Failure with No Consequences

Since my last blog post I can only describe the time that’s passed as...peaceful. I’ve been in village almost exclusively over the past month and a half. I fill my days with farming, work meetings, hanging with my neighbors and reading. I enjoy long mornings since there aren’t any pressing issues that need attention. The influx of mosquitos is annoying but manageable. Twice a week my work group organizes to meet or take care of some tasks at our garden space. Even though there are only 6 months left there is still much work to be done post-harvest – and I want us to use our time as efficiently as possible. 

 Celebrating Tabaski in village with my Muslim Neighbors. Everybody buys new clothes and feasts the entire day to celebrate.

Peaceful has been nice, but I wasn’t anticipating a relaxing rainy season. Instead, my health clinic staff and I were supposed to be conducting a large-scale, door-to-door malaria campaign to reduce the rates of malaria in Ramsa (called PECADOM+). We’ve been officially planning this project since February and all previous signs showed that it was going to succeed. The Head Nurse and participating workers were motivated to combat against the rampant rates of malaria that infect near 70% of our villagers during the summer months. We conducted a successful test-run in May to experiment with the project model and let the workers learn the ropes.

Unfortunately, when it came time to get to work in July things stalled. I had been away on vacation and upon my return nothing was happening. I approached the Head Nurse and he told me that the Health Clinic was overwhelmed with other rainy season campaigns, which was completely true. They had to distribute mosquito nets to the entire village, as well as implement a government program and give anti-malaria pills to children under the age of 5. As for the health workers who would be doing the door-to-door sweeps, they were busy with their farm work and they lacked motivation since this project was on a volunteer basis.

I brainstormed with my counterpart to find a solution to save the project. Finally, we discovered that a project model where the volunteer workers would front the necessary funds to buy the medicine (at cost) and then make respectable profits while conducting the project and selling the medicine would provide enough financial incentive. Not all volunteer workers could afford to do this and the Head Nurse refused to help in this respect. I saw his reasoning, because in the past volunteer workers have pocketed money that was rightly owed to the Health Clinic. I still encouraged those who could afford to front the medicine costs to do so, because they would still make some extra income while doing a great service to the community. 

With the heavy rains this season our Moringa trees have been abuntantly producing. Once or twice each month we harvest the leaves to turn into powder. We are almost ready to start consistently selling our nutritious powder to the community and hopefully soon in our regional capital!

Some of our health workers had money in hand ready to buy their own medicine, when we ran into ultimately our final roadblock. Our Head Nurse was no longer willing to train our health workers on how to properly dispense and sell malaria medicine because of a larger political issue occurring with his superiors.  Even though our project model had been approved all the way from the Minister of Health in the Capitol, our Head Nurse didn’t feel comfortable giving the training until a “later” date.

Here we are in the month of September still waiting on that training, while the most important period of the year to conduct malaria work passes by. I feel frustrated because it feels as if he flaked, even though I probably don’t know the entire story.

I knew conducting a large-scale project like this was going to be hard from the start. We got started early and implicated all necessary actors (even in at the ministry level) and I thought we had the green light. However, like many development projects, we ran into one too many issues that ultimately kept the project from lift-off. Or in other words, we failed our first major project.

Personally, I felt discouraged because I knew this project would have a direct positive impact on my community if carried through. We were close, but not close enough.

I updated my Health Boss on having cancelled this project and in response I got a “congratulations for trying” – kind of like the consolation ribbon one gets in elementary school for effort.

After digesting this experience I realized that, overall, Peace Corps Community Projects cannot be classified as “high-stakes”. I know that I am here to work and accomplish large and small development projects with my community, but if something fails it’s not unusual. But that’s the price we pay when a majority of our projects are without any funding and stem from our community’s needs and motivation.

Overall, I’m still very proud of our work accomplishments in Ramsa. We’ve been able to achieve more that I originally anticipated due to the hard work of my counterpart and community members.

A great example of this willingness to work is our most recent undertaking – perma-gardening. I was able to observe a quick perma-garden training by chance while helping train the new group of Peace Corps Volunteers who just arrived in June. I immediately realized that this model of gardening – small, low-cost, permanent, bio-intensive household gardens specifically to improve nutrition – is the perfect tool that I’ve been searching for to make improved nutrition feasible in my village. 

