Shaffer in Africa, Part I
Hi Everybody, Pictures added 1/5/03
Right now I'm in Banfora, the regional capital of my little corner of the
world. I'm lucky enough to have a region mate, Christie, who owns a laptop and
is leaving it in the regional house that we split the rent on. So now I finally
have the chance to write a long email about all that's gone on with out it
costing me a small fortune. I'm four months in so I'm not even sure where to
begin. I have a feeling this is going to be a write a bit, take break sort of
affair, but I got to say it feels good to do some typing again. Oh how easy it
is to miss the little things. I miss being able to fly my fingers across these
small collections of keys and have my words appear almost as fast as I can
think them. I'm nowhere near as fast with a pen and paper.
So where to start? Well I
guess I will try to work from the beginning. Though I'm sure I'll jump more
than a few steps along the way.
I got to Philly a day early
then most everybody else being from the west coast. Us westerners got together
down in the lobby that night and had a few drinks as we tried to get to know
each other. We didn't know each other before that night, what we looked like,
but walking in the lobby it was easy to spot the other future volunteers. The
weak smiles of uncertainty as we'd ask, hey are you with Peace Corps. It's so
strange to think back to then, only a brief four months ago. Looking at each
other over our Budweiser (some of the last we were going to have for quite some
time) at these strangers' faces that would have such a large role in the next
three months. Then to be here now and to be so close with them, to be on such a
friendly comfortable footing and try and remember what it was like when you had
no idea who these people were. That night I was feeling cozy in my room. I was
a day early then the easterners and with the whole ratio of guys to girls I
thought maybe I'd manage to get my room to myself tonight, since maybe I was
the only guy here yet. So one in the morning rolls around, I'm stretched out on
my bed savoring the last little taste of civilization, the AC pump to the max, some
TV. Then I hear the key jingle in the lock and a loud thump vibrates through
the room as the door is pushed hard against the door's chain. I scramble out of
bed and meet my new roommate and future friend, Spencer. Spencer is from a
couple of different places but went to college in Texas. I know this right away
from his Texas T shirt. He hauls in this huge bag not much smaller then him and
the whole Texans like everything big saying rolls through my head. He's right
away reminds me of some of my best friends from the fraternity, laid back,
funny, and we like a lot of the same stuff. He asks if I want to head down to
the bar but I tell him I just finished up down there, next time. An added bonus
of Spencer was that he my snoring doesn't seem to wake him up. Which is great
as we turned out to be roommates not only for the two nights in Philly but also
the three nights we stayed in Ouaga when we first got into Burkina Faso.
The next day we finally got
to meet everybody else. And it just is overwhelming to be faced with that many
new faces at once. I don't even quite remember what I thought about everybody,
only that it was largely completely different than what I think now. Not to say
that they made a bad impression, but as almost everybody tends to do, I tried
to size up people that first full day, figure out where they were coming from,
what they might be wanting out of this experience, fit them into whatever
little categories I could come up with. And looking back now, it seems so silly
how off I was. Now I have hard time imagining not having them for friends. We
are largely all pretty different. Yet we seem to click amazingly well. Maybe it
is just the common desire to be here. I don' know. But it starts to make me in
a small way a believer of fate. It would have been so easy for one of us to
have not made this leap here. But the experience for us as a group just
wouldn't have been the same.
About fifteen of us ended up
going out to dinner. We ended up at this nice little restaurant that I wish I
could remember the name because I would recommend it to everybody. It had this
classy modern bistro/gourmet atmosphere. We looked at the place and thought it
had to be too pricey. But then we said what the hell, it's our last dinner in
America; let's go all out. So we sat down at this beautiful place and as we're
perusing the menu and all its amazing gourmet meals we see a little notice on
the midweek special. We ask, and it was an appetizer, entrˇe, and desert all
for twenty dollars. Amazing. And you had choice of everything on the menu. How
could you beat that? We all eagerly went that route and ended up having an
amazing splendid meal. In some ways it was perfect to have our last dinner in
America be such a perfect experience, but also completely cruel in its own way. We weren't going to be eating this good
for a long, long time. Then most of people wanted to go back to the hotel and
get a good night sleep. But Yakoob, Spencer, Kate, Nancy, Hillary, and I felt
we had to do something our last night in America. We ended up playing pool and
getting a good buzz at a place called Lucy's on Market Street. Spencer finished
his first drink before we sat down. Texans do everything big. We stayed until
about two or three, we figured we could always sleep in Africa. Get all the
America you can while you still can.
