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.
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.
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).
Hooray! You made it!
ReplyDeleteGood luck, and update as much as possible.
Mariko,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear you arrived safely and are slowly acclimating! Thanks for maintaining this blog and posting some interesting entries. You have a great sense of narration. Good luck with the training!
Warmly,
Pierre