Dietrich's Training journal |
||
Week 0 (June 13, 2002)Arrival in Abdijan, stayed in Bingerville at a catholic mission for a few days. Local flora and fauna: Palm type trees (cocoa and palm, papaya, etc), bamboo. Baseball sized snails, lizards up to a foot long with orange tail and head, black body. The crows here have white breasts.A group that performs traditional music came and played for us and I got up and danced with them. This little 4 year old kid wearing a grass skirt was with them, dancing, thrusting his/her hips wildly. It was really funny. They did some fire eating and other cool stuff too. Week 1Arrival in Alepe, a town of 8,000 or so people. It's less than an hour's drive from Abdijan. Was met by one of my host brothers and his uncle, Adama. Spent the first couple of days with Adama as host dad and mom were away on business. Adama took a serious liking to me and told me that he would name his first born son after me, when he marries. My family is a fairly traditional Muslim family, in that they don't drink alcohol and they wear boo-boos around the house and stuff. My host dad is pretty well off. He's the inspector of primary schools in this region. My host sister is 15 years old and does ALL the work around the house, while the boys, 15,17 and 22 do a lot less. They might clean the bathroom occasionally and wash their laundry, but that's it.Walking around on market day with a current volunteer, we came across the business his former host father owns, a laundromat. We stop and talk with the guys who work there, one of whom takes a liking to me and they all decide to give me a name in the local language, Atiee'. They give me the name "Atse'", meaning he who arrived on Monday. They tell me they want me to be their friend and have a shirt like they do, so they're going to have a shirt made for me. After a while spent hanging out with them we depart and they accompany us halfway towards our destination, as is the custom. I don't know why people seem to like me so much here, I think it may be because I'm in good spirits lately. Why I have been so happy, I don't know. It could be that I'm just happy to be done with my thesis and not to be working 100 feet underground at the University of Minnesota Civil Engineering Building . My friend Scott (a fellow Minnesotan and BWCA adventurer) and I want to take one of the local's piroques (dug out canoes) and paddle up the Comoe river and "into the heart of darkness." Week 2One day I stop by to hang out with my friends at the laundromat and they present me with the shirt they had made by a friend, who's a tailor. There was kind of a big celebratory atmosphere as I took off the shirt I had on and put on the new one. As I walked down the street a bunch of people who knew me came out of the wood work shouting "joli chemise, mister D" and "Atse" etc.A note on clothes: The fabrics they sell around here are pretty wild, and cost from 1000 CFA to 5000 CFA ($1.5 to $7) / meter, which is enough to make a shirt. The tailor charges a whopping 1500 CFA ($2) to make the shirt. While that's not a lot of money for me, it could be a lot for my friend Daniel, who works in Cocoa plantations and hauling bags off trucks for prob. 800-1000 CFA per day. Met my neighbor, who is the head of the local bureau of water and forestry. His nephew actually took my hand, locked fingers with me and led me off next door to meet him. Although that kind of personal contact between men is perfectly normal, I was still glad that no one saw that. As a side note, I saw two of the guys who hang out at the laundromat share a stool, one behind the other, with the guy in back putting his hands in the other guys lap. Perfectly acceptable. Homosexuality is something that isn't thought to exist in this country. Week 3I spent the week visiting a present volunteer in Facobly, about 20 Km from Man. I went with 3 other trainees and we had a good time. On the way out, we stopped in Yamosoukra for lunch and got a look (from a distance) at the world's second largest basilica. What makes a basilica a basilica , I don't know, but the largest one outside of Rome is there.The area around Man is really pretty picturesque, with big rocky hills and as much greenery as anywhere else in the southern half of the country. A lot of the hills are dark grey rock with multicolored lichen and so forth all over, a bit like some of the stuff I've seen in BWCA. While walking around Facobly we encountered a guy who dressed up with a traditional mask and basically asked for money. We also went walking through the woods and came across a temporary camp used by some guys who were working the fields. The place consisted of thatched huts, a la Gilligan's Island. A very skinny dog on a chain barked at us until these guys arrived, and we asked them for directions. They offered us some "Bangue'" (vin du palme) which was freshly collected that day and was very good. One day we went to a village to visit a women's ag. cooperative that our host volunteer works with. This was the typical village experience in Africa, with little kids swarming around nearby. At one point one daring little girl marched up, touched one of us and then triumphantly walked back to the other kids. The kids then went up to us one by one (following her lead) and shook each of our hands. We met the coop. at the local church, who introduced themselves in Wobe', which was translated into French. The chief said some stuff, and then we went out to tour the village, lead by the head of the cooperative. While we walked around, the village women followed us and chanted and sang and so forth. Week 4Was issued my peace corps bike. A trek 830. I spent a full week or so working out the kinks and getting parts swapped, with the help of our Ghanaian bike mechanic, Paul. Paul (also known as Pablo) is a really cool guy, and of course speaks English since Ghana is an Anglophone country, but he sounds more like a Vietnamese than what you think of as an African accent. I do a good impression of him.We had a fish sauce