Observing a perma-garden training with the new group of PCVs. We infuse the soil with local compost, charcoal and ash to improve the soil throughout the following year.

2 weeks later, our first perma-garden in Ramsa was under way with one of my neighbors. To promote water retention, we built the garden next to his roof to trap all falling water. The four holes at the corners of the garden, along with the 4 exterior berms, will ensure that our garden space stays humid long into the dry season.

Our finished product. Tomato saplings just transplanted and local herbs/trees planted along the edges to protect the garden's interior.

Water retention in the perma-garden.

So, in the place of PECADOM+ we are now transitioning to perma-gardening during the remaining months of rainy season. I’ve already constructed two with my neighbor and counterpart, and the concept is growing in popularity. This gardening technique is modern and new, however it’s not so foreign that it scares away potential users. I hope that my villagers latch-on and start their garden construction ASAP.

In other news, my schedule for the next 6 months is wide open. I know the time is going to pass too fast, but I’m doing to do my best to make the most of it. I’ll try and travel some inside the country but for the most part I’ll be in village, relishing my last months living in a small African Village. 

Until next time,

MB

The first month of rainy season, but I was enjoying the rain elsewhere

Whenever it’s been a long time between blog posts, it can only mean one of two things: either there was nothing new to report or I was too busy to write. In this case it is the latter.

The month of June was a mini mile stone for me. My second hot season was officially over, and it could be my last one in country. From June onwards, I can only be grateful for the upcoming weather. Rain until October and cold weather until March. This for me is great news and brings a smile to my face. No more endless sweating!

I had a few tastes of rain during the month of June, but before the rains picked-up I left Burkina Faso for the second time during my service. Off to Europe I was to see my family for the first time in 18 months. Needless to say, it was a very happy time filled with tasty food, good conversation and fun activities. We first hiked the Dolomite Mountains in Italy for 3 days before heading to Biarritz in south-west France. There we surfed, chilled and ate fresh French cuisine.

First meal: steak

Taking in the green up in the Dolomite Mountains 

I am very gracious of my parents for organizing this trip. Our family has taken many vacations before, but this one was specifically to see me and award me with a two-week hiatus from Africa. It was nice being back with them in a new place where we got to explore and do fun things. My French speaking skills came in handy. I’m nowhere near fluent but I know now that I can manage myself if I find myself in France again.

Not the Venice that I'm used to, but I'll take it 

Could be x-mas card worthy. 

With my mental batteries recharged for the final 7 months in country, I headed back to BF July 9^th. I was in village for a quick week before heading to my regional capital ready to run our annual “Youth Leadership Conference”. I had been planning this conference since January and it was finally time to make it happen.

A gift I got for my Village Chief. He thanked me for about 2 minutes then just started reading. 

During my week at site we did one of our first big moringa leaf harvests. The rains make these trees grow fast! (Here you see our moringa plants, we cut them at the base and they re-sprout again)

Drying the leaves in our nifty drying rack. Afterwards, we pound, sift and then pound some more and then voila...moringa powder is all ready.

I can tell you one thing for sure: planning an entire conference, with all of its logistics, organization and moving parts ain’t no easy thing. Very stressful in fact. Luckily I had plenty of help along the way to ease the burden. I was originally planning this conference with a fellow PCV until they were medically evacuated, leaving me in charge as the only organizer. Our PC Bureau and other local counterparts obviously played a crucial role, helping me navigate through this daunting event and ultimately achieving our goals.

 Leadership and Active Youth Citizen Conference

The 25 student participants arrived on Sunday, the 18^th and just left today after a 4 day conference. The goal of this conference was to invite already motivated youth from all over Burkina Faso to get together and learn how to become leaders in their communities. Each session was geared towards preparing students to transmit their newly acquired knowledge back to their village/high-school members, whether it was a health training on mosquito net transformations or a financial literacy session to how to save one’s money.

