The Routine

My God! Where do I begin to describe my time thus far?! I guess I can start by getting the lackluster task of explaining “my routine” here these past few months out of the way. The following, therefore, is a description of what a normal week has looked like for me since training ended, December 7th, and I arrived in Kongoussi (the city where I’ll spend the next two years)…

Every morning begins as the night before left off—in a state of starvation. My morning routine therefore begins with a visit to the kitchen where I commence making toast, by frying bread in a pan, and preparing a glass of milk, by mixing milk powder with water (it’s a little chalky but it does the job). Monday through Friday, I then depart to either meet with a savings and credit club (I’ll discuss these later) or head directly to my host organization, URCBAM.

Every small enterprise development (SED) volunteer is assigned to a host organization that provides the volunteer’s housing and that serves as his/ her “primary project.” Most frequently, volunteers are paired with cotton unions, artisan associations, or caisses (credit unions). My host organization falls into this last category. The Union Régionale des Caisses du BAM (URCBAM) provides a range of micro-credit services to inhabitants of the Province of Bam. My primary task is to help the union develop a uniform system of information storage across its four member caisses and, in turn, to use the information gathered to develop and implement a system of financial analysis. So to achieve this objective, I work in the union’s bureau from 9:00am to 12:00pm everyday before heading home for the “repos” (the break from 12:30 to 3:00 when most businesses shut down).

After heading home, I then either make more toast, oatmeal, a grilled cheese sandwich, or Blédine (baby food that I’ve taken to eating in the absence of other hot cereals such as Cream of Wheat and Malt-o-Meal) for lunch. Immediately following, I carry two buckets outside and sit on my terrace to wash dishes. I scrub the dirty utensils in one bucket filled with soap and water (the wash bucket) and dip them into the other bucket that’s filled with just water (the rinse bucket). While the dishes are drying on the ledge of my terrace, I heat a pot of water, pour it into a bucket, then carry the bucket to my latrine where I bathe by splashing water on myself from the bucket. The latrine’s walls are rather low, so I’m often greeted by children walking down the street, while bathing. After my bath is complete and the dishes are brought into the house, I normally nap for a little bit and, depending on the day, I either meet with a savings and credit club (S&CC) or journal/ read for the rest of the afternoon.

Right now, we new volunteers are in a three-month period called the Etude de Milieu (Study of the Environment) where we’re “technically” not supposed to be working but, instead, simply learning about/ “establishing a positive rapport” within our communities. Every month of this period, we submit a report to our supervisor detailing the specific needs of our communities and the ways we might be able to help meet these needs. Practically, “establishing a positive rapport” requires being as involved as possible in our communities—this, therefore, explains why I’ve been going to the URCBAM bureau daily and meeting with 7 S&CCs weekly.

Every SED volunteer is encouraged to create and maintain savings and credit clubs in our communities. These clubs are mostly women’s groups comprised of 6-12 members, which meet weekly to deposit money into a wooden saving’s box. Each group decides on their own rules and regulations governing who receives loans, when they should be repaid, how much interest they should be repaid with, and what happens in the event of a member defaulting on the loan. My predecessor started a number of these clubs with an organization called Association de Developpement Song-Taaba de Kongoussi (ADST), an association of cultivators and animal herders. It’s common for these groups to stop during the rainy season, since most people are busy in the fields, and divide the amount saved in the box amongst the members. Every one of my predecessor’s groups did just this, so I’ve been helping to recommence the saving and lending activities amongst existing groups while also working to form new groups with other interested women within this organization.

Although my work with these groups is just beginning, I’ve already experienced an incredible sense of fulfillment from the little I’ve done. When I initially received my site assignment, I struggled with the question, “is this what I wanted?” I wasn’t particularly thrilled to have a “9:00 to X:00 job,” and I didn’t know how to feel about living in what’s essentially a typical American townhouse (well, minus the plumbing) in a small city. I had this romanticized notion of living the “simple life,” the life typical of peace corps volunteers working in the domains of health education (HE) and girl’s education (GE): small village, no access to fruits, vegetables, nor cold beverages, no electricity…no life that I’ve ever known. But now I feel rather privileged to live in a city like Kongoussi. Although my living arrangements are “fairly” Western-like, the living arrangements for the women in the S&CCs that I work with are identical to those in Burkina’s poorest villages. When one travels outside the urban part of the city (meaning if one biked 5 minutes in any direction; Kongoussi is more of a town than a city) one would find these women, and thousands of other women and families, living in homes constructed from a mixture of mud, pebbles, and straw. All of this said, I now think I have the best of both worlds. I, myself, live in conditions pretty similar to conditions back home (well similar in most respects; it’s taken a few months of living here to find the similarities), but I’m able to serve a community in the most desperate need of aid. There’s yet to be a time when I’ve left these women and not have been reminded of why I’ve voyaged so very far: to use the skills that privilege has afforded me, to help those of whom I believe my privilege has come at the expense of.

Monday and Thursday evenings I head to PLAN Burkina (a NGO dedicated to improving the lives of children in developing countries) where I teach an English class to its staff with another volunteer, Anna Cap. Anna is a third-year health education (HE) volunteer that works for PLAN. I’m one of just a handful of volunteers who’s lucky enough to have another volunteer at his/ her site. Having her here has been a great a blessing in disguise—I didn’t want a site mate initially, because I didn’t want my relationship with him/ her to interfere with the community integration progress, but she’s proven an incredible help (not a hindrance) with this process, pointing me in the direction of resources that I may’ve not discovered on my own. At our English classes, Anna and I usually provide text studies on various issues affecting developing countries and ask the class to explain and evaluate the author’s argument. Since the most lucrative jobs in Burkina are with NGOs (a distressing sign of the desperate state of affairs here and the general lack of other employment opportunities), PLAN is incredibly well-staffed. Teaching here, therefore, is a pleasure.

On Saturdays, I attend meetings of the Kongoussi English Club, of which I’m a member. The club really is the coolest thing since sliced bread. When I was asked to join, I initially thought it would be more of a class than a club. But, thankfully, I was proven wrong. The very first week that I attended, the club read an excerpt from the Autobiography of Malcolm X and commenced a debate of whether X’s philosophy or Dr. King’s was/ is the better. It was so surreal to be discussing pacifism and the use of violence with Africans while actually being on the continent. Since that first day I attended, we’ve debated the topics of forced marriage, how food security can be best be achieved in Africa, and whether or not a woman can/ should be the head of state (following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto). The Kongoussi English Club has immensely broadened my perspective on a number of issues, and furthermore, has provided an excellent way of meeting/ building relationships with people in the community.

I must admit, though, that being in a town where so many people speak English has been terrible for my French learning endeavors. I am now fairly conversational but am by NO MEANS fluent. I will never again believe anyone who says that the language “will just come.” If you’ve never studied the language before it does not just come—it takes a great deal of work.

My Sunday’s are extremely low key. I meet with two S&CCs in the morning, but spend the rest of the day relaxing on my terrace. I have two friends who normally come to pay me a visit, Donald and Rouki, so I spend the afternoon chatting with them. Following their departure, I normally prepare the same thing that I had for lunch, for dinner. I then retire to bed, as I do every night, with my stomach only partially satiated, but with my spirit fully ready to take on the next week.

And thus a typical week for me in Kongoussi comes to its close. Although it’s assured to change in the months ahead (after my “Etude” period ends), it shall remain, for now, all that I know of normality.