new ones (like mine), who are literally moving into empty houses.

A big question on everyone's mind: much are solar panels???

There are a fair few of us who have new sites without electricity, and who are therefore very interested in this information.

One of our kind PCVFs hops on the phone to ask a fellow PCV friend who is knowledgable about such things. She writes down all sorts of information about sizes of panels and what each size can power/charge. Among her notes, I see "Tenkodogo region: David will help."

HOLY MOLY! I'm in the Tenkodogo region! I don't know who this David character is but I want him to help me!!! "Pst. Pssssst. What's this about Tenkodogo region? That's me!" Apparently, solar panels are cheaper in regional capitals than they are in Ouaga (no surprise there, everything is expensive in Ouaga), so if we*** were willing to wait a couple weeks, this David character would help us buy solar panels in Tenkodogo! 

SOLD! All I really need to charge is my phone and my kindle, and I have this magical apparatus called an Anker battery (which is just an external battery that charges anything that can connect via USB - worth it's weight in gold), so I can totally make it a couple weeks!

***who's "we"? There are three new volunteers in the Tenkodogo region, but Kelby has electricity. Rude. So "we" is me and Diana, whose site is actually only like 6km from mine.

Thursday, Aug 28

I meet Diana in Tenkodogo for the day. I forget why, but it seemed urgent at the time. Maybe to charge devices? Who knows, that seems a little early in the story to be needing power. Hmm. Whatever.

She has opened lines of communication with David. He is working camps right now but will be back at site around Sept 4. HO BOY. That's a week away! Okay. Deep breaths. No big deal. Maybe he can do that first weekend that he's back, the 6th?

Wednesday, September 10

I meet Diana in Tenkodogo and apparently the bike tour is passing through, and who's doing it but our new friend David? We go meet them at a reeeeeally nice hotel (caught in a torrential downpour on the way), and find out that David got a 50W solar panel, battery, and inverter for 102,000 cfa, and that was the best price he's ever heard of. The only thing he'd do differently is buy a bigger battery, because his solar panel was too powerful for the battery and it ended up dying. Good to know.

I learn that Diana's boyfriend, Galen, is planning to come visit on 16th. Is it okay if we do it then?

I understand why she wants to make it one trip - I'm an easy 8-9km from Tenkodogo, but she's more like 14. Why bike there and back an extra time if can help it?

Sure, I can wait another week. I've already had to work up the courage to ask the hooligans down at the bibliotheque to charge my phone once, I can do it again.

Sunday, August 14

THE END IS IN SIGHT!!!! In just two short days I will have POWER! Look at me go!!!

Find out that my sister has gotten engaged. Um YEAH we can chat four 2 hrs on viber!!! And then I can totally talk to my parents for an hour on my dumb phone!! I'll be in Tenko Tuesday and I can charge there and then I'll have POWER!

Oh wait...that beep 30 min ago was a text message...from Diana...David's girlfriend is sick and he wants to go visit her while she's in the infirmary in Ouaga and wants to see if we can move solar panels to Thursday?  Of course that's okay...

I guess I'm going to Tenko by myself (actually this was awesome, I basically had a mini vacation in 24hrs away from site. But that's separate.)

Thursday, August 18

I wake up around 4am to the sounds of rain. Normally I love when it rains, but not so much when I was planning to be biking down a 6k of dirt road in 2 hours...

6am. Still raining. I had told David I'd be in Tenkodogo early (I like to leave before it gets hot), so I warn him that I'm not going to be leaving as planned.

We decide to revisit the timing after the rain.

10am. Still overcast but it has stopped raining. We had both wanted to hang at a hotel w internet before the big shopping, and my road is plenty muddy, just no more water coming from above to rinse me off as I go.

We decide to delay another day.

Friday, August 19

ITS HERE! THE DAY HAS COME!!! I leave  late enough to pass by the bank right when it opens. Still takes 45 min because it's the bank, and it's Burkina.

Get an omelet, meet David at the internet hotel. We hang until Diana says goodbye to Galen and meets us.

SOLAR PANEL TIME!!!!!

We find a store (only our second stop) which is run by a real straight shooter. He is awesome. Not only did they actually measure out our 6m of cord, he also gave David the real price for the inverter - and maybe other things too. 

Total? 88,000 each. WHAT??? That's with the bigger battery and still a ton cheaper than David spent? THIS IS AWESOME!

The negotiations begin. Store owner drops down to 150,000 total (for both of ours) right away, but will not budge beyond that. David advises us to instead look around for other things to try and add into the package. I suggest lights. Each is 3,500, but with everything else, the total comes out to 155,000 -- 77,500 each. I had mentally prepared myself to drop a hundred mille today, so I'm thrilled.

Can we leave this stuff here will we go eat lunch, and get it on the way home?

Cool, thanks.

I get home. Remove everything to make sure it survived the trip. What's that??? I know what mouse snacks look like, and I am fairly certain a mouse made a snack of this cord. UGHHHH.

I have to go back and get him to give me a new length of cord. Joy.

