Friday, June 8, 2012

Leaving the comfort zone

Today was our last full day in Ouaga, and tomorrow we move in with our host families in a village not too far from here. My arms are full of shots, and I'm preparing myself for a crash course in Mooré tomorrow morning before we leave to meet the families.

Thus far, our stay in Burkina has been entirely limited to the hotel compound. It has high walls so you can't see anything of the outside world, and besides the heat and humidity and Burkinabè Peace Corps staff members who have come to give us prep talks, we may as well have been still in the US. I'm glad that the Peace Corps has slowly eased us into life here; the food has still been pretty American, which I know I will miss greatly by this time next week (or tomorrow), and we mostly only interact with each other.


Today was the first time that we really left and saw a real part of Burkina. This afternoon we walked from the compound to a street market, which was way huger than I would have imagined. The experience was incredibly overwhelming, between the smells and the noise and people staring at us. It was comforting that the current PCV (Peace Corps volunteer) who accompanied us seemed completely relaxed and had no trouble bargaining with the street vendors in French and Mooré, in spite of the conspicuousness of our large group of foreigners. Maybe I'll reach that point in a year...

We'll be living with the host families for the full 3 months of pre-service training, through late August. I know nothing about the family I'll be moving in with, except I asked that they be non-smokers, nor how far from other trainees/the training center I'll be. I am really nervous about meeting them. It sounds like the host families have been pretty well prepped for taking us in and respecting our space. At least one of the host family members is required to be fluent in French, so I will have some mode of communication, but still, there will be many challenges to overcome. We had a presentation today to let us know what to expect, which showed me how well the Peace Corps has prepared this all, but also really freaked me out. I guess this is where the real adventure begins.




Note - I hear that the internet access at our training site is extremely limited, and I also don't know about the availability of a power supply to charge my laptop. So we'll see how frequently I post. I'll keep it up as much as I can anyway, and I would love to hear from you!

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Oh God: Islam at 30,000 feet

On the flight to Brussels, most of the new PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees) got seats together, but a few of us got randomly placed off on our own. In the latter group, I found myself lucky enough to sit on the aisle, with an empty seat between myself and a middle-aged Turkish man on his way home.

He seemed friendly at first. He had a thick accent that was difficult to understand, especially because he spoke quite softly in a high voice. He asked my about myself, and he told me that he studies tsunamis, and he talked about something else that might have been earthquakes, although all I could hear was "<indistinguishable vowel sound>keeks."

At one point, he asked me what my group was going to do in Africa, so I told him that we were volunteering as teachers in the schools. He said something in response that I couldn't understand, so I asked him to repeat it, and again, and again a fourth and fifth time...finally I lent him a pen so he could write it on the napkin that came with his Coke. "One day you will go to heaven." I said thank you.

His next question: "Are you religious?" Uh oh. I felt that it would be awkward to say no, because that would negate his last compliment, but he seemed friendly enough, so I went for it anyway. No. "Not Muslim? Not Christian?" No. "But why not?" Because I'm just not.

I was halfway through the free mini wine bottle I had gotten when they brought around beverages. The Ukrainian-American PCT from the row ahead of me passed me a bottle of vodka from the duty-free store.

I tried to explain religious freedom, but he didn't buy it. That freedom of religion also includes freedom not to believe in a major religion. "If you do not believe then I can not pray for you. You will not be saved." Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. 

I tried to be obvious about reading my book. 

"I think that you would make a good Muslim girl." Okay. "Do you read books about religion?" No. "Can I have your address? I will write to you about Islam." No. I don't have a mailing address right now.

The flight attendants brought around dinners. He tried to give me the crackers and the pat of butter that came with his meal. I wasn't that hungry. "If you are Muslim then you can only eat Kosher foods," he said helpfully, as if the prospect of not eating cheese with my meat was going to tempt me. Oh.

At first my Oberlin-acquired political correctness came out full force. I appreciate your trying to save me, and I respect your religion even if I don't believe in it, and maybe someday I will feel the same way as you do, but I don't feel that way right now. Yes, I understand what you're trying to say, but I believe in the things that I believe the same way that you believe in the things you believe. (Was he just pretending not to understand English at that point?) "Do you want to get married someday?" he asked. Probably. "Well, what if the man you wanted to marry told you that he would only marry you if you converted to Islam?" That's opening a whole other can of worms right there. And it won't end well for Islam.

 "If you will tell me right now that you want to convert to Islam, I will kiss your hand." Well you better bet you won't hear it in that case.

