Monday, March 29, 2010

The Peace Corps is

all about doing the best with what you've got. That's what I do and that's what I'ma do.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

hot dusty wind. hard working girls.

Lots of space between the school building and the dorms, and it feels even longer when 100 degree sandy wind is blowing against your body. Go kids go!
One of my cuisinaire girls, work finished for the evening, diligently practicing writing some short French sentences.

way up in the sky, the little birds cry

A little bit of a housing identity crisis going on currently. Was glad to have my concerns validated by the new country director this weekend. Don't know what'll happen with all of this, but it's probably up to me to make the first move...and I'm not sure what I want that move to be.

I like where I live...I love Sister Elisabeth, I love my cuisinaire girls...but it's not a good place to be, up on a castle on a hill, not integrated into any community, not a part of any neighborhood or village or anything, seperated in Westerner visitor housing. I've worked and worked to make it my home as much as possible over the past seven months, I've been putting continuous effort into building connections in Lioudougou, in my town, around my school...and a lot of the time, I'm quite happy and comfortable. ...but when I look into my heart and I ask myself honestly, I just don't think that it was a good decision to put me at this boarding school. It wasn't a good idea to put any of us at boarding schools, gating us into our work environments where there is a questionable amount of work for us to do in the first place. I don't want to stir a pot that doesn't need to be stirred. I don't want to fix something that isn't broken. That isn't what the Peace Corps is for.

It was just really nice to have my (very real and important) concerns validated, concerns about where we live and what sort of use we are for our high-functioning, priviliged private schools where the girls have tons and tons of work to do and days that are highly structured. I'm finding a niche, I'm helping the cuisinaire girls, those who have fallen through the cracks a little bit...but a big huge part of the experience here isn't happening for me. And I'm glad Shannon finds this important too...and I hope I can talk to her more about it.

I really like being a Peace Corps volunteer, I really like the people at my school, I really like living in where I live...but some things are just not adding up. And I have to advocate for myself. Here and everywhere.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

NASARA!!! NASARA!!! NASAAAAAAAAARAAAA!!!!!

And hello to YOU, little screaming child.

Don't have an entry all typed out in advance to post today but since I am here I might as well say something.

So hi! It's hot in Burkina Faso these days. That does not stop fonctionnaire women from wearing lots of perfume. It's all good.

I came into town today to get notebooks and pens for my cuisinaire friends because tonight we are going to start a little Cours de Soir to begin learning how to read and speak French. I'm looking forward to it because I really love these girls and this activity just sort of reared its head on its own, and I think it'll be good. No big expectations or plans as of this point, just gonna test the water. I also wanted to do a little research on literacy resources in Kongoussi today, but oddly its not looking too pro,ising. I'm going to stop by my APE friend's bureau after this to see what he has to say.

Yay! So tonight I will sit down with Valarie, Kali, Lizetta, Marie and maybe Jeanette to apprendre some chose. Peace Corps.

In other news, I'm planning on posting an updated packing list based on my experiences here thus far...things like that were really helpful for me when I was getting ready to come over, so if I can be of any help to anyone reading this who's counting down I'll be happy.

Friday, March 5, 2010

bachelorette chef extraordinaire (19th of Feb)

"Hey, you went to school in the Valley," I say to my closest Peace Corps neighbor who is sitting on my mat in the heat of my house during a brief visit on his way back home. "I know it's kind of a downer to talk about food that we can't have, but you know what I've been really craving lately? A burrito from..."
"...Bueno y Sano?" he asked.

...uhh, YEAH.

We determined that it would be completely possible to have one sent over here if the sender was willing to pack it in dry ice and that even if things went wrong and it got here gross, we'd be no worse off than we are now, not eating Bueno y Sano.

However, I was duly inspired this evening to try my hand at as Mexican a dish as I could create with the contents of my kitchen shelves.


First I took the rest of the tomatos that I had, which amounted to three, and chopped them up along with a small onion, half a clove of garlic, and a bit of piment (probably habenero pepper, but I'm not completely sure). I put this in a small bowl and added salt, cumin seeds that I'd crushed, powdered cumin and cilantro. Yum.

Originally I sliced up half a thin loaf of village bread to fry into really greasy crispy toast to serve as makeshift chips for this salsa concoction of mine. Appetizer.

Scoop rice out of my plastic canister a bit at a time, check for rocks and bugs, dump in water, rinse the yucky rice powder residue off, add fresh water, cook. Simple.

Now, tortillas...using the easiest recipie in our "Where There Is No Microwave" cookbook, which entails water oil and flour. How hard can that be, right? Let me tell you, it is a pain in the butt striking the right balance between "pliable" and "non-sticky." I think the cookbook assumes that we're going to mess up and/or improvise anyway, so pretty much everything is generalized and vague.

Flour, oil, salt, warmed water little by little. Gooey balls of mush, roll roll roll. Sticky flour dough covered hands, counter, and improvised salt canister rolling pin, flour all over my cutting board sheet, utensils, spice packets, cell phone, pagne and probably face. Stick sticky flour balls into flour container, smush more flour in bit by bit, understand the fine line between sticky and pliable. First tortilla fat...impatient...plop, into the frying pan to warm.

Oh no, the rice! Checked just in time. Turn burner off with gooey hands, move pot to the back of the stove, mismatched lid and all. Back to tortillas. Flour flour flour. I roll out three, each one better than its predecessor, then lump the remaining balls into one big clump and stick it in my flour container, to be worried about at a later date.

Juicy salsa juice...maybe it'll taste like Bueno. Tiny can of tomato paste that takes three tries to open with my can opener (what is with these things?) plus water plus garlic plus piment. Stir it up, taste it, add salt...and more salt...and more salt...and some powdered piment...and you know what, it doesn't taste too bad. And it is SPICY. Good.

The two thinnest tortillas I made turned out ok cooking in the pan...a little on the crunchy side. I break up the fattest one into pieces and try to make them crispy, like chips.

Add some spices to my neglected rice to try and give it some flavor...same Mexican type spices...cumin, cilantro, piment, salt...hmm...ah well.

And that's what I've got. Sort of crunchy tortillas with seasoned white rice, pico de gallo, and juicy tomato salsa stuff. I decided to forego the Vacche Qui Rit because I'm running low on wedges and really I've eaten a ton of that stuff recently. Gotta pace myself with the one cheese product I have at my disposal here. FOOOOD. Didn't exactly hit the same spot as a Bueno burrito but it was what it was and it wasn't so bad. It was pretty good actually. I'm a pretty good improvisational cook.

Since we're on the subject of food, lemme tell you about my favorite thing to make for myself recently. Sautee eggplant and grill a loaf of village bread (small lil breads) which you've sliced into halves in a bit of oil (already used for fry-frying purposes). Spread a wedge of Vac Qui Rit (Laughing Cow chesse, available at your local supermarket maybe) on one half of the bread, add sliced of tomato on top, sprinkle salt and piment and basil on top of the tomato, add slices of onion and you have got yourself the best sandwich ever. Lunch ramba. I never knew I'd move to Burkina Faso and a) see so much eggplant, or b) start to love eggplant. My favorite marche lady loads me up with eggplant cadeaux whenever I buy things from her because she can see in my eyes how much I loooovveeee itttttt.


Yum. Yum yum yum.
Ok...but now I must get ready to go to sleep. It is rather lateish here, being 10:30pm and all. I have yet to bathe, which is odd...so I will fill up a pitcher of drinking water to last me through the hot hot night and then get myself all bathed and jump into bed and try to fall asleep before I completely dry off. Good luck.