with our rice and foutou (or foufou, I don't remember which), anyway, I ate a fish that is very closely related to one that I kept in a fish tank for the last couple years. It was pretty strange to turn the sauce over and see that. It conducted an autopsy with a fork and spoon before devouring the specimen. Week 5Site announcement: I am headed for a "large village" called "Mbengue", about 75 Km north of Korhogo. Mbengue sounds larger than Alepe, as it has both a gendarmerie and a police station, a post office, 2 hotels and a new cotton factory, apparently run by an Swiss company. I am going to be replacing a volunteer and living in the same place. I will have running water (a shower) and electricity, so I am not at all worried about being comfortable. A couple education volunteers are in villages that look relatively close on the map, yet may be 100 km. We danced and so forth at a party following the site announcement.While dancing I removed one leg of my zip off pants and put it on my head. A current volunteer from the same region said she was really glad I was going to be able to party with them in Korhogo. There are lots of cool things around Korhogo, apparently. Anyone who wants to visit my want to come up in February for the film festival in the capitol of Burkina Faso. A lot of volunteers go there, it's not far and it's apparently a great time. There is also a band that plays at the PC regional house in Korhogo twice a week, one of the members lives there and weaves nice rugs. There are also lots of drums that are available there, for 1/10th of the cost in the states. I am planning on doing a little low-key percussion stuff while up there. Week 6We spent a good part of the week learning about HIV stuff. We were visited by a group of women that are in a support group for women who are seropositive. They were all pretty much kicked out of their homes and their families disowned them or treated them like they had the plague. People are afraid to get tested and thus don't.Everyone did an AIDS information session with youth around town. I and 2 other trainees worked with 9-12 year old boys and girls. Even these little kids have all the information, yet the trouble here is that people don't apply the information to their everyday lives. That's a big challenge. Since we're in the country that has the highest infection rate in W. Africa (15% nationwide) the peace corps has encouraged each and every one of us to do this kind of work. Cote d' Ivoire (CI) is an interesting place, in that it's pretty much the cross roads of w. Africa. It's got loads of immigrants from Mali, Burkina and Ghana. It also has some interesting social issues as a result, in many ways similar to the US, in other ways similar to European nations like Germany (where nationality is determined by ethnic background). Week 7Saturday all the trainees headed to Grand Bassam for an official outing. It was here that I finally got to check my email account. The beaches are dirty and not swimmable, as the undertow is really strong. I expect to swim in a pool.week 8Went to a "fete d' generation" in Montezo. At the fete they indoctrinated a new generation of 25-30 year olds into the tribal leadership. the president was supposed to be there for it but wasn't, and the crowd was pretty big. Music was played way too loud with the typical style of DJing popular here, lots of the DJ talking nonsense throughout and old arcade game sound effects every now and then.A giant flag (the Ivorian flag) was paraded around, allowed to drag in the dirt, then placed on a flag pole in the center of the parade ground, draping on the ground. some of the guys who had been carrying the flag then sat on the bit on the ground and drank gin heavily. As time went by, one of them pretty much passed out on it, was stood on by the others, then covered up and left for a while. Eventually he vomited on the flag and himself and apparently soiled himself as well, at least judging from the way they were splashing gin on his backside before hauling him away. The flag was bundled up and left in place. This kind of drinking to excess is apparently pretty common and no one but us was shocked. Week 9Met my counterpart and traveled to my site with him. Met all the staff at the mayors office and so forth. My counterpart and the mayor are both eager to get work done, and the previous volunteer laid some pretty good groundwork for me, as in when I am introduced as her replacement everyone is pleased and happy to meet me and understands what Peace Corps does.Week 10Site visitWeek 11 - Swearing inAt our swearing in ceremony I got to wear a "boo boo" style garment, like my host dad wears to go to the mosque in the evening. It was like I was wearing PJs, it was really cool. Lots of people were jealous, and believe me a lot of people looked sillier. I hope to have a picture of me and host dad with our "boo boo"s.After swearing in we took a small bus to the hostel in Abidjan. On the way the engine caught fire and my friends in the front seat had what must be called "hot pants" before the bus stopped and everyone rushed out while they poured water on the engine. Trip to the beach We took a 5.5 hour ride on a bus down a bad road, one where pavement gives way periodically to bumpy, potholey dirt road to the town of Sassandra. Took a day long tour in a dug out "pirogue" style canoe to see hippos on the river. Saw one hippo, which was submersed from about 200m. Got rained on, and when our guide took us under a tree to try to grab some wild plums along the river bank, lots of nasty red biting ants fell on us. My friend Sarah jumped up and threw a fit, nearly tipping the boat. Otherwise the trip went well, except for the horrible bout of diarrhea I got after a meal the second to last night on the beach, but that's just part of the peace corps weight loss plan. Links to |
Photos
My friend Abdoule
, the Burkina-be clothes washer. Family
for whom we build a very fancy above-ground latrine Similar volunteer sites News sites Local artwork |
|
