The Summer of 2012

October 4, 2012

Sorry it’s been so long since my last posting, but I must admit it’s been a bit of a rough summer for me. But before we get there, let’s go back to the highlights of my summer!

May brought about an AMAZING vacation!!!  I took a cruise to Italy, Greece and Turkey. It was absolutely wonderful and beautiful and I wish I was there now! 

At the end of May, I attended a training called “Men As Partners” (MAP) in Koudougou, which focused on increasing the role of men in the promotion of girls and women and women’s equality in communities.

I spend the month of July living in Ouagadougou teaching English to high school students. The kids in Ouaga were so different than my students in village. For one thing, they were older, but more significantly, they were from very wealthy families – they had better electronics than I do in the states! Basically, they acted like American teenagers – for better or worse! (I go back and forth about if this was a highlight or a lowlight. It was fun, but also very stressful).

The end of the summer found me once again blissfully on vacation; this time to the United States. I was able to eat my heart out at the Great New York State Fair with my mom and my niece Madelyn; visit Chicago and spend time with a couple of my favorite people, my Bonnie Joy and Desiree, and even attend the marriage of friends Maria and Tracy. I ended the visit by spending some quality time exploring Green Lakes State Park with Madelyn on her 12^th birthday (we even saw a gorgeous buck!).

I know that it sounds like I had a pretty busy summer, but it’s the times in-between that make it tough. You see, during the summer, not much goes on in my village. Because school is out, all of the teachers leave the village, and all of the villagers are busy working in the fields. It left me feeling very lonely and out of touch with my community. At times I felt completely un-integrated with my community, and any Peace Corps Volunteer can tell you, that’s the kiss of death. If you do nothing else during your two-years, you should become integrated with your community.

It was also exceptionally difficult hearing about my friends from Niger finishing their Peace Corps service, and knowing that if I hadn’t been evacuated, I would have been finishing my service too. I am basically in a place, where I am entering my third year of Peace Corps service, but not being recognized for it. I know it probably sounds a bit small and petty, but it was a huge weight on my head.

Whether it was just my perception or reality, at times I felt lost, like I didn’t know what to do or how to do it. Apparently that feeling is completely normal at this stage in my service, but that doesn’t mean I had to like it!  Luckily, I have many good friends to support me, both here and abroad, as well as a couple key, very supportive Peace Corps staff members.

It’s now October (it must be beautiful in the states right now!), and I’m melting to a puddle on the ground. Hopefully it will rain today! We’re coming to the end of rainy season and heading into mini-hot season, and then thankfully into “cold” season (highs only in the 80s! AKA a great time to send me chocolate and other things that melt). In Burkina, school officially starts on October 1^st. It’s now the 5^th and classes have yet to start at my school – again, not unusual. I’m pretty sure that classes will start on Monday. Hopefully we will see an increase in the numbers of girls in class as a result of the soccer tournaments I planned last year (there was another one in June I didn’t write about), as well as a TOT I planned to train influential community members on how to encourage their friends  and neighbors to send ALL their children to school.

I’m excited for the year ahead of me. I plan to continue my activities from last year (tutoring middle school students and having an English club at the school), and increase my activities to work more with high school students and community adults.

So yeah, that’s me. Tell me about you? Send me an email, a letter, a text, a package! My address is:

Alynn Woodson

BP 54 Gaoua

Burkina Faso, West Africa

If you’d like my phone number, shoot me an email or a Facebook message and I’ll get it to you.

If you find yourself in the mood to send me a package, consider including the following items (or whatever your heart desires, anything and everything is appreciated!)

• M&Ms (peanut travel better)
• Pretzel Rods
• Clif Bars (Peanut Butter Choc Chip, Choc Chip)
• Salty/Cheesy snacks
• Fruit (dried, freeze-dried, cups)
• Cherry Coke Zero
• Drink packets (favorites: lemonade, diet peach Snapple tea)
• Spinach tortillas
• A chiropractor
• A masseuse
• Ice cream
• A pool
• Electricity
• YOURSELF

 I hope this message finds everyone doing well and enjoying fall. Take care of yourselves and each other!

Help Prevent Malaria!