Our female participants making menstrual pads out of locally available materials. Tampons don't exist in the village and this is a hygienic, affordable alternative. 

Mosquito net reparations using cool designs. I spy a star, fruit and Burkina Faso outline.

Fortunately, we got through the 4 days without any major problems. The students were deeply versed on a variety of health/well-being topics, entrepreneurship and also career planning. Most of the students at this conference, however smart or advanced in their studies, came from secluded villages without much exposure to the outside world. Giving them this opportunity to travel across the country, meet other Burkinabé students and collaborate together in this unique setting provided them with an invaluable experience which can surely change their lives.

We had a very special guest speaker who talked our students about people with disabilities. He is a very accomplished Burkinabe: he heads many associations, just got his university degree in law and is heading to France to get a Masters in Human Rights! His way of motivating the youth..."If I can get where I am now without any legs or arms, what's your excuse?"

We invited local professionals to speak to the youth on the final day. Our mini version of a career fair.

All of the student participants. 25 in total.

With the 3 students that I brought from my village. Can't wait to do some trainings with them back in Ramsa!

Finally now I can rest easy, head back to village and start farming. This year I’ll be doing my own little plot of soybeans while also planting a bunch of trees in our garden space. Rainy season is a peaceful time for me when I’m immersed in nature and get to work all day with my hands.

Until next time,

MB

My Last Hot Season in Ramsa

They say that a picture is worth 1,000 words, so now i'll present you all with fourteen thousand words. Enjoy!

Did a great training with two counterparts, educating the female students at our middle school on the menstrual cycle and how to make menstrual pads out of locally available materials. 

Touching topics like these is very important in these small African villages. The series of trainings that I held was the first time many of our 13-17 year old students were hearing about topics such as "reproductive health" or "contraception". To put it in perspective, our middle school had two 17 year old students give birth (out of wedlock) and there are two more who are pregnant. 

On a positive note, the pharmacist in my village told me that many students went to the Health Clinic after our trainings to seek out some type of birth control. Success!

With the staff at our middle school after our end of the year meeting. They've all been with me since my first months in Ramsa and have given me deep insights into the education system in Burkina Faso. 

With my favorite neighbors. The father owns the two bar establishments in village, and together we've done some cool business related activities. The mother is my unofficial mother away from home - always cooking me food and taking care of anything I need. They only have 4 kids, but when the other neighborhood kids saw the camera they immediately jumped in. 

We took around 10 pictures, and sadly this is the best one haha.

Hot season also comes with dust storms. 

Everything turned orange for this 2 hour storm. I was stuck inside laughing my head off at how powerful and long-lasting it was. 

Finally was able to get UBER to open-up in Burkina Faso. All rides are on bikes - people pay with their smiles. We've yet to make any money.

Hermane and I went to my fellow PCV's neighboring village to give a Soy Transformation training.

Making those bomb brochettes. 

All the women enjoyed the experience and the tastes of the different soy products. Now, all we can do is hope that they'll continue on with this small business in the future. 

They're cute in pictures like these, but not when they're flying out of your latrine in the middle of the night.

Had a training at the beginning of the month in Leo, so of course my buds and I went back to our first bar in BF and had a few. 

Same bar, same people. First, ninth and fifteenth month in country. 

The wind has been extremely strong this hot season as you can see here. It blew off the roof of our newly constructed school, along with many other houses in the village.

And to end on a positive note, electricity has officially come to Ramsa! People will start installing in into their homes on a weekly basis. This is when development will really take off as businesses can evolve and offer a wider range of products. 

Hope you enjoyed this picture-filled post. I'm off in two days to see my family in Europe. It's been a long time coming. Can't wait!

Until next time,

MB

La Santé Avant Tout

It’s been a year and change in village thus far. My first year was filled with many cool projects, big and small. However, they were mainly concerning my primary sector, community economic development. Sure I’ve done some health trainings here and there, but they were small in nature.

Recently, simply due to the luck of good timing, my village and I were able to undertake two solid health projects in Ramsa. The first was a two week enriched porridge training with 9 women with malnourished children. The second is a community-based largescale malaria project which will carry through until the month of November. I brought these two project ideas to my community, but it was been them (especially my Health Clinic’s Head Nurse and one of our Community Health Agents) to have taken the ideas and turned them into reality.

