Children as Minions

One thing Burkina does really well with its children is instilling a sense of respect for one's elders. Actually, "blind obedience" might be more accurate. There are exceptions to every rule, of course, and obviously American children are (generally) expected to obey/respect adults too, but not to the same degree as Burkinabe kids. The evidence is as follows, in roughly chronological order...

Evidence #1

Setting: Pre-Service Training, a bar after class

We arrived at one of our favorite spots only to learn that they were out of boxes of wine. After a brief discussion with the girl I was going to share one with, I decided to go on a hunt among the nearby boutiques and bring it back. As I was leaving, one of the "peace corps volunteer facilitators" (PCVFs, a current volunteer helping w our training) said, "you know you can just give money to a kid and make them go it, right?"

Well, that would certainly be easier, now wouldn't it? Done.

Evidence #2

Setting: My village, during site visit

My homologue and I had just eaten lunch at my village's only bar/restaurant, and we were walking back to my house. About five minutes down the road, he realized that he'd forgotten his phone at the restaurant. Did we turn around and go get it? Surely not! A child was nearby!

"Hey kid! I forgot my phone at the restaurant, go get it."

Run along now, we'll just be waiting here in the shade...

Evidence #3

Setting: My house, end of rainy season

My courtyard was rather overcome with weeds, and even though my neighbor had told me, "you should make the kids remove that," I hadn't done much about it.

Thankfully, my homologue took matters into his own hands, and had five 5eme students come by after class one day after their classes and take care of business. It took them an hour, but I gave them water and candy, and they seemed content with the trade.

Evidence #4

Setting: My school

The director of my school had offered to let me borrow a table/desk for my house, and there it was, ready to go. Morning classes were over, and I was wondering how it would get to my house (almost 2k away). My homologue -- clearly this man knows what's up -- simply asked a group of boys if they were going in the direction of my house (they were) and instructed them to bring it for me.

After a couple tries carrying between two people's bikes, one of them decided that (a) it wasn't that heavy, and (b) my house wasn't that far.

So, he just put it upside down on his head, balanced it with one hand, and started off for my house.

And that's how I got my first piece of furniture.

Evidence #5

Setting: My house

I'd been wanting to build a tippy tap (Google it) in my courtyard, but had no wood to make it, and no machete to cut any from surrounding trees. 

Enter: Joe, my sweet neighbor boy (he's like 15)

So Joe came by one morning to bring me some fruit ( << more on this is my next post, "children as allies"), and I recognized his arrival as the opportunity that it was. After all, if he had time then to pick fruit and bring it to his neighbor, he must not be too busy with chores and such, right?

I asked if he could do something for me (yes), explained what I wanted (no problem), and he came back not 20 minutes later with everything I needed. I paid him with candy, fully expecting him to be on his way, and then he said, "don't you want me to dig the holes?"

Well, if you want to, I certainly won't stand in your way, young Joseph.

Evidence #6:

Some guidelines // Things that happen so often that they don't merit their own stories

(Yes, I know some of the above may not have merited their own stories either. Whatever.)

- if a child is a the pump, an adult does not pump water. Also adults with children big enough to pump water are rarely at the pump to begin with

- if a teacher wants juice/gateau/peanuts from the ladies selling them at school, s/he does not have to walk all the way over there and get it

- if a mother is busy, a baby is strapped to its sibling's back just as easily

- if you need to give something to someone (i.e., a phone that you were charging for your neighbor), just snag a kid to deliver it for you

- if you can't find something in the marché, ask a tantie and she'll send her kid with you to show you where it is

Hope everyone is enjoying life in America without minions! Suckers... ;)

xo, c

My life in Snaps

In honor of the following text:

"Also, your most recent snap stories don't look very third-world-country-esque"

...I decided to share some of the snaps that I'd be sending to yall if I had enough phone-ternet to do so in village.

I apologize in advance.

My classes/rugrats

I teach 6ème and 5ème SVT, which is only three hours a week for each class. I may add an English class or two next year because I feel like a bit of a slacker compared to the other teachers.

Also, I call them rugrats, and in terms of their schooling, they still have 5-6 years to go before they could go to University, but age-wise they're older than you might think! 5ème is 15-16ish, and 6ème is 14-15ish.

In 6ème I have 69 students, and in 5ème I have 88. That's pretty normal among volunteers, although some have classes of 100+....yikes.

Needless to say, classroom management was a daunting prospect before I started, but I think I've been managing pretty well... How, might you ask?

