Post #2

Flash forward! I've officially started the Peace Corps! I'm in Philadelphia right now, staging with the other incoming Burkina Faso volunteers. It's hard to believe that I'm already here. Not to mention that I already feel a few blog posts behind... I've had so many fun and intense experiences right here in the USA.

So how has life been since my last post?

A mile a minute and full of packing and goodbyes. I spent a couple of weeks working as staff at Shadowcliff in Colorado, where I got my last taste of snow and ice until 2014. I have many good friends there to thank for a killer experience there that really helped me gear up for the Peace Corps.

But I think that Saturday sums up life in my last week here in the USA. I stumbled out of bed around 9:00, still tired from Tuesday's 20-mile run in the mountains, 22-hour train ride, writing more e-mails than ever before, and biking around the city sharing good times with friends and family. But there wasn't a moment to spare. I had hardly started packing, and had also planned a going-away party at the lake. I have my family to thank for pulling it all off. Miraculously, we worked together making a small feast, I got all of my shopping finished and things assembled some five hours later.

Of course, it wouldn't have been a real party without all of the fantastic family and friends who showed up! It was a real treat to see you guys on my last day in Chicago. Thank you for your words of love and encouragement! And your assistance in our attempts to fend off the feral ducks and newlyweds... 

But the evening of fun led to a night of agonizing debate. What to take with? Here are two questions that I tussled with for a good part of the night, as I searched for a certain important document that went missing (found at 4 AM!).

#1: Paints, or No Paints?

Every once in a blue moon, I paint. I did 2.5 paintings last year. But the optimist in me thinks that I'll have lots of time and creative energy to paint in Burkina Faso dilemma. Do I overrule the optimist?

Setting the tone for the night, I settled on a compromise. No acrylics. No fancy tube water colors. Just ink, a watercolor palette (like the one you might have used as a kid, but a cut fancier). I also have plenty of sketchbooks, pencils and pens, with some to spare. Pen and pencil is my bread and butter, even if coloring sketches in on the computer involves some creativity while in Africa, it's still what I'm most likely to do. But perhaps most importantly, I'm excited to see what Burkina Faso offers to the aspiring amateur artist. I'm all for experimenting with new mediums. We'll see what comes up!

#2: How many books?

Some people have e-readers, and think that anything involving paper is a barbaric relic of the past. I tend to think this is true of boring stuff: academic papers, old tax returns and bills. But writing that is important enough to be a part of my 74 pounds of luggage (your final total here) has to have some heft to it. What was perhaps most important was my photo album and a set of family memoirs. People in Burkina Faso are very close to their families, and whenever I introduce myself to host families, I will be bringing more than myself along. These pictures and stories will help me tell where I come from, and in a small part, transport my family that a far corner of the world. I think it will be difficult, to relate to people who have not traveled far from home as a person from thousands of miles away, but this will be well worth the extra weight.

I also started a care package to myself, which includes two things so far: Switch: How to Change when Change is Hard., and selected letters that I've received over the years. Switch is one of the most inspirational and practical books that I've read, and explains concisely why people change, and what facilitates that. It is filled with real-life examples, many related to development, health and organizational change, all stories that I think will be relatable in some way to what I'm about to experience. As for the letters... I'm hoping that they'll arrive just as I'm hitting a low point in the culture-shock roller coaster. The care, and words of kindness that I have received from you all (especially my sister Margaret, and Grandma Marge) of the years is also inspiring, and I hope I can write two letters for every one I get in the mail. I will miss you. But connection is the blood that keeps us moving. If there's one lesson that the past year has taught me, it's that.

Related to that, I have an address! It is:

Ethan Heppner, PCT

s/c Corps de la Paix

01 B.P. 6031

Ouagadougou 01, Burkina Faso

My e-mail, in case you don't have it, is: heppnere@gmail.com

My Skype: zero.eth

Please feel welcome to add me!

