But what are you doing

It occurs to me that I haven't written much about what I was sent here to do. I am a math education volunteer in Burkina Faso; so what? I only teach a maximum of 10 hours a week, so there's a lot else going on.

Within Burkina, the Peace Corps has 5 main priorities that all volunteers, regardless of sector, are required to work on:

1. Malaria prevention - pretty self-explanatory. Burkina has one of the highest prevalences of malaria of any country in the world, and an estimate says that over 50% of Burkina Faso's yearly deaths are caused by malaria. My host mother got malaria last week. (She's better now.) At the same time, there are people here who think you get malaria from eating unripe mangoes. A lot of people. Also from riding in a bus with the window open. Or from sorcerers. I am here to tell them to use mosquito nets, and to please open the bus windows. (Fact I didn't know before: malaria used to be a problem in the southeastern United States. The government wiped it out with DDT.)

2. Reforestation - I have to oversee the planting of 625 trees per year while I'm here. In comparison, the agriculture/environment sector volunteers are responsible for the planting of 5000 trees per year. Tree cutting for lumber and firewood is an issue. Trees slow down the harmattan winds (those huge dust storms I wrote about before) and do other magical things, like improve soil quality and water retention. Also, people eat tree leaves. Did you know you can eat baobab leaves? The Little Prince had no idea.

3. HIV/AIDS prevention - again, pretty self-explanatory. The HIV rate is actually quite low in Burkina. Wikipedia tells me that Burkina's adult HIV prevalence rate is 1.6%, compared to .6% in the US. Still, there's more to be done.

4. Youth education - well, I'm a teacher. I also have to start youth clubs to teach life skills, plus lead summer camps. There are a lot of possibilities there. Clubs and camps are where I really expect to work on the other 4 goals. Girls' empowerment falls somewhere in here.

5. Hygiene promotion - teaching hand-washing and bleach to prevent diarrhea. (note: diarrhoea is a disgusting-looking word)


Outside of Burkina-specific goals, what you are probably imagining to be my job as a Peace Corps volunteer is really only 1/3 of the overall mission. I am expected to do a good job on the above 5 goals, plus be an effective math teacher, but the other 2/3 of my mission are to share American culture with the Burkinabè and to share Burkina culture with Americans. So sitting around and chatting with people counts for work. As does blogging, right? I feel pretty good about my progress on that last goal already, in that half the time when I told people I was going to Burkina Faso their response was "Is that a country?" Educating people before I even left the States.


I only have 2 and a half weeks of training left. As of this coming Monday, we will have been in country for 2 months. August 23rd is the date that we swear in as volunteers, which is a big deal, I guess. There is a big ceremony and a party afterward, and then on the 24th and 25th we move to our sites.
How is it August already?