If you think you are having a bad day, Just imagine…
- Two 10 year old girls hand-washing your WORST underwear, the ones you deny even owning, and then hanging them to dry on the fence that EVERYONE in the community walks by!
- While you are deep in thought about what language is spoken in Afghanistan, while taking your morning bucket bath, a sheep enters and watches you!
- While you are singing out loud to your MP3 player under a tree, the children you were hoping to escape start laughing at you as they circle and stare like you are a zoo animal!
- In a country where the BIGGEST NO-NO is to eat with your left (dirty) hand, you eat with your left hand- in front of EVERYONE!
- When you attempt to hand-wash your clothes a small crowd gathers, and then when you place a shirt in the ‘rinse’ bucket, they point, laugh, say ‘pas bon’ and hand you back the shirt to re-wash. Finally, they push you aside to wash YOUR clothes the “right” way.
- When you declare you are “here to help,” you get a stare that says “you’re crazy” and a response… “but you can not speak the language…???”
- Your ‘bathroom’ is merely a hole the size of the top of a paint can. The days you ‘make’ it- a small celebration takes place.
- Everyday you are called “Whitie” in Moore or French (take your pick) until your host family tells you, you are not really white but red (Two words- IT’S HOT)!
- While riding your bike, you fall completely into a huge, deep mud puddle because you did not exactly follow the route of the boy trying to help you. Though you are soaked, at least the people in the fields get a good laugh!
- And then imagine… going to a baptism at the RICHEST guy’s house- in your WORST outfit… while everyone else is dressed to the nines….. !
So anytime you are having a hard day or are stressed out, just think, you COULD have become suddenly stupid in Burkina Faso!!!!!!!!!!!! 
November 18th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
I love your blog. I’m leavning for Burkina Faso in June to be a GEE volunteer as well…this whole application process took me a year, and I’ve gone back and forth with many of the same questions regarding privilege, poverty, and the meaning of the Peace Corps…I especially enjoyed your musings on the whole ET business. More people should be that thoughtful, I think. I really like reading what you have to say. Take care, keep cool.
November 24th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Hey Anne,
I love the blog, especially the header image and layout. I have to ask, did you start with a template or do the whole design from scratch? I’m just getting a blog up after months of hand-journaling. Things are progressing here in Banfora little by little. I can relate to the circling, jeering, neighborhood kid-hooligans. Hang in there.
Cheers,
Brad