World Map (Part III) - Pagne Project (Part I)

Let me start where I left off last time. Following the Ambassador's visit in December, the teachers wrote an ambitious requête or proposal for various donations to the school. They asked for: solar panels to light the classrooms at night; a computer (and electricity generator) to keep better school records; sports equipment to use in physical education with the kids; sound equipment to do theater and awareness raising activities with the community; books in French for students to read; and a partnership with an American school.

I emailed the Ambassador. She responded quickly and congratulated my community on their ambitious requests. She explained what the Embassy could and couldn't do to help: if we wanted to make a partnership with an American school or procure books in French we would have to do it on our own but for the other requests the Embassy could potentially help. She recommended that I meet with her Head Economics Officer to discuss grant options. Great.

Around this time I was also surprisingly busy: I had three fabulous friends come to visit from America and subsequently took an unexpected trip to the USA myself to see a sick grandparent. While I was home I visited the third grade classroom of my own elementary school friend who has now become "Miss Niland". I had the kids from Béléhédé write to her class once and when her class returned the favor they also sent over a large, bountiful package mostly full of books in French!! The efforts of these third grade children in Harrington Park have significantly touched the community in Béléhédé including the parents' associations, the teachers and the students themselves. These books are the foundation for -- and very first contributions to -- a school library which the community hopes to build in the future. THANK YOU.

When I met with the economics officer at the Embassy she advised applying for their "Pagne Grant". Pagnes are the patterned, brightly colored fabrics with which almost all Burkinabé clothes are made. Women wrap these cloths around their waists, busts, heads and backs where they serve as skirts, house dresses, towels, head coverings and baby-holders. Men get them made into booboos, pants, shirts and children's clothing. People twist money into their corners -- bundling in coins or bills with a strong knot -- and wrap their belongings in them when they travel. In theory people could use them to filter very dirty water by placing them over their canneries or clay pots where they cool their drinking water but I actually haven't seen anyone do that. So...

The Embassy got special pagnes printed with patterns that symbolize collaboration between Burkina Faso and the USA to give out to Burkinabé associations and Peace Corps Volunteers applying for small-medium grants. We applied for this grant requesting the equivalent of over 1,000,000 cfa ($2,000) to pay for solar panels, a computer, a generator, sound equipment and sports equipment. The Embassy decided to fund us for ALL of these requests excepting sports equipment since the Head Economics Officer herself gave me an in kind donation to walk away with after our interview. Nice!

Of course this process took a couple of months. On May 11 I picked up the pagnes and sent them off to arrive in village by May 13. There are 708 of them. Let me give you some perspective. To make a full, head to toe, long sleeves/ long skirt outfit it would take 2. If you are a baller and show up to a baptism with an above and beyond gift for the new mother you would give her 1. If you are a functionnaire and have a family you might decide to go ahead and spend the money to buy them in sets of 3. (That's how they are intended to be sold.)

From the beginning of the initiative I insisted that the people responsible for the project be women. I added (in truth) and then exaggerated (in my own interest) the fact that the Embassy prefers to grant money to female-driven associations. So we put the request in the name of our Association Meres Educatrices or the mothers' PTA. Later, the Embassy came to check out the association and met with a wider group of women from my village who were interested in the project. In the end they created a committee du gestion or a managing committee of 12 women to execute the sale of all 708 pagnes. The school director also selected one teacher to serve as the general project manager and overseer of funds. Together they opened an account in the village credit union.

Challenges: 6 of the pagnes were destroyed or went missing on transport. The Embassy gave enough pagnes to cover the costs of the equipment requested but not enough to cover unexpected costs like transporting them, etc. Rumors circulated in the village: one went that the pagnes were a gift intended to become school uniforms that the teachers had stolen and were now selling for profit.

Solutions: I called a meeting and invited the "whole community". Most people came 2-3 hours late (typical) but we had about 80 people. I told the "story" of all that had happened from the day of the Ambassador's visit on December 20 up until this very meeting six months later. I asked the project manager to give an account of the budget and all financial matters. We noted that from before the first pagne sale, the committee du gestion had decided to up the price of the pagnes by 250 cfa to cover unbugeted costs to be incurred throughout the project execution. I stressed that the people in attendance were responsible for informing their smaller communities - neighbors, families and friends about the history of this project.