This leads me to another point: the purpose of this blog. I intend to write half-stories. This means that I will intentionally obscure details, leave out critical pieces of information, and fudge facts (OK, I'm kidding here-- no untruths). Why?

It's too easy to have a false connection with people. You read their blogs, you have all of their stories, and you pass them on. You know an awkward amount about other people's lives. You write a “how are you doing?” e-mail, or give them a call, but you know perfectly well how they're doing. I hope to save you this confusion. So, you'll have an incomplete story, perhaps a couple of cliffhangers. You'll have to talk to me personally to get the rest (or talk to someone who did). E-mail me. Set up a Skype date. I'll be surprisingly accessible. I ought to have internet access at least once per week during staging, likely more often afterwards, since I'll be teaching IT in a country where internet access is rapidly expanding. And whether you are a close relative or friend, or an “FPCV” checking out the story of some current Burkina Faso volunteer, I do intend to get back to you, as my internet access and level of energy permit.

One last shout-out! The day that I leave for Burkina Faso (tomorrow), my Mom and Uncle Tom also depart for Ireland to do an incredible bike trip. I'm so excited for them!

OK, that's enough for now. No dramatic exit, but this will be my last post in the United States. I'll catch you on the flipside, where yes, the oeuvres will continue to saute.

A la prochaine: (ETA 1-2 weeks): Post on Stage, Arrival and Training!

ETH

Les oeuvres commencent!

Welcome!

If you're checking this out, you might already know that I'll be going to Burkina Faso with the Peace Corps in June. And since I finally thought up of a decent title, a theme, if you will, for the next two-odd years, I've started this blog to commemorate the experience.

First, you might ask: what's a Burkina Faso? Burkina Faso is a small country in Central-West Africa, landlocked and completely surrounded by other countries you might have vaguely heard of: Benin, Togo, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali and Niger. It's famous for the annual Pan-African Film Festival, the bi-annual International Arts and Crafts Fair, and former President Thomas Sankara, who gave the country its modern name. Burkina: "Men of Integrity" (in Móoré) Faso: "Father's House" (in Dioula)

What might you ask next? Depends on who you are.

 

 

If you are/were an econ major: 

"What's the economy like there?"

Here are few interesting numbers:

550 - Burkina's income per capita. This makes it one of the poorer countries of the world-- GDP rankings put it close to Nepal, Bangladesh and neighboring Mali.

85 - The percentage of Burkinabé who work in agriculture. Popular crops include sorghum, corn, black-eyed peas, soybeans and groundnut. Cotton and gold are the biggest exports.

5 - Percentage of Burkina's exports that go to China. As strange as it seems coming from the US, China is actually the biggest importer of Burkinabé goods.

If you want to make small talk: 

"What's the weather like there?"

Hot and fairly dry. The average day in the hot season (March-May) will top out over 100º F. Nightly lows in theory will average in the 80s, but current volunteer blogs suggest otherwise...

During the "cool" season (December-February), temps usually get into the 90s during the day and drop into the 60s at night. Apparently, this will come to feel downright frigid.

Rain is seasonal-- most of it falls between June and September. The north is more arid, the south more humid.

I'll find out for myself soon enough, but I'd like to think this quote from the incoming volunteer Facebook page sums up the weather in a nutshell:

there has been a request from current pcvs that you bring super soakers or other water guns. hot season is here...

Challenge accepted.

If you are concerned about health:

This issue, the Peace Corps takes most seriously. In fact, the medical screening process is the most rigorous part of the application. I have to be thankful for my good health thusfar: I only had to take care of a cavity and get vaccinated against yellow fever (actually a requirement for anyone entering Burkina). I believe there is another round of vaccinations at staging (pre-service orientation), but I'll find out more about that soon.

I do know that taking an antimalarial will be part of my weekly regimen, with the possibility of teaching malaria prevention techniques to my host community: malaria prevention is one of the "High Five" goals of Peace Corps Burkina Faso. Here's an eye-opening post from a current volunteer about the epidemic, in observance of World Malaria Day (April 25th).

