A New Chapter Begins- Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar to India

Thank you to the Rotarians who made this opportunity possible to explore, share, and learn with and from the people and culture of India.  I will be studying for 2 semesters in the field of Social Work in southern India.  As I continue to learn about myself and the many people of God’s creation, I will continue to share my experiences and stories through this medium.  It is my prayer that this experience can be enriching and fulfilling for both the people of India as well as people at home in the USA, and any of my friends worldwide.

As part of my responsibility to the scholarship I am required to share my experience with people both at home and in India.  I hope that this blog will begin to give some background as I experience things and will help to structure the conversations I have once I am home.  Please feel free to ask hard questions, as I will be thinking critically about my place in this world and how we are connected and disconnected as human beings.  I look forward to sharing with each of you as I continue to become a great citizen of this planet Earth.   

Thank you again to Rotary District 7600 and the Bon Air Club for sponsoring as well as District 3220 in India for hosting me.  

  

A Chapter Ends- Saying Goodbye

My experience living and working in Burkina Faso yet again was indeed a rewarding one.   It was interesting this time (2011-2012) working in a larger town as before (2006-2008) I lived and worked in a small village.  I felt like I got to see two sides of the coin.  My first experience, most of my close friends did not have higher than a middle school education, while this time I had several friends with masters degrees.  While it was the same culture, the socio-educational and economic difference made it yet another culture within the culture.  Some of my friends teased me and said I acted like a villager, which I proudly agreed with having lived in village the longest.  I loved both experiences for different reasons and am thankful for all of the relationships that were created and especially those that will continue.

It was especially hard saying goodbye to special friends, the girls at the community house, the mother’s association, and the catholic sister I worked with the most.  The girls wrote a song in English and sang it to me at the closing dinner they had for me.  I hid midway through the dinner because I could feel myself getting emotional.   I feel as if Burkina Faso is and will always be a second home for me.  It’s the first foreign country I ever experienced firsthand and will never be forgotten.  So I cannot imagine saying a real goodbye, but instead see you later as I am sure I will be back in the near future.  Though my project ended in May, the relationship lasts forever.  Special thank you to the girls and the staff at the community house for girls, to the mother’s association, to the DEPBA& DREBA, to RAJS, and my English club at the correction office who all shared gifts and love at my departure.  To each of my very dear friends, thank you for your kindness, openness, and love.  Thank you once again to my Burkina.

Indeed I cannot close this without mentioning the United States Peace Corps who provided me the opportunity to learn about another culture, to share my own, and to work alongside the people of Burkina Faso to realize their development goals.  My foundation in international development work and exploration is attributed to you and the wonderful staff that is trained to support Peace Corps Volunteers like me.  While I will no longer be a volunteer with your prestigious organization, the lessons I have learned about cultural appreciation, development, and building relationships worldwide are invaluable features of who I am now as a person.  For that, I say thank you. 

www.peacecorps.org 

Make up Blog- Soap Making

One of the things that the women of the mother’s association wanted to accomplish was to help make available the essential needs of the girls right in the community house.  Soap being so important for personal hygiene, laundry, etc was the task they wanted to take on.  The soap making effort could also be a source of income generating for future projects and activities within the community house, and could also be the spring board for examining other income generating activities.   This was indeed a blast!

The women were willing to put up for the soap making training, but to be able to support them in obtaining supplies, I also applied for a grant through Peace Corps Partnership  Funds.  With the supplies the grant and the women provided the training went well.  The training was a total of 2 and a half days where they learned to make liquid soap and hard shea butter soap.  The liquid soap came out awesome, with no glitches.   When they plan to make it again they said they would likely dilute it more because even though we made high quality soap, others who make the same soap dilute it more and get more profit.  The only way they would keep it as thick as we made it is if they were able to get clients to buy the soap in bulk, like possibly selling to government offices.

The hard soap turned out to be a crazy story.  So if you know anything about soap, it is all chemical reactions between fats and chemicals like lye.  When the two react, they form suds.  Some soaps have better lather depending on the type of fats you use.  We used a mix of coconut oil and Shea butter as our fats.  All was going well until we did not add the right amount of the substance that is like lye.  The recipie called for 2 kilograms.  I assumed that when I went to the store and order 2 kg that they put it all in the same bag.  Nope they didn’t it was in 2 separate bags and the soap ended up being too oily, but it still had a great lather.  We later found the extra kg of soude caustique (that is the lye) and the women did not give up on their soap and massaged the extra kg into the mix.  It was indeed a challenge, but they were good sports about it.  Thankfully, they were not loosing profit as we used the grant money to get a bunch of the supplies and they would be able to make things up based on the liquid soap sales, but it was indeed a learning lesson.  Nonetheless, they were great sports about it and we had a blast.  These women love to laugh and make jokes and we did just that.