The meeting dispelled rumors and testified to the fact that sales were off to a good start. We asked people to be patient and told them that this would take a long time to reach completion. At least 1/3 of the pagnes had already been sold by the day of the meeting but we noted that they probably wouldn't finish selling off until October or November following the harvest. That is the annual moment when Burkinabé start earning some money. Rainy season (during the summer months) is the time of the year when rural farmers are most broke.

I will be leaving Béléhédé on August 12 and Burkina Faso on August 21. I've learned that I'll have a replacement, his name is Charlie and he's going to be awesome! So I may give you more info about this initiative via him next year. As for myself... I was going to do a third year in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Unfortunately that fell through. But the good - great -- excellent (!) news is that I will still be doing a third year right next door to Burkina in TOGO.

Check it out...I can't wait to go! TOGO

TO BE CONTINUED...

P.S. My camera is broken since January so no more pictures until October. : (

The Princess & the Pea

I've come a long way.

When I first arrived in Burkina I had a lot of trouble sleeping. Why? Well, lots of reasons: heat, sickness, goats, baby goats, prayer-calls, cows, cockroaches, sheep, sheets, roof noises (thatched = creepy crunching and random rustling; tin = thunderous thumping and screechy scurrying) lumpy beds, hungry bed-bugs, itchy bug-bites, heat rash, and well, STRESS! So, ultimately, lack of sleep was my biggest challenge during training.

I distinctly remember the first time I cracked: It was about three weeks in and I had just fallen ill with the amoeba (although we wouldn't know it for another two weeks) and I hadn't slept for two nights. So when one friend asked me if I was feeling ok (why was he ALWAYS asking how I feel?!) I snapped: I'm freaking* FINE! -- now picture Jesse Spano from "Saved by the Bell" on the episode where she gets hooked on methamphetamines -- I'm just... soo... TIRED... sob... choke... oohh waa ha huh...

But let me rewind a bit first. Did I ever tell you about my first night in host village?

The way I remember it: when it was a reasonably late enough to go to sleep my host sister showed me to bed and shut the door. In retrospect: showed me how the door shut.

I left the door shut because clearly that was what I was supposed to do. In retrospect: NO ONE in Burkina ever sleeps inside unless it is raining. And with the door shut? Ha!

They gave me two sheets and a pillow so clearly I tucked my sheets, my mosquito net and myself into bed with sheet no. 2 draped over me. Because that's what sheets are for! In retrospect: what's with me and sheets? was I suicidal that night? or was it so genuinely hot that my brain had gone dead?

The rest of the night was a feverish bluuurr...I was losing water fast and those damn sheets were soaking wet. I kept sitting up to drink water from my nalgene until I actually had to go refill the thing. I slipped in and out of lucidity but did I ever really sleep? Then suddenly at about 11 pm or closer to midnight the wailing began.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOHHHHHAAAAAAAhhhhhh... wwaaAAAAAAAAAAAaaaOOOOOOoohhhaaaaAAAAAAaaahhhhh..... WAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOWWAAAAAOOOOWWAAAAAOOOOOOOWAAAAAaaaaahhhh....

I sat straight up in bed.

AAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEEOOOOOOO AAAAIIIEEEEE AIIEE AIIEEEeee aaaaaaahhh... AAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEEOOOOOOO AAAAIIIEEEEE AIIEE AIIEEEeee aaaaaaahhh...

AAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEEOOOOOOO AAAAIIIEEEEE AIIEE AIIEEEeee aaaaaaahhh...

I even pulled the soaking sheet up to my neck. What the ....?

OOOOOOWWWHHHOOOOOAAAAOOOOOOOWWWWOOOOWWOOOW....