Saturday, September 20

7:30am. Leave my house. I don't know when this man opens shop but I don't want to wait for him.

8am. Omelet. Same place as yesterday, just as delicious and cheap.

8:20.am Arrive at store, explain problem. Store owner obviously remembers the white girl who spent $150 here yesterday, and sees the very clear evidence of a mouse. Calls child helper over to cut new cord, we have a nice chat.

8:30am. Then onto the paved road, pedal, nothing happens. Pull over. Chain has come off the sprocket. Hi, can you help me? Thank you so much!!! Back on my way, and that was only mildly embarassing.

8:32am. Pedaling. Gearing up for the bike ride. Again, nothing happens. Bike is coasting. Look down, this time the chain is broken. AH! That's new.

I look around and see that I'm right by my breakfast spot! We're friends by now (I are there yesterday too), so I figure he can point me to someone who can fix my bike.

8:35am. The kindly maker of my omelets looks dismayed on my behalf, and directs me just down the street. This other man fixes my bike in approximately 7 minutes. 

I think of mechanics in the US. I think of Burkinabe retailers. I fear that he is not only going to give me the Nasara price, but the Nasara+Woman price.

I put my game face on, and ask, "combien? Un cadeau?" He doesn't appreciate my joke about it being a gift, but only charges me 100 cfa, so I'll take it.

9:15am. IM HOME! Broken bike chain and all, less than 2 hours.

2:00pm. My homologue sends some of the hooligans (read: teenage boys) to help me cut wires/connect/etc.

6:30pm. My house is illuminated.......it feels like another world.

It felt like a life time with the plans changing so often, but I only had to live without a source of power for 30 days. And as silly as it sounds, knowing that I was getting a solar panel, but not having it, and living life on the floor because I have no furniture - all of that has kind of made me feel like this isn't really my house, I'm just camping out here for a while. But I have a solar panel now! And my homologue is back from vacation and he told me to "just make a list" of what furniture I wanted and he'd help me get it!

(We got some ridiculous prices -- definitely Nasara+Woman prices -- and a lot of people who did not understand what we wanted when Diana and I tried to make headway on this a couple weeks ago)

Anyway. Sitting here looking at my house with something other than a flashlight, and planning out what furniture I want to get made and where I want to put it, and what color do I want to paint the walls to cover all the dirt? ...it's finally starting to feel like MY house. And you know, it feels pretty damn good.

Viber

Alright dudes, I have phone-ternet these days! If you have (or get) viber, we can teeeeext!!!!!!

+226 67 58 18 60

Flies

Okay. This may be sad, but it's true. I know what would make me ET. ET stands for early termination, and it basically means quitting. Let's run through some things that could (but probably won't) push me over the limit:

Ebola? I only eat meat that is very clearly chicken, so no chance of accidentally eating bat. And I certainly don't spend time w any sick people, so even if at some point there are cases in Burkina (there haven't been any so far), I'm unlikely to come into contact w it.

Malaria? I take my doxy (my chosen malaria prophylaxis) pretty well so even if I were to get malaria, it wouldn't be that bad.

No electricity? I'm getting a solar panel today actually, but a month without power really hasn't been too bad.

No running water? I only have to go to the pump about every 2-3 days, and its not far anyway. And! if any of the neighbor kids are there, they insist on pumping it for me - and sometimes also on walking it back to my house for me!

No furniture? I don't like living my life on the floor, but luckily my homologue is back in town and I think he'll be able to help me find someone to make me some. (My earlier inquiries have not been successful.)

Language barrier? You'd be surprised at the depth of conversations I've had with some women who don't know French. Ursula was right, don't underestimate the power of body language! Haha

Cultural differences? Is it frustrating that people passing by the pump while I'm doing my laundry there will stop stare at me for a while, and sometimes, give me 'pointers' on how I should be scrubbing? Yes. This is when I take deep breaths and tell myself, "She means well. She means well. She means well."
Once I even asked a girl if she was going to watch me wash ALL my clothes. She laughed and didn't take the hint, so after a few more minutes (she'd already been there, staring at me, for 15), I sat down and told her that if she was going to just sit and look at me, I was going to just sit and look at her too. We both laughed and finally she left. Sheesh.

All that...I think I can handle it. The thing I sometimes don't think I can handle...the flies. I don't remember them being this bad during site visit, and they're definitely worse outside my courtyard so I think it might be because of all the grass and weeds surrounding the corn fields.

When I leave my courtyard (especially earlier in the morning), flies gravitate towards me and land and hang out. Seriously, there will be about ten on my person, and another three or four buzzing about driving me insane. At first I thought they must be attracted to my soap or the soap I use to wash my clothes, but yesterday I saw them swarm and settle on the neighbor kid who had insisted on walking my water back to my house for me.

I don't know why they bother me so much but they really do drive me nuts. So there's that update! Next time a fly is harassing you (although I don't remember there being such obnoxiously persistent flies - and with such a pack mentality! - in America), you can think of me!