April 1, 2012

I’d like to take a few minutes to talk about a disease that kills thousands of people in Burkina Faso, and throughout the world, every year: malaria. As many of you may remember, the devastating effects of malaria hit me personally last year, when my neighbor and close friend in Niger, Malika, died from malaria at age 7. Malika’s life – like so many others, was lost because of lack of treatment for this completely curable and highly preventable disease.

This year, in addition to educating myself and my community (and you) more about malaria, I am working with a women’s association to take definitive action to help limit the exposure of community members (especially pregnant woman and children who are most at risk) by fabricating an organic mosquito repellant using ingredients found in our community. By combining the leaves of the neem tree with shea butter (and a few other ingredients), an effective salve for deterring mosquitos is created. The project empowers women, creates a source of income, and positively impacts the community.

April 25^th is World Malaria Day. Please do what you can to help raise awareness of this devastating illness. In addition to work in my local community, I am part of Stomp Out Malaria, a continent-wide campaign to increase malaria prevention across Peace Corps countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Please check out http://stompoutmalaria.tumblr.com/ to see highlights of Peace Corps projects from across Africa.

Thank you.

Alynn

Educate Yourself About Malaria in Burkina Faso

CAUSE: Malaria is caused by a parasite that can be transmitted by female anopheles mosquitos who feed after dusk. The parasite resides primarily in the liver, blood and placenta.

HIGH RISK GROUPS: Pregnant women (resulting in low birth weight, miscarriage or maternal death), children under the age of 5.

PREVENTION TECHNIQUES:

· Proper use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets

· Use of Neem Cream (see above)

· Use of mosquito repellent

· Skin coverage

· Use of window screens

· Prenatal counceling

MALARIA IN BURKINA FASO STATS (2009):

· 4.5 million cases

· 8,000 deaths

· 45% of health center consultations

· 54% of hospitalizations

· 60% of overall deaths

· Use of preventative measures

o Only 23% of families owned at least one treated mosquito net

o Only 10% of children under the age of 5 were sleeping under treated mosquito nets

March 19, 2012

Well, hot season has arrived – and oh boy is it hot – and humid! But from what I hear, the real heat hasn’t even begun yet! I’ve been pretty busy over the last couple of months, and I will unashamedly blame my lack of writing on that (well, that and not being able to charge my computer regularly). In this post, I’ll do my best to sum up some of my bigger activities.

Girls Soccer Tournament
Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been working to plan a soccer tournament for elementary-aged girls. The intention of the tournament was to build confidence in the girls and to encourage continued attendance at school. Additionally, there was an emphasis on educating parents and community members on the importance of sending their daughters to school. The tournament took place on the morning of March 10th, and I must say it was a fantastic success! Four elementary schools in the commune created teams of 11 students each. All of the players came from the equivalent of 5th-7th grades. I was very impressed with all of the teams. They provided some great competition, and all in all, probably about 150 people turned out to watch the games. My favorite part was how everyone would rush the field whenever a goal was made – so much energy, it was great!

Unfortunately, it was not all smooth running, there were some disagreement over the prizes (some people wanted every participant to get a prize, while the co-organizers and I decided it would be more appropriate to give a larger prize (a dictionary) to the winning school). Also, there was some heated discussion about providing food. It seems that no matter how hard I try to dispel the myth, local villagers believe that as a white person I have an endless supply of money (I wrote a grant to fund this project). It increases my frustration when I learn that past volunteers have funded projects out of their own pockets – or at least that’s how the community perceives it. If I had advice to give to a future volunteer, it would be – DO NOT SELF FUND PROJECTS!! It hurts the integrity of the program and makes life difficult for future volunteers.

International Women’s Day
Every year on March 8th, my village (along with most other villages) celebrated International Women’s Day. In theory, this should be a day to celebrate the contributions and the lives of women – and in many ways it is, but I was still surprised at the inequalities I observed throughout the day. The first event of the day was a bike race. It’s a short race, but unfortunately there were not a lot of participants due to the heat. After the race, groups of women started dancing and singing in the streets. Once they reached the center of the village, all the women created a more formal parade. They made me walk in front as we made a short jaunt through the village singing. The parade came to close as we reached the market area. Once there, we listened to speeches by the mayor and other community members. What I found interesting about this, was that they had arranged people sitting in a “U” shape, with the village leaders on one side (including only one woman) and the women on the other side. With this set-up, the speakers spoke the entire time with their backs to all the women. A very curious way to honor them if you ask me.