Then the voices starting getting closer... and louder if possible... and they were moving... wait a minute... I lept up to check the windows... (careful to illuminate my 6 foot path with a powerful flashlight)... and the voices were... OMG ... running in circles around my hut!!! AAH!!

So I started to recall my research on Burkina Faso. What do I know about traditions in this country? They are Muslim, Christian and what was it - 30% Animist? Wait, did I not read somewhere that most everyone, despite their claimed religion, is an animist at heart? Could the family Tall be wailing about...ME? They are running in circles around my hut... Could this be some kind of freaky African welcoming blessing or worse - OMG - a curse??? Or maybe its a purifying ritual? But WAIT, OK -- maybe it is just an unrelated-to-me nightly household ritual. Oh God I hope not.

What do I do? Should I go outside? Should I call out something? Should I offer to participate and run the wailing circles alongside? What's culturally appropriate? No, I'm not moving. This is too wild. I've already had my door shut. But WHAT IS THIS??

BANG! BANG! BANG!

I ran to my door which simultaneously flung open to reveal my host sister's wild, wailing face.

FAUT-PAS-AVOIR-PEUR-QUELQU'UN-EST-MORT!

which means:

YOU-MUSN'T-HAVE-FEAR-SOMEONE-IS-DEAD!

and she slammed the door in my face.

Needless to say I did not sleep much that night though I did learn the next day that the person they thought had died actually hadn't. What did I do that next morning? Who knows, I probably just went around to shake hands with everyone just like they taught me to- Good morning. How did you sleep? And your family? Your courtyard? Peace only! Peace throughout the night. Ha.

Now where do I go from here? Why didn't I write this story when it happened? I think I was a bit lost for words at the time... heck, maybe I thought it was a hallucination? It wasn't. But my sleeping troubles didn't end there. I tried staying inside with the door open, I tried moving outside into my tent with Yaneth's yoga mat, we even moved the mattress outside from time to time and hung my mosquito net from the straw hangar above. But nonetheless:

Princess Christina

I was first inspired to write this post 21 months ago after successfully (!) sleeping one night on a cement floor. The only thing between me and anything that crawled the night or lurked within the cracks of this filthy floor was a cheap woven plastic mat and a thin pagne draped over me (still with a sheet (!) man, old habits die hard/my mother would be proud.) The theme of the post was to be how very far I had come in six short months to realizing sleep under the most uncomfortable conditions. I slept on a concrete floor!

Princess Christina six months later.

At the time I felt had come to the absolute pinnacle of tough-girl sleeping. But the thing about Peace Corps is that you are always exceeding your own expectations. Where I have slept since then: on a mattress on the floor of my house; on mattresses on the floors of other people's houses; on a mattress on the floor of my porch; on my yoga mat on the floor of my house; on my yoga mat on the floor of my porch; alone outside on my cot; alone outside in a tent on a silver of a mattress, on a yoga mat and on the ground; and ON TRANSPORT.

So lets fast forward to just the other day - I was in my house sleeping on a thin mattress on the cot when I awoke to utter darkness and a bit too much heat. I went outside to pee only to discover that the crescent moon had set and the May stars were as visible as they EVER could be. It was also cooler outside than inside and I decided to get a thick blanket to throw over a thin mattress to put down on my termite-ridden, collapsed and rotten, wooden lounge-bed. Yes. This sorry excuse for a piece of furniture has lived the past two years outside in the elements since I value it that much. Once, when I had a Burkinabe guest, I absolutely marveled that he could lay a thin mattress on this dilapidated, disgusting ol' thing; cover it with a mosquito net and simply fall asleep! But I too took that final step just the other day. First, I adjusted the thing's position so as to see the greatest portion of the sky and then when I laid down - exhausted, cooler and more comfortable in the starry breeze than inside my house - I remembered: I never EVER thought I could fall asleep on this!

So I looked up at the stars, reflected on my progress, imagined finally writing this blog post and I never fell asleep. Later I got up and moved back inside where the original cot was waiting for me and I was glad to still think of myself as The Princess with The Pea. I was glad to know I haven't made all my progress yet. The next night I did sleep on that makeshift bed. So what is next? I have my aspirations and dreams...