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The next day we were
on our way. We first had a two-hour bus ride from Philly to JFK airport. Back
then the ride seem excruciating long and even a little uncomfortable. Now it
seems like a faded picture of heavenly transport. Then a long wait at JFK, as
we had to get through check in with forty plus people. We sat in cafeteria
and had some more of that wonderful American food. |
On the bus to JFK |
I had of course pizza, the
last real pizza probably for two years. A bunch of us sat there and started to
get to know each other a little better. I talked with the Potters (Kara and
Kevan) for first time and found out that we had a lot of the same tastes in
Films. So I grew to love them pretty much instantly. As we talked we started to
take nervous glances outside as we saw some thunder clouds roll in. The rain
started to kick up to a frenzy along with the constant flashes. Then Ras who I
hadn't really talked to (we end up being roommates in Bobo) said that he had
horrible dream on the bus ride over. So I went ahead and asked him casually
what it was. He said that he was paddling somewhere in a canoe. A lake or
something, he wasn't really sure. But he did remember that it was raining like
crazy. Then a boy popped out of the water in front of him. The boy just looked
at him and started to chant, "You're going to die in a plane crash".
Ras said he started to hit him with the canoe but the buy just sat (or swam)
there and kept repeating, "You're going to die in a plane crash". As
Ras told this, he tweaked his voice into a high-pitched sort of wail
impersonating the boy. We just sat there looking at him for a moment, the rain
clouds raging on just hundred yards away from us. Then we asked him if he was
serious. He said he was completely serious. I just said, why the hell would you
go and tell us something like that. We all smiled an uneasy smile and tried to
shrug off the nightmare. What a great thing to hear right before climbing on to
a plane for a transatlantic flight.
Well the flight as you well
guessed went without a hitch, besides being way to long. We had a spacious 777
that had those cool entertainment centers behind each seat. My biggest problem
was that for the last few days I had been just too excited and nervous to get
any sleep. In Philly I probably managed three hours of quality sleep a night.
The night before I left I was hanging out with my friends until late in the
night, then headed home and did all the last minute stuff I hadn't gotten
around too. So basically I was exhausted, but I figured I could sleep on the
plane. Not quite that lucky. I think I nodded off for about thirty minutes. I
was still far too keyed up to go under. When we touched down in Charles du
Gaulle (probably the ugliest airport in the free world) I was hurting at how
tired I was. Once we got were we needed to be
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for the next flight,
a lot of people ended up leaving to make use of the nine hour lay over we had
and see a little of Paris. I was toting my daypack that was loaded down with
every electronic device and fragile item I had and it weighed like thirty
pounds. And besides CduG being a hole of a place, it also didn't have any
lockers to stash stuff. So I decided along with a few other people to stick
around the airport instead of hauling my bag around Paris. I had seen Paris
before, and there was no way I could make the |
Sam, Jenny, and Amy sitting down for a snack at the
cafe in Charles du Gaulle airport |
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trip with my amount
of energy and the thirty pounds strapped to my shoulder. So I stayed the nine
hours there. And besides not having lockers, it also didn't really have any
place to sit. There was a very small lounge of plastic, hard benches at each
end of the concourse. But these were pretty much full up. Some of us manage
to eventually wrangle a seat, but it wasn't much better than the floor. There
were lounges for each gate like most airports, but unlike most airports, you
couldn't get to them until after your flight was |
Some of us trying to cope during our lay-over in
Paris |
coming up and it was your
turn to go through the individual metal detectors. So I didn't find any sleep
at the airport either. I did conk out for an hour when we finally did get into
the private lounge. I awoke sweaty and feeling all the worse for getting a
taste of slumber but no real meal.