Okay. It's time to confess...

I may or may not have re-read Harry Potter during training when we were discussing classroom management and group work. So I figured, why not   get some team spirit up in this place and have a little competition?

Each class has four teams (not houses, sorry) based on the four columns of desks in the classroom. They win points for participating in class and doing well on tests. They lose points by being disruptive, cheating on tests, or deciding that they don't want to take notes that day. At the end of the year, everyone on the winning team gets a point added to their average.

It was a little hard to explain the idea at first, but once I started dishing out points for participation, they got very competitive very quickly. ;)

When I was home for Tess' wedding, I got candy for my students, a week or so after I gave it to them, they started begging for more. The new rule was this: if EVERY team has more points than Madame by the end of the year, I'll bring candy again...BUT since I already brought 69/88 pieces of candy, I started off with 69/88 points. (I had to catch up somehow!)

Just for your enjoyment, here are the team names:

6ème: Butterflies, Cats, Lions, Rabbits

5ème: Lions, Panthers, Workers (lol), and my personal favorite... Team Solidarity (hahahahhahaah)

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the little weirdos:

---

Student A: Meow...meow...

Student B: Madame, it's the cats! Minus 2!

---

(Going over the test)

Me: Okay, if you only wrote this part, I gave you 1 point because I'm nice.

Student A: THANK YOU Madame!!! Plus 2, you're nice!

Student B: No, only plus 1...

---

Student A: Madame, we're done, right? We're hungry...

Me: I'm hungry too! But we're not finished. We have to finish this page.

Student B: Madame!!!! That's so much!!!

Student C: Minus 2 from Madame!

---

This past week they've been begging me to add points to their averages...

Me: No, ce n'est pas necessaire

Students A and B: Madame! C'est NECESSAIRE!!

<< after that same class, a couple of my favorite girls were walking in the same direction as me - NOTE they're both the type that like to pretend they're sassy, but really they're super sweet >> 

Student A: Madame...I am not happy.

Student B: Yeah Madame, not nice...

---

And last but certainly not least....

I took these pictures during the last tests.

The one from the back of the classroom is 5ème, and the one from the front is 6ème.

Can you spy the clown (Cedric) in 6ème who caught me taking the picture? Kid's cheesin hard. ;)

xo, c

School in BF

Hello friends!!!

It's been a while! 

In honor of the end of the trimester, I thought I'd tell y'all a bit about my classes.

First things first... Some things about the education system here don't make a lot of sense to us Americans. There's definitely room for improvement, but very little of that change can be done on the village-level -- schools have to comply with the Ministry of Education, after all. Teachers and schools do the best with the system they have (admittedly, some are more motivated and do better than others, but that's to be expected) but no matter how good your teachers are, it's really hard to succeed as a student here.

Here's the general info first, and then my next post will be specifics about MY little hooligans!

SCHOOL YEAR

The school year starts on October 1st, and as I said, we're on the trimester system. Although each trimester is weighted equally in terms of grades, the third trimester is only about a month and a half long.

GRADE LEVELS

(Apparently this is the French system, but don't quote me on that)

After primary school (and after passing the national standardized test), you start with "sixième" (6ème), which means "6th." It basically means "sixth from the end," and after 6ème, you continue to 5ème (fifth from the end), etc.

After 3ème, you take another national standardized test, which you must pass before continuing on to seconde and premiere, and the last year is called "terminale." After terminale, you take the final, big terrifying test (the BAC) and if you do well, you can go to University.

CLASSES

At my school, we have one class per grade level, but bigger schools may have a couple sections for the lower grades. At my school (and I think this is normal), 6ème and 5ème are the largest classes, and then they continue to get whittled down by pass rates as the years go on. 

Each class (grade level/section of grade level) has its own classroom, and teachers move between classrooms to teach their classes.

COURSES

In 6ème, students (at my school) have the following classes:

History/Geography

French

English (their first English class)

Math

SVT ("Science de la vie and de la terre" is biology)

In 4ème (I think!) they add physics and chemistry (one class, "PC" - physics for first half of the year, chemistry for the second)

SCHOOL DAY

Classes start at the ungodly hour of 7am. Every day, a group of students in each class sweeps the classroom before the first class...in theory... I have 6ème at 7am on Monday mornings and we never start before 7:10 because "Madame, they haven't swept yet!" 😑

Classes are 55 minutes long, but sometimes have double blocks.