HAHAHA... JUST KIDDING!! Here's what I'm really going for:

And I lived happily ever after...

* I didn't say "freaking".

Just Send A Kid

Need more credit for your phone card?
just send a kid
Suddenly have guests but no sugar for the tea?
just send a kid
Want to talk to your counterpart but can't find him?
just send a kid

For a year and a half I didn't have cell phone service in village. Every time my mother would call, someone would pick up the phone and babble away in local language.
Hadjara? Hadjaraaaa? I want to speak to Hadjaraaa!? my mom would yell into the receiver in the mean time until the call-recipient finally hung up. She'd always wait and call back in 10 or 15 minutes because by that time they would have sent a kid.

During this same period, whenever someone wanted to find me for any reason - from asking me a question to informing me that the school inspector had come - they'd send a kid.

If anyone ever wants to give you something - like prepared food or freshly harvested crops - they invariably send it with a kid.

Water?
send a kid
Sand?
send a kid
Cigarettes? Hot coals? Machete?
send a kid

I was in a car in the States in January, explaining this system to my mother, when it occurred to me that at any given daytime moment in rural Burkina Faso there must be something like 20% of the child-teenage population running petty errands for adults.

Burkina Faso has one of the worst adult literacy rates in the world: about 12%. Out-of-school youth abound in small villages and so do men who drink (and purchase the materials for) tea more than once a day as well as women who buy bullion cubes one by one each time they cook a meal among other things. Everybody really does pay (or not pay) everything as they go. Potential errands are endless. So sure enough, when you look around, the to-and-fro flow of youth circulating on bikes; walking with small change; carrying plates, plastic bags, sticks, motorcycle parts, cultivating tools, animals, calabashes, babies, other small children, chickens, cakes, mangos, hay...

Just to have tea, for example, one needs the following supplies: tea leaves, sugar, water, one-two little teapots, a plate, one-three shot glasses, burning coals or wood, a fournier (where you put the burning coals or wood), mint - if available, peanuts - if one has the money and the list goes on if you consider such things as guests! One might need to send a kid to invite other relevant men to the tea party!

Women have plenty of kid-errands to orchestrate as well. Take this baby while I go away, fetch me water from the pump, carry this wedding-rice to my cousins’ across-town, go buy me some fried dough to feed my baby, go sell this fried dough I prepared (so I can buy something for my baby), bring Hadjara the plate she lent us yesterday or bring back this baby to its mother wherever she may be. It is not at all uncommon to see a child not even twice the height of an infant carrying such an infant on her back.

Just send a kid is something I have come to take completely for granted. I had to stop to think don't we do this in the States? When I get home and meet your 6 year old for the first time, you wouldn't mind if I sent him down the road to buy me a new chapstick, would you? Its not like I'm sending him for cigarettes...* oh wait. People can't do that chez nous. You couldn't even send your 15 year old for liquor or smokes. Would you have your 8 year old start the living-room fire on Christmas? Here the 1st-6th grade students supervise schoolyard bush fires where students collect and burn all the school courtyard rainy season growth and weeds. You wouldn't mind if I interrupted your 11 year old girl's homework time to have her prepare a simple meal for the family? I guess I can't. I guess if I want to speak to my neighbors down the road I can't pick up a child who I do not know on the street and ask him to deliver a verbal message or a written note. Of course a child in the States wouldn't refuse to do something, would he?

While I was home I visited a friend's third grade classroom. Her students were insatiably curious and it was great. Every littlest bit of information I provided was met with ten new questions. I felt like I couldn't talk fast enough to give them all the knowledge they wanted... Pictures and demonstrations helped. Yet when I got to the point where I described children's roles - their utter and non-negotiable submission - in Burkinabe society, the students were shocked into disbelief. You mean, a child has to do ANYTHING an adult tells them to do? Even if its not their parent? Even if they don't know the person? Even if they are busy doing something else? Even if they don't WANT to?