If you are struck by the title of this blog:

Les oeuvres saute is a grammatically incorrect way of saying "The works (of art) jump" in French. How is this relevant?

The official language of Burkina Faso is French*. I studied that language for a semester in college! Which is to say that my knowledge of it is un peu mauvais...


But in hopes saving myself from some embarrassment come arrival in-country this June, I've been going back to study. This has involved some textbook work, watching videos, writing some "journal entries" in French, but most importantly, it's involved going to French language meetup groups and of course, making embarrassing mistakes in conversation. Example:

We are discussing different ways of cooking in French, and someone mentions how the English word "sauté" comes from the French word, which has the exact same spelling and meaning. But "sauté" is very closely related to the word "saute", which means "jump". We puzzle over this for a minute and decide it makes sense. After all, French chefs flip their sautes with flair, as if the food is jumping out of the pan.

I take out my notebook, and draw a picture of a couple of eggs jumping out from a frying pan with a corresponding caption. Voila. Les oeuvres saute.

Except eggs = "oeufs". Wrong word. I find this out later, when a Burkinabé family comes to the table and I move over to join them. As I show them my notebook, everyone breaks out laughing. Embarrassing... but fun. I learn a few new words that I'm unlikely to forget anytime soon. And hopefully, just hopefully, I've learned to pay more attention to verb conjugations.

But the most important take-away from this experience is that for the next two years and three months, I'll likely get into countless similar situations, mixing up language, inadvertently doing the culturally inappropriate and generally dealing with the awkwardness of being an outsider. Making terrible puns. Failing and learning from it.

One question that may also come up:

So what exactly are you going to do there?

Fair question. The title of my position is Formal Education Volunteer, or more specifically, "IT teacher". While the details are still unclear, I'm likely to teach a high school computer class for about 10 hours per week, and then use the rest of my time to work with kids (and other teachers) outside of class. But here's a more immediate timetable:

I leave for Burkina this June (33 days and counting...), train for three months in Saponé with the other volunteers and then (hopefully) be sworn in and placed where I'll serve for the next two years. I actually don't know where this will be yet-- the Peace Corps will decide after a few weeks of training. When I arrive on-site in late August/early September, I will spend the next 2-3 months conducting an Etude de Milieu-- a feasibility study that will define the scope of my work for the last 21 months, after I go through one more month of in-service training.

This puts me at ~Jan. 2013, when the "real" Peace Corps experience begins. And while I can't be sure exactly what I'll be doing at that point from here (on top of teaching 10 hours/week), a few interesting options include:

• Sponsoring student clubs/spelling bees/science fairs. Possibly a school garden where students get to sell the produce? This is one of our guide's recommendations.
• Getting students involved with local businesses, and possibly even tech startups!
• Planting and managing 625 trees per year with the environment volunteers, to help fight desertification and erosion.
• Collaborating with the health and environment volunteers on Malaria, HIV/AIDS and hygiene workshops.

One thing to note: I don't have all too much experience with any of this. Most everything I'm set to do will be completely new to me. But somehow, I have been invited with a good-sized group of other Americans to facilitate "sustainable economic development" in a country I'd heard of once before this past November. Pretty cool, huh? But what does this "sustainable economic development" really mean? I've never been into formal definitions, but maybe I'll find out soon.

To conclude? I'm intimidated and excited at the same time. It's not unlike the feeling you get when you know you're about to do something great, but will have to work hard in order to do it right (as it should be!). It's similar to the feeling of a les oeuvres saute moment, where the pleasure is learning and then pain is making a fool of yourself. I can guarantee that I'll have a lot of those, and I'll share them here as my connection to the internet and will to write permits.

 À la prochaine!

ETH


* Just because French is the "official language" doesn't mean that everyone speaks it. So, I'll be learning one or two local languages (likely Móoré or Dioula) as well!