Sunday, January 21, 2007

So Much Going On

In the month since Christmas there has been a lot going on and it has been hard to process everything.

The day I left to going into koudougou and await a final decision, I realized that the night before my little brother had stolen 20,000 CFA from me (about $40). That is a substantial sum for me and a ridiculous amount for a villagois kid. I call my friend Nebilbie who lives in my family compound and just got a new cell phone. I went through him because he is a respected member of the family. I was hoping he would keep it quiet as stealing here is a very serious situation and I was afraid that the entire family could not handle the shame of having a thief in the family. It sounds so bizarre I know to our western ears that a kid's actions can affect the entire family but in a communal setting it is very likely that everyone could suffer from humiliation. Unfortunately my friend was not discreet and by the time I got back the entire village knew. We recovered some but not all of the money. When I got back to the house I came across my father. There was so much sadness, shame and fear in his eyes that I almost began to cry as he tried to apologize in his broken French. I believe that conversation was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life. After several meetings with myself, Nebilbie and the elders of my family they finally decided the kid should be banished from the town for a week and is never allowed into my small fenced in yard. My dad also gave me a guinea fowl which we prepared and ate on Christmas.

Christmas was fun. I went to midnight mass, had friends over, made potato soup. I went to Ouaga for New Year's. There were a bunch of volunteers around and we had a party at the house which is really fun. The new volunteers at midnight said much the same thing that we said last year, "Can you believe that we are celebrating the New Year in Africa?" Those of us who have already spent a year here said, "At least we get to go home this year." Funny our different perspectives.

For some sad news, my closest Peace Corp neighbor who was only 10 km away and worked with me on a lot of projects got sent home. She got caught breaking the rules and decided it was time for her to leave. It was very sad to see her go and it doesn't feel the same since she is gone. She will be greatly missed. After her leaving I have had a series of nightmares about having to leave my village unexpectedly. I believe it is sort of like PTSD. It made me realize how much I will miss my villagers and home hard it will be to leave.

My caravan was a big success. Thanks to all of you who supported us. We started Monday the 8th. Sixteen members of the association came and performed a play and held small discussions on AIDS. It lasted for the entire week and we went to two villages a day. We biked about 170 km in all. I was quite tired! I was worried that I would have too much stress to handle but power was delegated so effectively I actually had nothing to do for the whole week. It was quite nice and makes me feel like the association will be able to continue when Peace Corp leaves Tiogo. The finally day the Prefet came to see our closing sketch and then we had a party and killed a mouton at my house. During the bike-a-thon two villages solicited our help for setting up theatre troupes with the young in their towns. We also we told by our mayor that he will try to start a funded project with them and an NGO in Koudougou. These are all huge motivating factors for the actors. I took some video footage and pictures of the event and will try to post it on the blog. If not my friend Amanda will post it on her website at www.tharshegoes.com.

After the final party I went to bed only to wake up in the middle of the night because of a sound near my food chest. Thinking it was mice again I got up and grabbed a skillet to kill it. Instead of a mouse I found a huge foot long bush rat! After much screaming, crying, shaking and talking to the rat, I finally chased it out of my house by spraying it with bug spray. Quite fun.

Well, I am leaving tonight and well see most of you soon.