Yes. I explained that, in reality here, young people need to do anything anyone older tells them to do because that's just the way things work in Burkina Faso. I discussed with the students how Burkinabe children are expected to address adults. They should never look adults in the eyes when greeting them. They should never offer their hands to be shook. They should never even speak, actually, until spoken to. They should never offer their opinions and they may never ever refuse what they are told to do. Burkinabe students should address all teachers and minor authorities by approaching the adult, crossing their arms over their chests, putting their heads down, averting their eyes and mumbling preferably inaudible bonjours before shuffling away. The students were incredulous that some kids don't go to school; that many men have multiple wives; that chores can sometimes be so consuming so as to leave no time for play or even school; that children aren't paid for work; that in Burkinabe society, men rule.

These are things I've come to take for granted. Need anything? Just send a kid. So don't hold it against me if I come home and start bossing your little ones all around town. They'll listen, of course? I'm sure I'll be fine when re-entering the United States... I won't treat your boy like he's West African. But, if I tell him to do something, well of course, he'll never say no.

Will he?


*I don't smoke, fyi. I wanted to use this example though because I always see little kids running to buy men cigarettes.

World Map (Part II)

By the end of November, we had stopped drawing. I had gotten so little support from the teachers -- whom I had originally envisioned as partners on this project -- that I decided to schedule the painting of the map during the school vacation. In between working a volunteer training at the beginning of December and my plans for vacation at the end of the month. I had ten days in village to get this done.

The challenge would be to mobilize the community quickly and thoroughly enough to finish painting. I called the parents to the school to "correct" their children's work. There were still a lot of mistakes on the sketch and it was actually only about 80% done. I wanted them to get acquainted with the drawing instructions and confirm that they too could understand how the process worked. I wanted to create group leaders for the day(s) when we decided to paint. I wound up trying to meet with parents 3 or 4 times at the beginning of the week and actually succeeding once. We got some good work done and at least 5 parents demonstrated a solid understanding of the process. Of course one of these parents left town the next day and missed all the rest of the work...

I was leaving on Tuesday. It was Thursday and we hadn't starting painting yet. I was praying that my "group leaders" would show up the next afternoon as promised... but after spending almost 2 months sketching this map, the outlook was frankly not good that we'd finish painting in just a few days. On Thursday evening around 5pm, I took a jog out to "the hill" where I could get cell phone service. I wanted to check my messages. Just before heading home I decided to send a quick hello to my neighbor, David.

Hey David! What's up? You planning to head to Djibo this week...? He called immediately upon receiving my message. Christina, the American Ambassador is coming to mine and your village. -WHAT!? WHEN? I didn't hear about this... -The day after tomorrow. She's definitely stopping by my village but if you haven't heard anything then... I don't know. -She is coming to your place on Saturday? And mine too most likely? $#@!.

The next morning (Friday) I got up early to start making phone calls to confirm this. Nobody had any answers until I finally got a hold of the PC Burkina Country Director, himself. Doug, is it true? Is Ambassador Jackson coming to visit me tomorrow? -Yes. And I will be with her in a hour so I will call you then so you can talk directly. Finally I spoke to the Ambassador herself and explained that my community was about to finish a project that she, in fact, funded. I asked if she'd be willing to paint the US in a ceremony the next day and she agreed, of course.

At this point it was about 10:30am the day before the Ambassador's visit and I was the only one that knew about it. So I did something I don't normally do - I got on my bike and rode around village. The American Ambassador is coming! Yes, the number one American in Burkina Faso is coming to Belehede! Tomorrow! Come to the school tonight, we must organize a proper WELCOME... By painting HER map!!!

Hehe. So it was pure dumb luck. The Ambassador was coming and suddenly parents were utterly motivated to get to work. We started painting that night (Friday) and then all planned to get to the school first thing the next morning to wait for the Ambassador and in the mean time, paint. I got on my soap box too - The Ambassador is a WOMAN. And I am a WOMAN here to promote GIRLS' education. I do NOT want to see 200 men and 10 women at the ceremony tomorrow. Go home and tell your wives, daughters, sisters and girls to COME OUT tomorrow morning!