~Special thank you to Peace Corps Partnership Funds!

Make up blog-Peer Educators

In December, around the time I was discussing with RAJS about their Aids Awareness Day,  I met with some people to talk about working outside of the community house so that I could offer the most support to the community.  Realistically, I can talk to a group of girls all day and everyday on how to make better decisions, avoid pregnancy, and to assert themselves, but the reality is, the coin is two sided.  I have never met a girl who got pregnant on her own, unless using some sort of donated male specimen.  So, all of the great conversations that the catholic sister and I were having with the girls would be even better if I could interact with a co-ed group.  

I ended up working with a group of 10 youth at a nearby high school.  It was refreshing to find such a dynamic and motivated group of young people!  We talked about the things they felt were pertinent to their peers and then in groups of 2-3 they planned and implemented talks to have with groups of youth.  We met as a group once per month from February to April and ended up accomplishing 2 talks.  One was on preventing unwanted pregnancy, and the other on supporting persons living with HIV/Aids.  We planned an activity on tobacco and alcoholism, but the group rescheduled a few times and in the end it did not work out.  It was indeed a great pleasure to work with those young people.    The conversations that they started with their peers will hopefully continue on.  

Thank you to the Peer Educators of Lycee Municipal de Manga.  Your efforts and work were done with love and appreciation for your peers and your country.  It was an inspiration to work with you J.

Make up Blog- February HIV/Aids Wall

My town was having a large HIV/Aids Day through an organization call RAJS.  The acryonm stands for something, but I mess it up.  Something like Reseau African Jeunesse et Sante.  Basically, it means a network of youth for health issues, I guess when translated loosely.  Incidentally, the Peace Corps in Burkina was doing a Aids Day wall project all over the country during the month of December.  I signed up for it, but as many things go in the field of development, things do not always happen on time.  It was perfect because I was able to partner with such an influential organization for a common cause.  The idea was to do HIV/Aids awareness building activities, have people pledge to live a safe life, and to also be supportive of those living with HIV/Aids.  After the pledge people put their hand prints on the wall as their mark of solidarity for the cause.  RAJS liked the idea and was excited to be able to include this in their already dynamic schedule of events for the day.

RAJS began the day with a march on the main road of the town with many youth.  The girls from the community house were there.  It was such a pleasant surprise seeing them walk from the community house two by two to the site where the march began.  I happened to leave my pledge paper at home and was riding my bicycle franticly home to get it and saw them.  It made my heart overflow with love when they all began waving and yelling “Tanti!” (which means Auntie—the name they call me as a sign of respect).  It was a good way to cool down my nerves because I was definitely excited about the wall I had been painting the last 2 days and also because the first lady of Burkina Faso, Madame Chantel Compoare had agreed to jumpstart the pledges by being the first to put her painted hand on the wall.  Preparation for the event had been slightly overwhelming as the wall was only built 4 days before and it was not dry.  I couldn’t paint a wet wall, but somehow it came together.  It was pretty funny because people who were helping to prepare the event insisted that we needed to put latex gloves on the first lady’s hand because she would not dare put the paint on her hands, but to their surprise she was a trooper and went for the paint uncovered.  Since she set the tone everyone else obviously had to put their bare hand in the paint, it was awesome!  After the march, speeches by important personalities, and the wall pledge there was musical performances, and a dance party for the youth.   It was indeed a momentous and enjoyable event that I will never forget.  

Faith that Moves Mountains…or Makes the Rain Fall…

Yesterday was quite interesting to say the least.  Rain fell in my town.  So first, you must understand that the rainy season starts in late May or June.  At times, a few rain drops can fall towards the end of April, but certainly not in February!  So I must say the fact that it rained is amazing, a blessing, and indeed a manifestation of God’s answers to so many prayers and sacrifices.  Allow me to explain.

I went to another town about 40 miles from my house to learn to make liquid soap with a couple of volunteers.  I had planned this mini training for myself about a month ago because I plan to teach the mother’s association at my community house how to make it.  So sadly, when a few of my community house girls asked me last week if I wanted to walk with them to a mountain and pray, I had to turn them down.  One of the catholic sisters I work with very closely invited me as well, and I declined her invitation as well.  Funny thing is, while I was 40 miles from my town I kept feeling rain droplets.  When I mentioned it to one of the volunteers she insisted that it was a bird flying over me and peeing on me.  Her husband said he felt a few of the drops, but I am not certain they were convinced that it was truly rain.  When I returned to my town, the evidence was undeniable…there was puddles, and wet dirt everywhere…no rain, but a clear sign that rain had fallen and fallen hard.