The porridge project, which in French we call “Le FARN”, or “Foyer de l’apprentissage et réhabilitation nutritionnelle”, is an intensive two week project with the goal of getting malnourished children to gain weight. Each day we would first do a mini training on an important health topic (such as nutrition, hygiene, family planning, or malaria). We did this because to properly raise a child, one needs to do much more than provide good food. Afterwards would train them on a new porridge recipe, using only local ingredients to ensure that they could actually practice these recipes at home. All of the materials were paid for by the participants, and this aspect was crucially important to me. In Burkina, there are a lot of free handouts coming from outside donors. One example is free grain powder/nutrition bars for malnourished children. In theory, these gifts should rehabilitate the children in a certain amount of time. But, most times it is consumed by other members of the family. Having the participants in this project pay for the ingredients and other materials was a way to start training them on being accountable. The lesson that they could effectively nourish their children using their own resources and not relying on outside gifts was probably the most important take-away of this project. Again, I was there in a facilitating/organizing/supporting role while my counterpart led most of the trainings and saw the project to its end.

We take the baby's weight on the first and twelfth days to monitor their weight gain (or loss). 

Mixing in other health trainings as well. Here my counterpart and I are informing them on the three food groups. Images are key.

Voici the porridge. The women had no issue cooking. Equally as awesome, everybody shared the work and didn't complain.

Training on family planning. 

End result: baby happy with full stomach, mother happy because baby is happy.

In the end, nearly half of the babies gained a good amount of weight. The rest were neutral, but if they continue with the porridge at their homes they will surely see positive results in the coming months.

During the second week of our porridge project, we started another endeavor in the health arena. The PECADOM+ Malaria project was started years ago in Senegal and has proved to be an effective way to combat malaria in the village setting. The present situation in village is that malaria is very normalized to all villagers (kind of like the common cold back in the US), resulting in many people simply living as a malaria host without seeking treatment. This enables malaria to be easily transmitted within family compounds with its proliferation never-ending. In this project, community health agents will do weekly sweeps in each neighborhood and give a free malaria test to anyone showing symptoms. They will then be able to buy medicine right then and there if tested positive.

My Health Clinic's Head Nurse (bottom right) training our health workers on how to administer the malaria "Rapid Diagnostic Tests". 

Our first day in the field. For the tests we have to draw a bit of blood. The little kids either react one of two ways: they do absolutely nothing or they throw a massive tantrum. 

She was tested positive :(

Last month we did our first test-run, to give it a try and see what difficulties would come. The first couple of days were a bit rough but by the end each team had their process down and could do up to 50-60 tests in one 2-3 hour sitting. The results from this test-run were staggering. Almost in each neighborhood around half of the people that were tested were positive with malaria. One night 39/67 were positive, mostly children. This is shocking for me because it is currently the hottest period of the year when malaria is supposed to be at its calmest. I’m apprehensive now to see the data when we start this project when the rains come (which is the worst time of the year for malaria). The silver lining of our test run was that each worker saw the importance of their contribution to the community and is ready to carry this project though during the rainy season, despite having to farm all day before setting-out into the village for their sweeps.

In other news, my counterpart Hermane and I were able to execute a successful Animal Husbandry training exchange at my friend’s village in another region of Burkina. It took us all day long to travel 100km. We were tired and anxious, wanting everything to go perfectly. And it did. Hermane did a professional-style training and the participants were engaged each day from 8-5, despite the blistering heat. This training was very heartwarming for me, since I know that at least with my counterpart in my village our work will continue on because of his hard work ethic and tremendous capabilities.

Starting off our first day talking about chicken coups.

A true Burkinabe Change Agent. Helping his country by using his gift of effectively sharing knowledge. 

All the participants except my fellow volunteer, who is taking the picture.  

Rainy season starts in a month, but not before the single hottest month of the year. Hopefully I can make it through.

