Reconnect and
Bike-a-thon
e-Mail on 12/24/2002 Return to List
Hey everybody,
Well, it's been a long two weeks. It feels more like a month. I'm tired having
just come off of my 5-hour transport from Ouaga to Bobo, and I'm getting over
being a little sick, so I don't know how long this letter will be.
Week one was reconnect. We stayed at SIL, the same place we stayed when we
first arrived in country, which was a little bizarre. Time seemed to sort of
fold on itself and it was like we had never gone to village. It was great
seeing everybody again though tough because there just was not enough time to
catch up with everybody. There were little events strewn through the couple of
days we had, but nothing really of note. The fun to be had was at night. The
day I arrived I was pretty tired. I had biked from Banfora to Bobo (85km
[approx. 53 miles] in 4hrs 40mins) to sort of train for the upcoming
bike-a-thon. The first night I pretty much just hung out and ate pizza with a
few people. Spencer, probably the eccentric of the group, road from his
village into Ouaga (140kms) [approx 87 miles] so he out did me. But then he
didn't drink enough water and ended up making himself sick and going to the med
unit for an IV.
The next day was Thanksgiving. We formed groups of
three to make dishes to take to the ambassador's Thanksgiving dinner. I paired
up with the Potters, the married couple. Kara bought the ingredients, then
supervised, instructed, and helped, while Kevan and I were pretty much dumb
manual labor. We made a great potato salad and fruit salad. We all then got
dressed up, (I popped in a new hole in the belt and I got a couple of
astonished looks - I'm wasting away here [lost 50 pounds to date]), then headed
over to the embassy. We feasted hard on all the fixings, including turkey. It
was one of those incredibly strange moments where you have a hard time
remembering just where you are.
Afterwards some of us more
energetic people (a lot were catatonic from food) went dancing at a club called
New Jack's. The place has a bar/pool hall where we started. When more of us got
there we went downstairs and burned off some of the great food we had eaten. It
was a Thursday night so we had the run of the place. The DJ let us invade his
booth and we picked out all the music we wanted. The place looked like a
mid-level club back home and with all the American music, the "forget
where you are" effect continued on throughout the night. The next night we
were all a little tuckered out, or at least those of us that went out to New
Jacks, so a bunch of us just crashed in the TV room at SIL and watched movies
all night.
In the morning we packed up and jumped on transport because we had to get to
our destinations before the
bike-a-thon started. For my group, that meant going all the way to Oradara for
a commencement ceremony. We stayed the night at the regional house that they
rent, then the next morning we stood around in our "C'est Ma Vie" [It
is my life] t-shirts waiting for the speeches to end so we could get started on
our way. Once they had their big ceremony we were able to ride out of the
village for a couple of kms, then had to wait for our bus to take us to Bobo,
the real start of our route. We had lunch in Bobo, then had to pile back into
the bus again for a short trip out of Bobo because the roads were too dangerous
for a big group of riders. At this point I was getting a little edgy because
this was bike-a-thon, something I had been looking forward to and I guess sort
of trained for, and so far we had ridden all of 2kms. Once we got out of the
bus for the last time, we got in a measly 25kms. The next day was suppose to be
the hard one, with 68kms, but I was a little disappointed with the pace. For
the first couple of days, the support car we had with us would ride in front of
us and act as a pace car. The problem was that the two coordinators for the
bike-a-thon wanted us to stick together, which meant SLOW. So the first couple
of days, I would bike as hard as I could, pass up everybody, hit the pace car.
One of the riders was sick so I talked with her while she rode in the car. Then
I'd stop, let everybody pass me, then start the whole thing over again. It
wasn't until after the mid-point in the week that the support car took up the
rear and some military police rode in front of us for escort. They went as fast
as I wanted them too, so I got to go at a pretty good pace. Eventually I'd stop
and wait for people to catch up, as we had to ride into the village together.
Anyway, I did get a little sore at the week's end, but I think it was
all-in-all pretty easy. I think I over trained a little. The little education
sessions we had in each village were run by Promeco, which is an NGO that makes
condoms available practically free. They started to burn us out a little as it
was pretty much the same exact thing over and over again. The same jokes, the
same demonstrations, the same times when we had to get up and dance for all the
villagers, usually to Shaggy.