As I have mentioned several times, there are a bunch of catholic holidays.  Yesterday was yet another.  I have no idea what it is called in English, but people call it Pelionage (if I spelled it right) in French.  I am not certain of all of the ins and outs of the celebration, but I know that there were many people who woke up at 3 or 4am to walk between 4-15 miles (depending on where they lived in my town) to a mountain top where they prayed and gave thanks.  I am a firm believer that God loves and favors those who believe, follow, and have faith in Him regardless of your religious affiliation.  I feel certain that the rain fell because of the prayers of the people here and the sacrifices they made to walk so far despite their health or whatever may have been going on with them.  It is amazing to see such a thing.  Like I said, it was simply a manifestation of God’s love because I am certain there were answered prayers, healing, rejuvenation, and lives saved.  For the rain to have fallen at this time of the year and also on this celebratory day, I can only attribute it to faith, and God’s tangible message that He hears and answers prayers.

I cannot explain how important this tangible message is for me right now in my life and in my faith walk.  I am indeed at times weak, but growing.   God is forever revealing Himself to me and others in so many different ways.  I am sure some will try to explain this away with meteorology, and the science of weather.  And I feel confident that the ideas they have will make scientific sense, but who is to say that God didn’t make the science that explains his manifestations?  And so as I write this message to you, I encourage you and myself to stay firm, believe and be disciplined because God does indeed answer prayers.  I do not know the stories of the people who sacrificed their time, energy, and physical strength, but I know that things changed for many, it did for me based on their faith.   This is not a message to encourage you to become catholic, for I am not, nor to become protestant, or to ascribe to any particular religious sect.  This message is for you and me to encourage us to get to know the true loving and living God for ourselves and to faithfully discipline ourselves to give thanks, to fast, and to pray.  God hears us and will indeed answer our prayers.  If we use the faith that we have, we can indeed move mountains…or make the rain fall.  

“Back to the Grinding Wheel…-Work”

The holidays are over unless you are catholic (there are a ton of Catholic holidays and the catholic sisters I work with are always telling me about another holiday they have coming up which means food, drinks, and hangout out with people…oh yeah, of course there is prayer and remembrance for that special celebration).  Might I add that that comment has absolutely nothing to do with this blog, I am just astonished at just how many holidays there are that are celebrated in the Catholic Church!  I am so happy that I live in Burkina Faso where people of all religions can hang out and celebrate together, it is like the ultimate cultural and religious exchange.  But back to the real topic…WORK!

So the holidays are over and it has been the time to get back into the grind of things.  I cannot remember how much I have told you all about my work here, but I will try to summarize.  I work at a community house and help plan life skills sorts of activities for the girls.  For example in the month of November the topic of the month was Hygiene and health, December was all about communication strategies and being assertive and confident.  This month is about decision making and goal setting.  I also have English clubs with the girls because they take English as a foreign language.  Finally, I am helping to documents the progress of the community house, since it is a pilot program we have to look at whether or not girls living in the community house are measuring up to their peers.  So for the last week I have been making more tables and charts and comparing data based on more data than thought I ever would.  I must say I may have been spoiled by the wonderful technology HCPS purchased to analyze data because right now creating my own excel worksheets to do such is well uh...some work, but its cool.  I enjoy helping out :-).  The community house just got a computer so hopefully in the next few months I can try to transfer some of this knowledge over to the administration here so they can have the joy of making excel sheets, or at least maintaining the ones already created.

For the last few months of my stay here I have decided to try to up the ante and work in the town a bit more.  I now have an English club with some administration of the jail, which is quite interesting to say the least.  Some of them are working toward professional goals that will take them to English speaking countries so they are trying to improve their conversational English.  There is a huge AIDS Day celebration that I am helping with (yes we are 2 months late, but it’s going to be huge…blog coming soon), and I am also trying to set up some peer educator trainings in the nearby high schools.  There are other things in the making, but I would rather wait until things pan out a little more before sharing.  To say the least, things are going well and I honestly feel like my work here is going well.  The thing I love most is that the ideas and the resources for these activities are here already and I am just another support.  My hope is that my work is sustainable development, not “here comes the American plopping some info in our laps that we didn’t ask for”.   I am truly trying to work with the human resources here and well, things seem to be working.  Wish me well as I continue to explore and work.