April 4, 2011
I know I share some tricks with you earlier about how I defy nature but here is another one. This morning I discovered that when I started my shower at 7, if I put my clothes I was going to wear that day into the freezer they would be the perfect temperature by the time I was done with my shower. This morning I took them out after breakfast and they felt like a block of ice so I think a little less time will be perfect. I’m contemplating putting my pillow in there but it doesn’t look very clean and I’m sure meat has been stored in there so I’m not too sure about it right now….
I’ve started my showers by cleaning myself off and then putting on my PJs and showering again with them in hopes that they stay wet and cool, I’m just nervous the bed will start to grow mold.
Today was the first day I went into IRD to do some work, which meant I had Internet access! I met the staff there who were extremely nice and helpful, I also ate at the department “cafeteria” which is a grass hut out in the back and the woman says “pasta or rice” and you don’t know what’s coming. The office is air-conditioned which made me never want to leave but my translator is getting confirmed at the end of this month by the Catholic Church and she has classes everyday for the whole month. Oddly, she isn’t very religious; she believes in Jesus and says that in Burkina you must choose one. and by choosing one she means either Muslim or catholic. She is 30 years old now and choosing so I don’t think its a must, she might be looking to get married I don’t know. She invited me to her confirmation but it starts at 10 pm and goes till 1 am and would be impossible for me to get home. Also I don’t know if I’d survive 3 hours of church and in particularly at that hour.
I had my first banking experience here…you go into the bank with 300 hundred of one type of money and come out a billionaire in anther type. Weirdest thing. When we got to the bank a man automatically takes away Mirabelle’s ID card. That is how people wait in line, their card is behind the desk. So we wait and wait, in air- conditioning (highlight of my day is air conditioning) and a woman puts a hat on her baby when they go inside….HA! and then to exchange money you have to sign a whole bunch of papers and give your phone number before you can leave. And then pay the bank to park your bike by the bank. All of it would be completely lost on me without Mirabelle. Not just that is confusing but the fact that there are no street signs, no road rules, and basically no one to ask.
I remember in high school one week we had a substitute teacher in math who got so angry that everyone was texting during class he yelled at us and said that we were all spoiled brats that could never survive without running water and electricity. He was from India if I remember which is irrelevant but points out that he might have himself been in poverty or lived very close to it. As opposed to the US where it’s basically impossible to come across people living on less than a dollar a day. While he was obviously fired for that remark, I think he missed a key element to the no running water and electricity. Its not the lack there of but the lack there of there EVER being anything else. For me I know I only have 63 days until I go home to my shower, flushing toilets and wireless, but who’s counting? Obviously even a spoiled brat can ‘survive’ here, which clearly I am doing, for the second time. The difficulty is the lack of mobility. For example I am without a doubt not getting all the nutrients I need. I don’t think I’ve seen a green thing since I left CDG airport and had pesto pasta. But I also know two months wont drastically effect my health because as soon as I get to Sweden I’m going to eat an arugula salad with candied walnuts and slices of apples with a mustard dressing… but again who is counting the days. My point is, is that when someone says to me ‘you are so brave,’ for going to africa I must admit I don’t feel brave, I feel unworthy of the compliment, and guilty that my ‘suffering’ is temporary. I can count it on a calendar. I know its hard to comprehend what its like to have zero possibilities in life, and living meal by meal but the bravery in this life is facing everyday knowing that this is the way it will be forever, it was the hand you were dealt. So as I describe what I am going through, and all the ‘suffering’ I am going through and the pain, remember that I have money, I am educated, I have healthcare, a refrigerator, and fans and most importantly I have a departure date. But for more than 70% of Burkina Faso residents this is not the case, they will live this same life until they day they die, and probably with more suffering as they get older. It isn’t bravery, it is 1/30th of a bite of what my life could have been had the cards been dealt differently.
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