Until next time,

MB

The One Year Mark (in Ramsa)

The “one year left” countdown has officially begun. March 20, 2016 marks my 365^th day spent in the village of Ramsa. In another year, I should be back on a plane headed back to America with 26 months of Peace Corps Service under my belt.

Currently, I’m in a duo-state where I feel like time is speeding-up, but also slowing down. The days seem to blend together now. A week will begin, activities will go by, and suddenly I’m waking-up Sunday morning for my relaxation day. Fortunately for me, the oncoming heat is acting as a de-catalyzing agent to slow my life down. In my region, April à June is known as the “tuulgo wakate”, or hot season. These three months present us with unrelenting heat before the rains come at the end of June. Even the Burkinabe complain about this heat. There are a few positives to note of this season: I get to sleep outside, literally under the stars; bucket showers at the end of the day make the previous 12 hours almost bearable; my solar-powered battery is always charged. Then come the negatives: non-stop sweat, even at 3 AM; the return of camel spiders; dust storms; more sweat. Surprisingly I feel significantly less apprehensive than before the previous hot season. Last year I struggled a bit acclimating to the heat, but this year my body is more in tuned with the heat and the side-effects it brings.

Since my last blog post, I’ve been extremely busy attending trainings outside my village as well as getting to work in Ramsa. In chronological order, voici mes activités de les deux mois passes:

1.       Dance Marathon / Camp "Laafi”: The Youth Development Committee in Peace Corps Burkina Faso holds a series of Dance Marathons in Burkina Faso to fundraise for youth-related activities in the country. My fellow volunteer Brian and I decided to combine the Dance Marathon with his Camp Laafi (which means “health” in the local language) at his site. The combination worked out flawlessly. 6 Peace Corps Volunteers taught health related trainings (more specifically HIV/AIDS and family planning) to around 80 Burkinabe students, while mixing in many American style dances between the trainings. The students learning so much valuable, basic information that pertained to them in their young-adult lives. However, the American dances were what honestly shaped the entire experience. Over the two days we taught our enthusiastic students staple dances like the “Macarena” and “the Chicken Dance”, as well as newer ones such as “the Nae Nae” or “the wobble”. The students loved watching us 6 volunteers do these strange dances. After the camp was finished, I actually saw students back in the village doing the chicken dance by themselves! 

Dancing the "Cotton Eyed Joe". My fellow PCV Brian leading the dancers.

Dancing the "Cupid Shuffle" with my friend Meghan.

We would keep the dance going after the day's activities were finished. They kids loved dancing with each other.

2.       Peace Corps Site Visit in Ramsa: On February 24 one of my bosses came to Ramsa to give me my mid-service site visit. Aicha, who is a Program Assistant for the “Community Economic Development” (CED) Sector, came to my village to talk with my villagers and observe upon some of our ongoing projects. I am in constant communication with our CED team back in Ouagadougou updating them on any current projects or questions I might have. However, it is necessary for them to talk in-person with my work and community members. Overall, the visit went very well. My community had much to say. They’ve appreciated my contributions thus far. Then, they went on to voice some of their desires for possible projects to take place in the coming year. Following the conversation we surveyed our potato gardening project as well as the condition of our moringa garden. So far, so good. The visit was over before I knew it and then we were back to work that afternoon.

My Boss and I conducting a "town-hall" meeting to assess the quality of my work over the past year.

Surveying one of our small potato gardens. Here the potatoes are about 3 weeks before harvest.

One of my village elders presenting my boss with a chicken as a parting gift. 

3.       Agriculture / Animal Husbandry Training: The Peace Corps holds a few “Food Security” trainings for volunteers throughout the year, focusing on things such as beekeeping, soy or gardening. This training, which mainly focused on animal husbandry and fattening, was a clear choice for my village since almost everyone practices some form of animal husbandry. Big or small, chickens or goats, everyone relies on animal production to give them a small income boost, provide them with animal waste which later turns into compost, or to help them labor their fields before seeding. Throughout the 4 day training we learned on professional animal husbandry techniques which were also applicable at the village level. My two counterparts, including my main counterpart Hermane, took a plethora of valuable information from this trainings which we will later share with our community members. This training felt different from the soy training that I attended in January, since the need for improvement in this area was apparent the moment I arrived in village. Almost every one of my savings groups expressed an interest in learning techniques to improve their animal raising. After the training was finished, I couldn’t wait to share our finding with the villagers of Ramsa.