I understand where his comments were coming from. I'm sure that they would make sense in the context of his own culture. But when applied to a young educated liberal American, they were just hilariously off-target. Maybe what you think is saving someone is, from their perspective, forcing your worldview on an unconsenting recipient. 

"I don't want to see you not be saved because you will not believe in Islam. Why do you not believe?" You're not going to change my mind. Please stop talking about it.
 
The threat of not being saved kind of loses its punch if you don't believe in salvation in the first place. I think that the core of the issue for him was not so much the specific religion necessarily, so much as overall belief in God. What he couldn't understand is that for me, believing in science and logic is as much of a religion for me as Islam is for him. 20 minutes' proselytizing in broken English is not going to convince me that the Koran has a better explanation for the universe than physics. Can you tell me that there is a more beautiful explanation for the afterlife than the particles that were once momentarily part of me, a sentient, pulsing being, moving back into something infinitely bigger and more mysterious?

A group of us congregated by the bathroom door and giggled about it. I wasn't laughing at him. This was the first time anyone had made a serious attempt to get me to get me to change religions. Especially on an airplane. 

In the face of a contradictory viewpoint that has no wish to be reconciled, what can you do but shrug and laugh? 

He exited the plane looking grave.

Arrival in Ouaga

Hello from Burkina Faso!

My group of 34 new trainees arrived here in Ouagadougou yesterday late afternoon. We had no problem getting here, and they’ve done a good job of walking us through all the things we need to do pretty painlessly. Everybody’s luggage even arrived on time.

The Peace Corps has a lot of sectors, including health, business, agriculture/environment, and others, but all of the people in my group are in the education sector. In Burkina Faso, education is further divided into formal and non-formal. I’m a formal math teacher, meaning that I will be teaching math classes at a school, plus maybe physics or chemistry if they need it. I’ll find out in what town and what grades I’ll be teaching toward the end of training in August, but I expect it will be middle or high school. There are also people assigned to teaching science (biology, chemistry, physics) and IT in my group. The non-formal education people have a more ambiguous job description, but it seems that they’ll do tutoring and promoting girls’ empowerment and other things in schools. It will be interesting to see what they come up with. Personally, I’m glad I have a clearer job description and goals for what I need to do.

What have we done so far? We all met in Philadelphia on Monday for staging, where we took care of some paperwork, reviewed the Peace Corps expectations of volunteers, and did other activities about our hopes/concerns about volunteering. Mostly, though, there was time for getting to know each other as a whole group. Everyone seems really nice so far, and I am excited to get to know them more. It’s weird that we haven’t even known each other for a week yet, because I feel like it’s been at least a month for all the time that we have spent together already. It’s reminiscent of going to college again, except this time there are 3 married couples. (The married thing seems weird to me. I’m not used to my peers being married. It freaks me out every time I hear someone say “my husband.”) 

On Tuesday we flew out. We left Philadelphia around 10 am and were bussed to JFK airport. The flight wasn’t until after 6, so there was a lot of time. I guess they wanted to be safe. Then, we connected through Brussels with about a 4.5-hour layover, and then got to Ouagadougou after a 5.5-hour flight. The whole traveling experience was surreal, and I think everyone felt the same way I did. We were all pretty out of it from sleep deprivation (from our night in Philadelphia, but mostly from the days/weeks before of preparing to leave home). I didn’t sleep at all on the flight to Brussels because I didn’t get sleepy, and I only got in about 1-2 hours on the way to Ouaga. Also, it was just hard to believe that this trip is finally happening after waiting a year and a half after submitting my application, or over 2 years for some people.

Today we had more orientation. We each had 3 one-on-one interviews for different things, including a language placement interview, which went fine. We also had some housekeeping tasks like buying cell phones and getting some walking-around cash. The food they’ve served us has been really good, so no complaints. I know I’ll miss the variety and vegetables once I move in with the host family on Saturday.

As for the other people in my group, everyone seems really excited and worldly. There are 2 or 3 people who just graduated from college this spring, and a lot of people like me who graduated 1 or 2 years ago. There are also a number of people in their mid- to late-20’s and 3 retired people. Interestingly, everyone else is white/European, except for one girl who is half Mexican and another who is a quarter Japanese. The group is about 3/5 female, and I think there are 4 of us from the Bay Area. Numbers!

On that note, that’s enough for now.


Useful notes on Burkina Faso:

Burkina Faso means land of the upright and honorable people, Burkina for short.
Ouagadougou (wah-guh-DOO-goo) is Burkina Faso’s capital city, Ouaga for short.
People speak French in the schools, but the largest native language is called Mooré.
People from Burkina Faso are called Burkinabè (pronounced Burkina-bay).