The next event was lunch. There was a special lunch prepared for people in the community who donated to the event. Again, all the women sat on one side of the seating area, while all of the men sat on the other side, and the important people sat at a separate table. What happened next surprised me (although I don’t know why). The women served all the food, while the men did nothing. Plus, they served all the men first – and even ran out of food to feed all of the women. I questioned this, but they always say that men don’t know how to cook or serve food. Hello – teach them!!!! I’d been hearing for weeks about how men clean and cook for their wives on March 8th – I want to see some proof of that!

During the afternoon there was an archery and soccer game for the women. All in all it was a good day, but still frustrating that it was completely directed by men but, with women doing all the work. Aside from questioning the men and women about these activities, I’m not sure how to instigate change, when the roles of men and women are so strongly ingrained in the people and culture here.

Well, I think that’s all for now, I need to go plan out some tutoring lessons. I’ve posted some pictures of the Soccer tournament and International Women’s Day on Facebook, so if you’re interested, check those out.
I hope you’re having a fantastic spring!

March 26, 2012

Just a couple quick notes before my computer dies. First of all, I wanted to brag about the fact that I bought 4 perfectly ripe mangoes, straight from the tree for 50 CFA – that would be about .10 cents for FOUR MANGOES!!! And that’s when I don’t get them for free!!!! I love mango season (but I could do without the heat and humidity).

Secondly I wanted to take a minute to comment on an edition of “Witness” I heard on the BBC the other day. It was the story of one of the very first Peace Corps Volunteers in Ghana in the early 1960s. What I found so interesting was that he was talking about his living conditions – electricity, running water, decent phone service, etc. He was quite surprised to arrive in his village and find all of these conveniences in what he expected to be very rural and “backward” country. Yet here I am, just a few miles from the Ghanaian border, in 2012, living in a village with none of these amenities. What hit me most was that he said that listening to the BBC was essential to him – just as it as to me, 50 years later.

A Question of Education

January 21, 2012

I must apologize for my lengthy absence from sharing my stories. Whenever the mood has struck me to write, I haven’t, and then the reflections are lost. So what’s been missed – In-service training (two weeks of training in the capital), Christmas and New Years were spent in my village (still waiting on Christmas packages of which I’ve received: 0), and my birthday, where I learned that when it’s your birthday in Burkina Faso (I think it’s a French thing) you’re supposed to tell everyone, invite them out, and then (and here’s the kicker) pay for everything! This tradition came as quite the shock to me!

Now I find myself quite busy (in Peace Corps terms anyways). In additions to the activities I’ve previously written about, I’m tutoring three times a week, having English club twice a week, taking Lobiri language lessons twice a week, planning a soccer tournament for girls, planning and executing World AIDS day (a month and a half late), starting a girls club and writing a grant.

All of these activities bring about unique challenges and blessings, but what I’d like to focus on today are the challenges associated with tutoring. I tutor 3 levels within the equivalent of 6th grade, a low-level class for kids that have a really hard time reading (or can’t read) and have trouble with basic math, like subtraction); a low-level math class for kids needing help with basic math (we’re currently working in multiplication and division); and a mid-level reading class.

Now you may be thinking that the challenge is how to teach kids to read in French and do math in a completely different way than I was taught, but while these are certainly challenges, what has been most on my mind lately is kids dropping out of school and if and how I can help them. After the holiday break, four of my low-level students have dropped out of school. One lives in a village that is quite a distance away and is the only one from the village going to school, another has decided he doesn’t want to go anymore, another’s father decided he was done, and the fourth one I’m still trying to figure out. Obviously my first response is to get them back in school ASAP, but upon giving it more thought, I’m wondering if that’s really what’s best for them.

Let me give you a little background. All four students are on the older side for the class (14 and 15), they have all repeated this grade once already, and they are all very poor at both reading and math. By encouraging them to return to school, am I being a helpful and positive role model, or am I setting them up for failure. If I’m being honest with myself, I know that most likely none of these students will pass the grade this year. I don’t want to give up on them, but I don’t want to set them up for heartbreak either. What is right and wrong here? Is there even a right or wrong answer?