During our training we visited a model chicken coup. The goal is to one day be able to construct habitats like this for our village chickens.

Hands-on training on how to properly make compost. I've gotten quite good with a machete.

At the end of the training with my two counterparts. Proud of these guys.

4.       “FESTIMA”, or International Mask Festival: The two days following our animal training in Koudougou, I took a two-day vacation to the city of Dedougou to witness the International Mask Festival which takes place every two years. Tribes send representatives to this festival to showcase their local mask and costume, as well as their traditional dance and rituals which accompany them. I heard from a few older volunteers that this was one of the few Burkina activites that was a must. I wasn’t let down. Countries from West Africa, as well as regions from Burkina Faso, put on dance after dance to entertain a crowd of around 2-3 thousand viewers. These rituals, which were mainly practiced in the past, were primarily in animist regions to call upon the higher powers to bring good rains, good health, and ward off bad spirits. I enjoyed this festival especially since masks aren’t popular in my region so it was my first true taste of this local practice.

A traditional mask from Burkina Faso

Representatives from either Togo or Benin.

Representatives from the Western Region of Burkina Faso.

5.       Potato Harvest: For the past three months, some of my community members have been growing potatoes with the intention of selling in bulk once harvested. Potatoes do well in my northern region so we knew if the gardeners followed the proper procedures, all would turn out well. We ran into a few unanticipated setbacks along the way. The land in our new garden space has been fallowing for some time, so it isn’t as nutrient-rich as some other plots. This, coupled with some gardeners who didn’t properly prepare or apply their compost, resulted in a weak harvest for a few. Not to worry. The majority of our gardeners produced solid amounts and will be able to take home some profits. Needless to say, next year for our second attempt everyone will know all of the necessary procedures for awesome potato production.

Mid-way through the harvest. It was a-lot of work, but since it was the "riib-daare" or the "day when we get food/money", our gardeners powered through.

We harvested little over 2 tons of potatoes. Pictured the morning before shipping them off a buyer we found in our regional capital.

6.       Animal Husbandry Trainings in Ramsa: My two counterparts and I were excited to bring back the knowledge we gained and share it with our community. We understood that animal husbandry trainings would be beneficial to the entire community, not just our work organization. I designed an information flyer and posted it around village. So far we’ve done 2 trainings. Chicken raising is by far the most popular in village, so that had the largest turnout. Behind is sheep/goat fattening. Lastly is pig farming (since my village is 98% Muslim, only the small Catholic community can raise them). Without a doubt, the biggest highlight of the two day-long trainings that we held was the performance of my counterpart. I had no idea how effective he would be as a trainer. He translated the manual we received into Mooré and simplified everything so that our villagers could better understand. I was also pleased to see him take some of the training techniques that he observed during the professional training that we attended. Asking their expectations at the beginning, keeping them engaged, quizzing them throughout to see what they’ve been retaining and having fun throughout. I aided him by occasionally adding my two cents and drawing many pictures on the chalkboard of model chicken coups or the animal feed recipes, but it was clearly him running the show. Our goal in the coming year is to help these villagers now put what they learned into practice.

My Counterpart talking about where our village chicken raising is currently, and where we would like to end-up eventually. The use of pictures was very important because we any written instructions wouldn't be understood.

Diving into chicken feed.

Chicken feed formula based on the age of the chicken. Primarily corn/sorghum powder mixed in with fish/soy powder for protein. Also, a small mineral mix to add other necessary elements.

Peace Corps'ing

It was during these trainings when I realized that even after I leave Ramsa, work will continue. My counterpart has been learning so much new information either from me or through trainings. It was clear then that he can effectively transmit this information to the village when Peace Corps no longer exists there.

Hot season is here… If you want to imagine what I’m doing, I’m probably half-naked sitting in the shade trying to escape the sun. And so is the rest of my village.

Until next time,

MB