This Life Didn't Come with Instructions

We both knew this type of life

Didn't come with instructions

So I'm trying to do my best

To make something outta nothing

And sometimes it gets

Downright shitty in fact

When you call and I don't even know

What city I'm at

Or what day of the week in the middle of the month

In a year I don't recall

It's like my life's on repeat and the last time we spoke

I told you I wouldn't be long(yeah)

That was last November now December's almost gone

I'd apologize but I don't realize what I'm doing wrong

“I am one of the lucky few. I am one of the lucky few that have been given the chance to live and work in a developing country for two years of my life. “

I find myself constantly repeating the above phrase as some of the frustrations and homesickness really begin to set in.  Yes, it has begun!

In the way of work related topics, I AM SWAMPED!!! EXHAUSTED!!! I love the work but it is extremely tiring.  Working at the health center (CSPS) 6/7 days of the week is tough enough without also being expected to attend other Peace Corps trainings. I have recently found myself out of my village a lot more than I have actually been in my village.  In-service training(IST) was a two week training on practical things volunteers can do in village. We worked on nutritional rehabilitation programs, family planning sensibilisations, and project design and management. Now that our etude, adjustment period, is over; it is finally time to hit the ground running with projects. PC is attempting to make a conscious effort to better monitor and evaluate ALL projects. This means that volunteers are responsible for collecting and analyzing data as well as evaluating whether or not a project is successful.  For example: if I work at the local high school educating students on family planning techniques, PC would like to know how many students were educated, and what behavior changes took place. Common sense right? But how can one adequately measure whether or not student sexual behavior changed based on a training(sensibilisation) that I gave? It is a tough job without a doubt and requires a fair amount of creativity and constructive thinking.

One particular project where this is a problem is planting trees.  Health and Education volunteers are expected to plant 625 trees each year while business volunteers are expected to plant 5000. Thus, I am expected to be planting about 2 trees each day, while business volunteers are expected to plant about 14 trees a day. (As anyone who has ever planted a tree before can tell you, IT IS HARD WORK! But I digress). The problem here is trying to understand what planting a tree really means. Are we supposed to walk around throwing seeds on the ground? Or can we be expected to actually raise these trees? Watering a baby tree is no easy task (twice a day in most cases), but watering 100 at one time is difficult.  Even further, insuring the survival of each tree is also hard work and requires large amounts of energy and time. Can we accurately and responsibly expect each volunteer to plant and raise such significant numbers of trees? And what if half of the trees die due to the lack of lack of water, resources, soil, or the munching of animals.  Insuring the survival of so many trees is definitely a tough task but evaluating the success of tree planting campaigns is even more difficult. How can one measure the number of trees that he has planted? Is it based on the number of seeds used? The number of trees that survive in a year? Or is it the number of trees that make it to the earth.  The answer remains unclear.

It seems that most of my projects are developing nicely with support from the community. My mayor, community organization, High School(as most of my projects revolve around youth), and Prefet are all behind me 100%. Although it feels great to have their confidence and support, I would actually like them to take more of an active role in project development and implementation. As mentioned in an earlier post, my village is all too used to having things given to them. 

A counterpart from my village and I recently(yesterday) just completed a tree planting training in Fada, our regional capital.  Throughout the training, we learned how to properly care for and start tree gardens. Although trees are not the most interesting topic in the world (in my personal opinion), all of the counterparts loved it. Each counterpart walked away with two trees and several bags of seeds in order to begin planting in village. (Yes, I am taking credit for anything my counterpart plants and am well on my way to 625 for this year)

Although I want to head back to site in order to begin planting, I have a youth development committee meeting in the capital. We will be discussing a youth camp that we are holding in a couple of weeks. The camp is focused on youth leadership in the community and family planning. I will actually be attending the camp with two motivated youths from my community. We will be traveling about 800k to get to the training. Fun stuff no? All sessions during the week long camp will be led by volunteers like myself. No pressure or anything. J

Currently in PCBF, there are about 174 volunteers working in three sectors throughout the country. Unfortunately, about 60 of those volunteers are now preparing to COS(Close of service) and are preparing to return to the real world. I am incredibly proud of these volunteers and the large majority of them will be severely missed. Those COSing have been holding the country together for the past two years, and it is now time for the newbies like myself to step forward and take leadership positions. Most of my trainers and friends, outside of my own stage, are COSing and although it makes me a bit sad to part with friends, it’s also awesome to see that they finished their missions and are moving on to bigger and better things.  Good Luck G22

(The COS party was EPIC! It should be illegal to get over 100 volunteers in one place/pool, but we had a blast)

Communicating with home has suddenly become a really big challenge. I do not receive texts from the states anymore and nor do I get the chance to be online when I am in village.  This has really made things difficult for Brittany and I, but I think we have adjusted and handled the problem remarkably well.  Although she is swamped in books and pharmacy school, it feels good to see us both making efforts and growing individually & jointly. As we would in the states; we have our fights and I tend to be too honest at times, but we have really taken this chance to grow and develop in our relationship.

Well, that is all for now. Time to go get breakfast. J Omlette sandwiches….

Oh: random moment. Half way through this past week, I went to an ATM for money and learned that my account has been cleared out. After freaking out and working with the bank for 5 hours, I was able to figure out that an ATM in Ouaga had triple accessed my account the last time I had withdrew money. WOMP WOMP! But after arguing and being patient, I was able to figure everything out. IN FRENCH!!!  AND GET MY MONEY BACK! What what!  Boss status!! (Small victories go a long way here)


and on another random note.. Below is a link to a big project I am working on right now! Do Check It Out!!
http://pcburkina.org/content/leadership-active-citizenship-conference