"Recreation" is from 9:45-10:15, and women come to sell juice and snacks to the students (and teachers 😉).

Morning classes finish at noon, and some days (probably 2/5), afternoon classes will start at 3 and end by 5.

Stay tuned for specifics and let me know if I left anything out!

xo, c

Whyyyy!

The first thing you'd notice upon conversing with a Burkinabe (presumably in any language, but more often with women in villages than say, the Peace Corps staff in Ouaga) is that they use a lot more sounds than we do, for exclamation and to indicate that they're listening.

For example, the two most common are simply "uh huh" and "eh!" indicating agreement and (somewhat displeased) surprise, respectively.

I wish I was sharing this in person because you'd be able to hear that even though I've spelled them the same way I would spell "uh huh" and the stereotypical Canadian "eh," they're veryyyy different.

Say "uh huh" to yourself as though you were casually agreeing with someone (in your head if you want). Notice how both syllables are about the same length (although a bit more emphasis on the second), and the tone kinda goes up or stays the same at the end?

The Burkinabe "uh huh" is much more dramatic sounding - it's a quick "uh" followed by the drawn out "huuuuh" which actually goes down at the end. It's also used just periodically throughout a conversation to be like "yeah, I follow."

As for "eh," it sounds less like "eh?" and more like a startled "hey!" (like when you see a dog or child doing something wrong and you want to catch their attention) - but without the "h." It's used in those animal/child contexts, but also just in general conversation.

But now we come to my favorite....the only way I can think of to spell it is "whyyy!" and it's kind of a high pitched, drawn out sound. But the best part is that it sounds just like a reeeeally dramatic "why" in English, and I'd say it's used to indicate astonished confusion.

I'm going to share the story of the first time I heard it, but keep in mind that some of my neighbors like to practice the bits of the English that they remember from school with me - usually it's about as basic as the Mooré I know (i.e., greetings and phrases like "I go to the market").

This was before Christmas, and my neighbor Rosalie was asking about my plans for the break (in French obviously):

Rosalie: What are you doing for New Years?

Me: Oh, I'll be here!

Rosalie: Whyyyy!! 

[she is so astounded at this it's insane]

Me: Well I'm going to Fada on the 1st, so I figured I'd stay here the 31st. You?

Rosalie: Well! I'm going to Ouaga. Oueguedo is not interesting.

[I'm fighting laughter here]

So that's it for that conversation but you see that I actually thought she was asking "why" (in English)?

It wasn't until a couple weeks later when I told my 5eme class that, yes, they DID need to know this information for the test, that I realized it was just a general sound of astonishment. Once I did, I could not stop laughing and so I had to explain to them that every time they said "whyyy!" I was hearing a pretty distressed "pourquoi," which is just amusing to hear from one's students.

Note: These kiddos have now had a year and a half of English classes, so they do know that "pourquoi" in English is "why" - although I did spell it out for them on the board just in case.

--

While "whyyy!" is my favorite because it sounds so much like "why" in English, and it's used at a time when "why" in English would be fairly appropriate, the "uh huh" is what I consider a fluency sound. Not only does it make you sound more like a Burkinabe, but you can use it in conversations when you kinda understand the gist, and whoever you're talking to will think you reeeeally understand. :)

PS: This is most applicable when people extend the Mooré greetings too far and exceed my vocabulary. Greetings usually include asking about someone's day, health, and family, and they can include house and work...but if it goes beyond even that, I don't really have to know what specifically they're asking about to know the answer's gonna be yes.

The end for now!

xo, chlo

Journeys and Homecomings

As most of you probably know, I was home a couple weeks ago for my sister's wedding!!! It was a pretty packed week, but so so wonderful!!

Here are some highlights/observations from the trip there and the trip back.

The journey (yes, I quite like calling it a journey):

30 min bike ride

3.5 hr bus ride

6 hr flight

11 hr flight

3 hr flight

1 hr car ride

JOURNEY 1

1. I knew I was off to a good start when all the teachers at my school stopped by my house after their morning classes on Friday to wish me a bon voyage and to give me a gift to pass on to the happy couple!! They are too sweet.

Also my homologue and my director took me out for dinner in Tenkodogo, again just to wish me a bon voyage. It was really fun and too nice of them.

2. Both in Ouaga and JFK people asked me to help them with their customs forms. Apparently I have "yes I would love to help you" written all over my face.

