My Village Visit

Peace Corps has a rule against travelling at night. It's just generally unsafe. There are a lot of old vehicles here, and therefore a lot of vehicle trouble. People just stop in the road sometimes for repairs. Also, most people here just aren't great drivers. When you add in the darkness of night things get even tricker. With all of this in mind my homologue (my village counterpart) and I decided to take the earliest bus leaving Ouagadougou for the long trip to the beautigul southwestern region of Banfora, not far from the border of Cote d'Ivoire. I had a lot riding on this trip. We were traveling to visit the small village that will be my home for the next two years.
I was already dreading transport. It's the most dangerous thing that we do as volunteers. Behicle accidents here are pretty bad and there's not a lot of medical assistance around. Also, transport is cramped, dirty, inefficient, and looong! When I travelled with my language group to the small city of Tougan for our demystification trip (a trip to see what volunteers' lives are like), we ended our day of travel exhausted, hot, thirsty and COMPLETELY coverd in a layer of red dust.
I was pleasantly surprised by the AIR CONDITIONED bus that I boarded that morning. The bus even had two T.V.s so that people could watch bad soap operas and music videos. It took us about 5 hourse to reach Bobo-Diolasso, where we had a 2 hour layover, and then another hour or so to reach Banfora. I slept most of the way, and everything ran like clockwork. Plus, Yacouba (my homologue) was with me and helped to keep an eye on my sweet mountain bike.
The interesting part of the trip was after we reached Banfora. First of all we had trouble getting the front tire of my bike situated correctly. Tansport is really really tough on bikes and they are not typically treated with care. So, Yacouba took me to meet a friend of his, Issa, who knows a few things about bikes and was able to fix mine right up (despite the missing piece). Issa is a super friendly older gentleman who was very easy for me to understand (his French) and we had a nice little chat while Yacouba checked out the situation with the bush taxi (which would be necessary for the last leg of our journey).
Bush taxis are cars or vans that dudes drive to the smaller villages to offer transportation for the average village dweller. If buses tend to be dirty, cramped, and break down a lot; well, bush taxis are a whole lot worse. It was getting late in the day, so I was anxious to leave (because transport at night is sketch). Since we are not too far from the equator the sun set here is around 7 PM or so. However, the driver waited until he had every seat occupied (and then some...a dude on the roof), and took quite a while to load up everyone's junk (and my poor bike) on top. Eventually we did take off on the windy, red dirt road to my village.
Banfora is the most beautiful area of Burkina Faso, and possibly the world. The road to my village winds its way for 75 km past bright green fields spotted with large, ancient trees. Occasionally we passed a village of round huts with thatched roofs and a few concrete buildings with metal roofs mixed in. I felt like we were in a park because the road is lined with large trees on either side. As the sun began to set we saw mist hovering over the rice fields and people started heading home.
Despite the beauty, it was not lost on me that it was getting dark very quickly. Our journey was slow because the roads were very muddy and covered with water in many places. This is the one of the tradeoffs to living in beautiful Banfora during the rainy season. Riding in the bush taxi at night was pretty interesting, but we made it to my new home around 9 PM safe and sound. And I had to hurriedly take my bucket bath before the thunderstorm rolled in.
The villages in the Banfora area are situated a little differently than other villages in Burkina.. Most family dwellings around here are situated in a courtyard style with a wall separating one family from another. Typically, just a nuclear family lives together. In my village huge extended families live together in a hodge-podge of huts and concrete houses. I live among the famly of my homologue. In general I'm glad to be around a family, because it will be easier to integrate and much safer. Although, it will take a while to get used to all of the publicity and also the noise. As in my training village there are a lot of animals among the dwellings, and the women wake up around 5 every morning to start pounding corn for the day (so loud).
The next day I was busy meeting the chief of the village, the workers at the health center, peeps at the mayor's office, and the director of the middle school. This was a great because everyone was super friendly and spoke French (I could communicate)! A lot of people in my town speak no French, but only one or both of the local langauges, Dioula and Senafou. Other than when I was meeting the officials (who speak French), I did a lot of sitting around while everyone elso spoke either Dioula or Senafou. It was a little uncomfortable for someone who is used to talking so much. Luckily, I start my Dioula training in a couple of weeks!
The next morning I hopped back on the bush taxi and made my way back to my regional capital, Banfora. I was met by another volunteer who has a really sweet house in the cityy. She showed us around and we got to eat some great burgers and fries. Saturday, we spent the whole day at the most beautiful pool I've ever seen. We had free Wi-Fi, a restaurand with western and Lebanese food, and great views of the surrounding countryside. Since I will have no electricity or running water and limited access to a village market, it's great to know that Banfora is not too far away with some nice amenities.