View from a mud hut

This essay is part of a (more or less) weekly feature on this blog that presents interesting stories from elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa, that are little reported in the American media. It's part of my campaign to get people to realize there is a lot going on in the world outside the US, Israel and Iraq.

The Globalist has an interesting account of life in Burkina Faso. Newly arrived Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) Nathalie Boittin writes of her experiences in the West African country.

Some are fairly common among new PCVs:
The first few days in my village were probably the toughest days of my service to date.


I felt like I didn’t know the language, I certainly didn’t know anyone in the village — and I still wasn’t sure just how I was expected to either empower or educate the girls.



Others sure ring familiar to me even though I was in Guinea.

At first, I had to make an effort to get myself to leave the house each morning to go and “talk” to people in the village — a process which involved a lot of hand gestures and pointing and big smiles.


It was rather unnerving being the constant center of attention. Few people had ever interacted with a white person (or “Toubakou,” in the Fulfuldé language) for any significant amount of time. And many of the younger children had never seen a toubakou at all — and initially fled in terror whenever I came near.



The Burkinabé, much like Guineans and other West Africans, must have a bit of Italian in them:



They also go a little overboard feeding me. Giving food to others is an integral part of hospitality here, but it can get to be a bit much — especially since they aren’t exactly feeding me Caesar salads.



Well maybe just in spirit:

They bring a giant bowl of tô (a kind of thick millet dough served with various sauces, that people here eat morning, noon, and night) to me every single evening — and occasionally at noon, too.



Eventually she, like most PCVs, found her rhythm:



Incidentally, the children are no longer afraid of me. They are much more likely to follow me around, run after me when I bike over to the water pump to get my water every day, or offer to get the water for me, than to run away.


Not only that, but now that I have more or less navigated the difficult period of settling in, getting used to people and language, and getting them to accept me as their daughter/sister/niece/non-wife, I can actually start getting some work done, which leads me to a whole new challenge and adventure — figuring out the whole girls’ empowerment thing!



Good luck Nathalie!