We got into Ouaga and my group was running a little late. We ended up catching
up with the other groups biking to the free Concert to celebrate the end of the
SIDA week. I said hi to everybody but really had no interest staying for the
Concert. It was pretty much just a large platform set up by a major road and
there weren't any real great music acts. I caught a ride with Vincent to the
Maison du Passage (Peace Corps Hostel) and cleaned up a little. Ras, Josh, and
I had been invited to crash at Promeco John's house for our time in Ouaga. He
even sent his driver over to pick us up. We got there and the place was posh.
Nicely, comfortably furnished. They have a pool out back and satellite TV in
the living room. He and his wife Irene are incredibly laid back and fun to hang
out with. They have an adorable girl, Maggie, who speaks French three times
better then me. They seem to love Peace Corps volunteers for reasons I'll never
understand. We hung out there for a while, got a little more cleaned up, then
the four of us (us three Rag-a-muffins as John lovingly refers to PCVs, and
John) headed over to the Rec Center for the bike-a-thon party. Everybody was
decked out. We drank a few beers then attacked the buffet table, trying to gain
back all those precious calories we drained away during the week. The
brochettes were quite popular since everybody had been pretty deprived of meat.
Josh and I had come up with
a plan for afterwards, go dancing at a new place our security guard had
recommended. We didn't really put it forward all too aggressively and soon
people started coming up with alternative plans. Which then resulted in chaos
as we were now far from a consensus. Then most of the people who had put
forward all these alternate plans ended up heading back to the Hostel anyway.
So those that were left headed over to Balougagous which is a bar with a
chicken stand. Kate, Kara, and I had really wanted to go dancing though and the
Big B just wasn't going to cut it for us. So the three of us decided to say
hell with everybody else and their thoughts for the night and just headed off
to the place that Josh and I had wanted to go to in the first place. So I did
end up getting there, and the place was great, good music, reasonable prices,
and a bit of a local hangout, we just got there a few hours later then we had
originally planned. We danced for a bit, then just as I was resigning myself to
it being just the three of us, which was fine, Josh shows up with about ten
other people. So we ended up having a pretty good group there and had a blast.
The next day, John and Irene
thew a brunch for the southern route guys. It was an amazing spread. We hung
out, watched some sports on the Tele and forgot we were even in Burkina Faso
for a while. Unfortunately later that day I started to get kind of sick. I was
about to head out with Ras, Lisa, and Caroline, but then thought better of it
and went back to recoup at the Harris' house. My stomach thing kept me in Ouaga
for a few days. The test came back parasites. I could take some meds or the problem
would eventually fix itself. I'm not much for pills so I decided to tough it
out. I then took transport back to Bobo, then on to Banfora. By the time I got
to Banfora my stomach was feeling much worse. I called up our doc Sylvie and
she sent down some meds on transport. But that took a little while, so I was
then stuck in Banfora for a few days. Once I got the meds, the problem cleared
right up.
I had a week in village,
rested some, hung out with my friends and counterpart. Then I had a night out
with the guys in Banfora. The next day I came into Bobo to meet up with some
people for Christmas. Which just about brings us up to now. We were going to
catch the Alpha Blondy concert here in Bobo, but the thing got cancelled. So
basically it's about six of us and we're just having a great time taking it
easy and enjoying each other's company. I then have maybe two options for the
New Years. Probably I'm going to head up to Ouaga. Our country director Nelson
is leaving Burkina Faso to start the PC program in Chad. He's having a going
away party the 30th in Ouaga. Then who ever is in Ouaga, we'd go out dancing or
something the 31st. Then the other thing that might happen is that some people
planned a trip up to the far north to spend New Years out on the sand dunes. It
might be that a spot has opened up and I could possibly do that. Either way,
the holidays are sure to be memorable.
Well I guess that's it for now. I know this email is a bit on the weak side. I
just don't have much energy for writing at the moment. I'm much to into a relax
mode I guess. I hope you all have a happy holidays. I will try to write on my
way back to village.
Take care everybody,
Shaffer
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