We took off for our last
flight, a six-hour hop on air France on an ancient airbus I think. The food
though actually looked decent, it being all stuff from the food minded France,
but my stomach was revolting from the lack of down time and I decided to pass.
I passed my time reading a little, or trying to sleep, but by this point it was
like a full case of insomnia. My body didn't know what to do with all the time
changes and interrupted snippets of sleep. I talked
with one woman for a little while. She was from Burkina Faso and at the end of
our conversation languages came up. She then told me a little joke. "What
do you call someone who can speak more than two languages? Š multi-lingual.
What do you call someone who speaks two languages? -- bi-lingual. What do you
call someone who can speak only one language? -- American." Stung a little
bit but I unfortunately was not in a position to say much. We finally came down
on African soil, the airplane jerking around a little bit, the baby holds
(little cloth cribs that hung from the ceiling) swayed back and forth. It
didn't seem the mothers were too concerned. When we departed it was nighttime
and as we cleared the plane we felt our first brush with the amazing heat of
Africa. It was a bit scary, it's this hot and it's nighttime, what's the day
like? We were met at the gate by
Noelle and some of the facilitators (more strangers that would shortly become
great friends). They herded us through the tiny airport, grabbing our bags, and
into Peace Corps vans. They handed us each cold bottles of water that seemed
like the best things in the world, the heat pounding our every pore. I noticed
that my bag was soaked and I figured it was from the condensation on the
outside of the bottle. I realized a few minutes later that it there was tiny
hole in the bottom of the cheap plastic Lafi bottle, but I really didn't care.
It felt damn good, that cold wet water. We rode to a place called SIL with the
air condition pumped up and struggling eyes trying to make out Ouaga in the
dark. This was our first glimpse of Burkina Faso but everything looked dark and
the same. My first smashed expectation was on the drive over, literally. I just
figured a city would have all paved roads, or at least the capital would. But that
obviously wasn't the case, as whenever we parted company with a major thru
fare, the road turned to dirt brown.
We got to SIL -- basically a
compound of buildings run by a Christian organization
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that spends most of
it's efforts translating the bible into other languages for distribution.
They also operate a sort of hostel with a collection of rooms to help
supplement their operation financially but also to give them the extra space
when they have other personnel come in. Anyways, my first impressions weren't
that hot. We had just come from a fairly nice hotel in Philly to a sort of
bare-bone operations in Burkina Faso. |
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About the only green in Ouga |
Of course Bare Bones
is quite a relative term as one quickly realizes in the Peace Corps
experiences. I had done the Hostel thing before while traveling in Europe, so
I wasn't all the off put by the SIL compound. What turned me a little sour
was more then unfortunate reality of how large are group was and what that
meant for housing us. The SIL compound didn't have enough space to place us
all in there collection of rooms. |
So five other guys and
myself (Yakoob, Mat, Spencer, Ian, and Kevan) ended up getting stuck with three
empty office rooms. These were probably more closets than office. The room was
just large enough for two mattresses on the floor (with sheets, but no pillow),
a tiny corridor of space between those, and enough space for the door to open.
Most of this limited open floor space was taken up by are collection of
luggage. I ended up rooming with Spencer again. We are(were) both big guys so
the room while having a ceiling fan was also hot from our body heat. Oh well:
it toughened us up for the road ahead.
So after a few days of
orientation stuff we were about to leave. A bunch of went out that night to a
little bar with dancing a few blocks away. The place had a nice outdoor
atmosphere that we would eventually see in most of the establishments we would
later go to. We bought beers that seemed unbelievably cheap as we were still on
American price standards (500 CFA for a monster beer, 65cl). At first it was
just taped music, a weird collection of some modern African music that we
didn't recognize to Shaggy, to eventually a long string of Elvis songs.
