Business

Most of the posts up to this point have focused on getting adjusted and me expressing whatever it is I am feeling at any point. But there is actually a serious business side to my peace corps experience and living here in Burkina. (Its not all waterfalls safaris and elephants)

As a Health Volunteer in Burkina I will be working on a number of health issues here in Burkina. These include hygiene, malnutrition, malaria, family planning, maternal health, and diarrhea.  Real interesting stuff. Most of my time will be spent at local medical center (CSPS) where I will work with a nurse and mid-wife. Doctors are rare in Burkina and usually hold a more administrative position and rarely see patients.  The nurses are government employees and are assigned to work at a CSPS. More often than not, the nurse does not speak the local language and only speaks French. French is the language of the educated and is not widely spoken by the majority of the population. (Primary and secondary schools are taught entirely in French, but only 2% of students finish school while 1% go on to university).  One of my jobs as a health agent will be to learn the local language and culture and to then effectively reach out to the local population on issues surrounding health education and empowerment.

The CSPS is pretty basic with what they can and/or cannot do. They can serve as a basic pharmacy, they can treat simple malaria, they can treat diarrhea, they can give vaccinations, and they do support the needs of pregnant women.  If one needs any invasive surgery or has a severe medical condition, they must provide their own transportation to the district or regional hospital which can be pretty far away.  As long as nothing serious happens, the CSPS can take care of the local village(s). One CSPS can serve anywhere from 1 to 15 different villages. As one can imagine, it gets busy! Especially when there is only one or two nurses.  A CSPS is supposed to have 3 staff members. One of which is a midwife.

Drugs here are vastly subsidized and the government picks up the majority of the tab. Methods of birth control cost at most $3.00 USD for a 6 month supply.  INSANITY! It cost about the same to deliver a baby at the CSPS. $3.00 USD translates to about 1500 cfa. To put that in perspective; a bowl of beans (“benga“ DELICIOUS) cost 50- 100 cfa, and a text message cost 10cfa (international is 50cfa).  Life here is pretty cheap. It’s a good thing I make $3.00 a day right now while in training (a beer is 700cfa).  On the same note, life and drugs here are cheap for a reason.  The people are poor.  Mostly farmers, rarely anyone makes a profit off of their crops and even fewer people save their money.  $3.00 USD is a lot of money here. 

Weak rains during the rainy season decimated the agriculture here and there is widespread fear of a famine or food shortage within the coming year when food runs out in March/April. Instances of child mal-nutrition are definitely going to rise and we have been told to be prepared to deal with the upcoming food shortage. Tough times ahead for the people of Burkina Faso. 

Tougher still, the food shortage will be followed by malaria season, June/July. Adults and children who’s immune systems are already weak from lack of nutrition will be especially susceptible to falling ill with Malaria. This coming year will be a busy year for those of us working with Health related issues. I’m excited for my work and challenge but feel increasingly sad about the reality and seriousness of the situation.

On a different note:

Women and men do not usually mix or associate here unless they are university educated and more liberal minded. Women do not drink with men and you would be hard pressed to find a woman at a bar or dancing. There is no PDA and men and women pretty much live in two very different realms. It’s interesting but as PCTs, most of us go out and enjoy spending time together.

Okay, that’s all for now.  In my next update, I will try to focus on things that I have been doing but I wanted to give a lot more background info in this message. Its taken so long to get solid information to you because I wanted to be sure that I was knowledgeable about what I was speaking on. I would not want to get any false info out into the WWW. 

That being said, I hope that some of this was interesting, or maybe even useful to some of you at home. 

Best wishes

Site Announcements!!! (Where i live after training)

In retrospect, there is a lot of unnecessary capitalization in this message. Woops. FEEEL MY EXCITEMENT!

Site announcement is cool because we have one of the HCNs(Host country national Staff) MCing the ceremony and then the director of our language/culture classes gave a few words and then presents us with a nicely wrapped “gift”…. Which is a box of tampons…….. with a hand drawn map of Burkina Inside.!! WHOAAA!!!! AWESOME!! *insert excitement for box of tampons here*

So they ask for a trainee to come up and read a city name. After a PCT reads the site name, a PCV then reads the site description. At the end of the description we, the PCTs, are supposed to guess who is going to that site. Each description is catered to reflect the interest and desires of the PCT assigned there. It was pretty easy to match the sites to the PCTS. Below is my site description!!

Keep in mind, this is word for word and was written by someone who English is a 4^th language for.

“

              You will be in a big village with a population of 6000 situated in the Eastern Burkina Faso.

The village is situated at the front of scenic cliffs and close to beautiful waterfalls.

There are a few transport options.  There is transport everyday.

You are the first health volunteer but second PCV of the village.  The first volunteer is from education sector and had a wonderful time at the site.  Your mayor used to be a PCT trainer and travelled for th at in the US 3 times and, the first time was in 1967. So he masters the Peace Corps goals, philosophy…and was able to explain that in the community meeting!

It is a beautiful tourist site with unexplored countryside between two animal parks.

People will just come to welcome you and make you feel at home.  This is an extremely motivated community. The village as a whole (including leaders, women, and youth) is excited to great you and has expressed that several times. They can’t wait to have you! You will have no problem making this village your home with such a friendly, motivated, and welcoming community. 

Your closest neighbor PCV is at 8km biking from you.  There is a larger village with a large daily market, so access to food goods and such wouldn’t be a problem. 

You have also in 2 secondary schools, 5 primary schools, an agriculture office, and an environment office.  So you will have the opportunity to apply your experience in coaching for soccer club and also you can establish a peer counseling health project in the schools!

Your house stands alone near the police. It has 3 bedrooms, a living room, private douche, and a latrine in the courtyard. The community is fencing a courtyard by a wall with a gate which provides a lot of privacy.

”

Notes:

PCVF, a PCV who came to training to help us out.  She is real cool. I liked her a lot.

The other volunteer from my pst is also really cool but its kind of weird that they put us so close together. Like, im not complaining but its weird for them to do that. Most volunteers are about 20-50k from each other. Which makes me wonder if there is a safety issue. They did after all make a point of mentioning that I am next to the police station.

What the hell am I going to do with 3 bedrooms and a living room? Maybe I turn one of them into a kitchen. Who knows. 

Also, THERE IS AN EFFEN NATURE PARK!!! And WATERFALLS!!!  One of the nature parks, I am not sure which one, is supposed to be the largest nature park in West Africa!  Like legit Zebras, Lions, Elephants, and such. yea I'm ready..

And lots of kids! For soccer! Ah yea  im ready to show these kids how American ballas get down. I really want to do some coaching and potentially get kids organized with coaching for hope.  A soccer organization that uses soccer to convey important health messages. Oh man, Im excited!

And the description made note of access to food because EVERYONE… and I do mean EVERYONE (staff included) knows I’m starving here. Which is why it is so crucial that I have a market everyday. Most villages have a market once a week or every 3 days or so. This market is everyday!!! Im hoping to eat good everyday! I think the other PCT in my area and I are talking about taking turns cooking which would make things even easier.