Like I said, I was soo lucky... Probably 50 people wound up cycling through as painters while I shouted out orders naming countries and dictating what color went where. Women definitely showed up in mass and all in all we probably had around 200 spectators while we worked and waited. However, one notably cool thing happened during this time but I'll give a little bit of background info first...

The president of the Committee for Village Development had been helping a lot since the evening before (see picture). In and of itself this was nice because he is an important figure in the village. But I was feeling a bit of reservation about the fact that he and two or three other men had painted so much when I had been hoping to incorporate more women and girls. The men here are more confident and practiced at advocating for themselves. When the president finished painting one country he immediately demanded my attention and made sure he got another assignment right away. The women, on the other hand, needed to be pushed to paint. Even when they were eager for a new country assignment, they would generally wait to be noticed rather than push to be heard.

All in all I was grateful for the eager enthusiasm of the president and a handful of other men but had felt some regret about the women's relative reservation. By Saturday morning, however, I had so much on my plate that I couldn't worry about it anymore. So I didn't. But here is the really cool thing: after getting started that morning, when we really got into it and started to draw the crowd... the president took charge of the situation. He was just as aggressive as the night before if not more so in demanding colors and countries to go with them... But I realized that he had stopped painting himself. He had created a line -- a constantly renewing line of woman who had not had an opportunity to paint. Bring me women! Who needs to paint? And every order I gave him went directly to them, translated to local language.

The Ambassador showed up with her husband. We made short speeches - myself, the parents associations' presidents, two village reps and the Ambassador herself. She painted the US. She painted her home state of Wyoming and invited me to paint New Jersey.* The villagers offered her "memories" of Belehede which were fresh with wet paint. Ambassador Jackson, be careful-with-that-calabash-itsgotWETpaint!! Phew.

In the end we finished almost all of it that day. What was left a few people worked on over the next two days (Sunday and Monday) and my counterpart even did some touching up while I was away on Christmas vacation. All that remained to do when I left was label the countries, paint Burkina and add symbols for Peace Corps and Belehede. Also we planned to build a hangar to protect it from sun and rain. We tentatively scheduled all this for the end of the school year because finally I had earned teachers' support. They complemented the map. They called it good work. They thanked me for bringing the American Ambassador to visit. For the first time since I met him, the new school director addressed me by my local name, Hadjara. He had laughed the first time I told him the name adding, oh no no that does not stick.

Following the big day the director and other teachers got together to write a request for supplies from the Embassy. They came up with an ambitious and impressive request for six major things: solar panels for the school to light the classrooms at night and hold study halls; a computer (plus generator) for the school to keep better, more complete records; sound equipment to do theater and awareness-raising meetings on the importance of girls' education; sports equipment including a volleyball net and balls to teach girls volleyball in school; books in French to start a school library and a partnership with an American school. Following this request was the first time the school director spoke to me with respect adding, we are counting on you.

So a few days after the map was essentially done I had a new challenge in my hands... how to raise approximately 1,000,000 cfa ($2,000 US).

To be continued...


*So this map includes all the countries of the world plus Wyoming, New Jersey and Belehede.

Things that make you go hmm

The other day I stopped by the maternité or in other words the place where women go to have babies. Five women had given birth on this day and four were already resting. The room where women rest after childbirth has five mattresses and three bed frames. The extra two mattresses go on the floor and don't have mosquito nets, unfortunately. The extra floor space in this room quickly gets filled with sitting mats brought by women relatives who sit around with the new mothers for the duration of their stay.

This facility serves the whole of Béléhédé plus its satellite villages, and lets stay that should be about 4000 people. However, the families who live 8, 10 and 15k away generally don't send women to the maternité to give birth. So, at any given time there is at least one new mother, one new baby, and three female relatives in this room. More often, there are five new mothers, five new babies and fifteen female relatives in this "resting" room. Recently the midwife helped deliver ten babies in one day/night with 10 different mothers.