3. It wasn't until I arrived at the Istanbul airport and saw the standard airport architecture (i.e., lots of glass) that I realized how little glass there is in my life...literally only when I'm having lunch at a nice hotel or doing work in the Peace Corps office do I see glass windows. Weird.

4. So to leave the Istanbul airport, obviously I needed a visa - $30 cash at the desk with a person, or $20 with a credit card at an automated kiosk. Apparently their kiosks only take credit cards with a chip in them, and my bank missed the memo and so denied my attempt to withdraw cash. At this point I had no working cell phone (only Burkina phones with no service), so I took turns with a couple other people on a courtesy phone, and spent over an hour trying to fix the problem. Luckily for me, when the bank's customer service was closed for the weekend, my parents came through and saved the day!!! (At 2am their time, no less!)

5. I'm officially obsessed with Istanbul. I will spare you the details but it's beautiful and the people are really nice and if you're lucky a 50 year old man will invite you to drink tea with him and his friends outside their rug store.

HOMECOMING 1

1. Pretty sure anyone on my flight into New Orleans thought it was my first time on a plane. We landed right before sunset and took the loop around the city, so my face was smushed to the window for a solid twenty minutes.

2. After a joyous welcome and a delicious sushi dinner, I was home and found out my parents had left Christmas up for me!!!! I'm sure postponing the job was a nice silver lining of that ;)

JOURNEY 2

1. It was a bit crazy, but my first attempt to head back on Monday was foiled by a cancelled flight, so the next chance I had wasn't until Wednesday. On Wednesday, between a delayed first flight and a problem finding me in Turkish Air's system, I wasn't sure I'd make my flight from JFK. ll I could think was, "if I don't make this flight, peace corps is going to start thinking I'm doing it on purpose..." But I made it!!! Last person on the plane, but made it!

2. The Turkish Airlines flight attendants chose to greet me in Turkish, while I heard them greeting other people in English. Apparently my "sure, I totally understand you face," usually reserved for conversations in French and Mooré (a) works a little too well, and (b) is now just how my face looks. Either that or I just look Turkish, I guess.

3. Stayed in Ouaga to do my quarterly report, but after an absurd amount of computer problems, ended up having to stay an extra night there to get it done. Went to the bus station Sunday for the 10:30 bus, but it was full so I had to wait until the 1:30... I was afraid it would be dark by the time I got to Tenkodogo (we're not allowed to travel at night, and I still had the bike ride ahead of me), but I had class Monday at 7am so I didn't have much of a choice. I figured I could stay in Tenkodogo if I had to, and bike reeeeally early Monday morning, but as it turns out it wasn't necessary! 

HOMECOMING 2

1. Did my standard waves and greetings on the way to my village and everyone seemed so excited to see me!!! And THEN as I got close, some of my neighbor kids (3 boys, ages 8-15) came and met me and we made a cute little parade back to my house!!!

2. Not five minutes after they left, I heard Claude and Claudine shouting my name from the walkway and running to see me! And then Nadez and Isa came too!!

So to sum it all up:

1. It was an epic journey (both ways)

2. I love Istanbul

3. It was so unbelievably good to be home

4. I need to keep taking vacations if only to enjoy the adorable and heartwarming welcome back committee

The end! More village updates soon!

xo, chlo

Meet Nadez

Okay first things first.

Adults hugging kids isn't really a thing here. Kids will hug on their friends, and little kids will go up to their mom and like lean/hug on a leg, and the mom might like pat their back or something, but that's about it. As you might imagine, it's very sad for me, BUT I just got my first real hug from one of my neighbor kids and it was so magical!!!

So Nadez is approximately 7 and lives in one of my neighbor compounds -- but she just lives here to go to school (ie her mom/family don't live here). She's probably the most perpetually joyful child, and she's always the most excited to greet me or to come visit to get candy**, so it's hard not to adore her.

Example: Clarisse and Isa are both rocking the typical Burkinabe face of stone, but Nadez is cheesing hard.

**It should come as no surprise that I am the village candy supplier. Normally it's just my neighbor kids, but based on the amount of non-neighbor-kids who have come today, I think word has spread...

So she came to get candy for her little gang who were on their way to the pump, and after she comes into my courtyard and says hello, she smiles and just throws her arms around my waist! Not only was the hug itself magical, but the look on her face was like she was just overcome and couldn't resist the urge. Obviously, I died. I mean just look at this face.

Also the other day, I saw her and her bestie Isa (who is also living there for school) on my way home from the marché and they informed me that they were "my children." Pardon me while my heart melts.

xo, chlo