Eventually a live band set up and started playing some pretty good music.
Nobody, the Burkinabˇ, or us seemed all that eager to go dancing though. The
sunken circle dance floor was completely bare. I think we were all still a
little shy about making fools of ourselves, or at least being the first fool.
Ian, a guy who I had thought of as the quiet guy, started the charge to the
dance floor. He grabbed his beer, which seemed almost too large to carry, and
started grooving around the floor alone. I think we all were a little surprised
at who was the one to start us off. He seemed like the last guy to expect, but
hey if anything Peace Corps is about breaking expectations. We all started to
make our way to the dance floor including the Burkinabˇ. I think we felt a
little silly that we had been shy for who knows what reason and here was Ian
just shaking his thang all alone and having a blast. We danced to music we had
never heard before and it was great. I also had my first cultural lesson in
Burkina Faso. One does not take their beer out with them on the dance floor.
Not all that different from a lot of clubs in the U.S. though I guess for some
of us a little strange because this place felt more like a backyard party at a
friends house then a club. But most or all of us caught on. Though unfortunately
the rule didn't seem to apply to cigarettes and I spent some of the night
dodging the burning torches.
As the night stretched on
some of us had to get our first glimpse of the restroom scene. I think we all
had a chuckle when we saw the porcelain hole. Imagine if you will a sunken
toilet. It was sort of a piece of shaped porcelain at the same level of the
ground and a hole in the middle with two square tread places for feet. Then
there was a pipe running to a nozzle over the hole and a button. You'd push the
button and a jet of water would spray from the nozzle along with a familiar
whooshing sound from the hole. It seemed every bit as complicated as a normal
run of the mill toilet, just a foot lower and completely flat. Of course we
would later find out that this was the high end Rolls Royce of latrine style
bathrooms. Just seemed strange to go through all that effort when a
"normal" toilet would probably be easier and well more comfortable
for people: though really us.
The next day we packed into
a single bus that was much the poorer cousin of the two now cushy buses we took
to JFK. It rattled off and we were on our way to Bobo,
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our new home for the
next three months. The little over five-hour trip was for me a miserable one.
What becomes obvious for anybody over for anybody over 5'8" is that
public transport here is not built for tall people. My knees were constantly
jammed into the back of the seat in front of me, which had very little give
if any. I soon developed a raging cramp in one leg as I was a bit dehydrated
from the previous night's beers and the giant amounts of sweating that we had
been doing from day one. When that first cramp kicked in and all I could do
was sort of angle my body into a diagonal line, I finally |
Kara and Kevan Potter talking to Danielle en route to
Bobo. Nancy is sleeping in the
foreground |
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Karen
sleeping on the way to Bobo |
understood the
importance of drinking the three or four litters of water a day. By the end
my stomach was also doing a little turning from the lack of water and sleep.
It being incredibly hot in our room at SIL, I still had yet to get a full
night of uninterrupted sleep. I'm a person that needs it COLD to get any real
good sleep. I had a fan going constantly at night back home, even during the
winter. The mental rational
that we or more specifically I needed to go out last night because, hey it
was our last night in Ouaga, didn't seem so rosy during that long long bus
ride. I was so glad when we got to Bobo, to finally be somewhere for a while
and not have another last night for three months. |
Hillary sneaking a kiss while Ian is asleep. Janna thinks its great, Katie doesnÕt look as thrilled.
Ok, so that's the first
installment. Hopefully I can add to it soon. I think I'm going to have to scale
back a little though, even though I already feel as though I'm passing over way
too much stuff. But this is four pages, singles-spaced and I'm just now getting
to Bobo: Man I miss writing on a computer.
Anyways sorry none of this
stuff so far has had much to do with Africa, I'll try to be more focused next
time.
Until then,
Shaffer
Peace Corps Volunteer for the village of
Labola
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