14/6/02

FESPACO (festival of pan-African film and television)

e-mail dated March 1, 2003 Return to List

Hey Everybody,

I'm back from Ouaga and the film festival. I'm exhausted! There is just something about city life that wears you down. I think since there are all these things to do that you can only do in Ouaga, well there's a lot to keep one busy. Plus, since FESPACO is such a big deal, nearly all of the volunteers came in for it. It's great to see everybody, but it also can feel a bit like a zoo. I managed to get a room at the mission down the street from the Peace Corps Hostel, so I could still hang out with everybody yet have a quiet place to go and sleep.

The film festival was great. A couple of other people and I ponied up the 10 mille for week-long passes. At a mille a film, you make your money back if you see ten. I didn't quite make the ten, but I loaned it to other people when I wasn't seeing one so it was more than worth it. There was an interesting mix of films from all over the world. I saw the September 11 short that was directed by the Burkinabe Idrissa Oeudrageou. I was impressed and enjoyed it. If you haven't seen the collection of shorts on 9-11, well you should. Though unfortunately they only showed the Burkina Faso one, I've yet to see the rest. It's the short where the boys think they see Bin Laden in Ouaga and set out to capture him for the reward money. Then some of the films I saw were all over the spectrum, from good/entertaining, to somewhat horrible. It was difficult to take in more than a film or two each day because they were often in French or another language with French subtitles. After a while my brain just couldn't do it anymore.

The first day we got there was the Vagina Monologues at the American Culture Center. It was put on by a group of Peace Corps Volunteers as a fundraiser for Gender Development. They did an amazing job. My only qualm (if it even really is one) was when I initially heard they were doing VM here in Burkina Faso, I thought it was not necessarily for a fundraiser but for empowering Burkinabe women. There were probably four or five Burkinabes there that didn't work directly for Peace Corps. It was all pretty much Peace Corps volunteers, embassy workers, and ex-pats. And at 5 mille a ticket, well the chances for normal Burkinabes to be able to afford it is pretty slim. All the same it was a great evening. After VM, we went out for congratulatory drinks, then dancing.

The next night was a 80's semi formal (Don't even ask where we get our themes, who knows) at John Harris's house. He is leaving to work in Trinidad. A long, fun night, but afterwards all I wanted to do was sleep.

Also while in Ouaga I had to do a lot of work on my Guinea Worm Week in Batie. Right now I having trouble getting enough volunteers to come and work the week. At the moment I have three people for sure. Lyndsey (A second year health volunteer), Caroline (My year), and myself. I'm hoping to get 8 volunteers total. I have a few maybes so I guess I'm just going to have to wait until IST to get it all straightened out. One of my problems in recruiting is that it is going to be such a long stretch for people. The first years have IST (mid service training), then a week of vacation time for the teachers (a lot of us are planning to go to Ghana). Then a week or so after that is my worm week. So it's this massive three-week block for people. Plus I think some were planning to spend more then a week down in Ghana. Well I'm sure it will all work out in the end. I'm heading down to Batie in a little over a week from now to make a last check and see if everything is read for April. So basically I'm going to get about a week in village then not be back for almost a month. It seems to be the way things are here, just stuff keeps coming up. Once the worm week is done though, things should quiet down a bit.

I guess that's about it. FESPACO was a lot of fun and very tiring. I'm looking forward to a rest in village, even if it's only a short one. I hope everything is going well on that side of the world. I'm having a hard time believing that it's March already. What's the weather like now? Things here are hot as always.

Take care,

Shaffer

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