Additionally, visitors are more than welcome. When I visit the new mothers, for example, I am encouraged to touch and/ or hold all the new babies. Obviously there are no incubators here. There are no mouth covers or doctor scrubs either. Out back, women cook over a wood fire to feed the new mothers and the diet consists of millet toh with sauce, as usual, and corn or millet flour porridge.

I walked out this on this particular day after politely declining to touch the newborns. I saw the fifth women who had just given birth (on the way) sitting on the floor waiting for the midwife to finish up with the baby. The midwife unceremoniously invited me into the room along with my friend Poitiba while she was at work. I was inches away as she tied the umbilical cord into a knot and snipped. The women laughed at me, she has never seen this before? Ha, look at her face!

When the new mother got up there was blood on the concrete floor outside the room where she had been sitting. The midwife passed off the baby to the relative. We left the mother and the midwife alone to do their post-birth exam. We saw that a rooster had sauntered into the waiting area and was heading straight for the resting room. He had relieved himself on the floor at the entrance to the clinic. No more than one or two minutes had passed when I saw the new mother leaving the midwife to go take her place on a mat just as the rooster wandered in towards the new mothers, new babies and all the lady relatives. Meanwhile Poitiba swept the rooster crap across the entrance-way and out the door.

Nobody but me seemed to mind the rooster.

World Map Project (Part I)

I started this project in September. The objective was to create a space for, then draw, then paint, then label a map of the entire world on some public space in Belehede. When I pitched the idea to the parents, they loved it and gave their full support (see 1st & 2nd photos). We decided to use the outside school wall (see 2nd photo) and make the map 4 x 2 meters, (i.e. big).

I suggested that we could fund it - I would pay for the base paints and colors while the parents would pay for cement, sand and labor. They easily agreed. Later, I applied at the last minute for a grant from the American Embassy and got it, so that was great.

My original idea was to work closely with the teachers. Last year we had 6, this year there are 7 with only two returning. The new director let me explain the project to the group in October at the beginning of the school year. In this meeting I was hoping to get ideas on how to involve as many students as possible. I wanted to create a tentative schedule. I wanted creative feedback on how to make this work.

I explained that the best case scenario would be if we worked intensively with kids from grades 6 to 4 while somehow involving the three younger classes as well...

They asked questions about kids making mistakes - I explained that we would draw in pencil. They talked amongst themselves while I was taking - I alternatively paused and waited or intensified my voice and hand gestures. They wanted to wait and see how things went - I wanted feedback on the tentative plan: to have the 6th/5th grades draw and the 4th/ 3rds paint.

Well, by the end of the meeting we had decided that I would start working with the 6th graders at an unspecified time, one day, of the next week. On verra -we'll see. The new director (and the others teachers) make it pretty clear that students were NOT going to be able to do this. Are you a map maker? the director asked me. Otherwise, he was incredulous that the kids could/ should/ would be made to do this. You, band of good-for-nothings! - I've observed - is the director's favorite way to address the kids.

I had printed off a handbook from the Peace Corps website. Anyone could do this project in their own home if they wanted to since the directions are actually that straightforward and simple. All you would need is a ruler, a pencil and some paints. After creating the cement rectangle and painting it several times until it was light blue like the ocean - my counterpart and I draw a grid with 56 squares across and 28 down. Then we divided the rectangle again into 18 big sections. Section one, for example, starts with square 1-1 and goes to square 1-10 across and 1-12 down. One page in the handbook corresponds to section one and from there you see what needs to be drawn in square 3-8 or square 4-12, for example.

As the project moved along very slowly throughout the second half of October and into November I would come to the school early every morning to work with a different group of 6th grade students (about 65 total). They would usually show up at some point before classes so we were able to work pretty much every day. Still, they had a very hard time grasping the concepts. They did not intuitively understand the grid. They also had trouble scaling images up. I had to explain a few things everyday: the picture on the wall is bigger than the picture on the paper so every shape you draw needs to be bigger than the shape you're copying. Look at where the line starts. Is it the upper left-hand corner, the upper-right, the lower-right/left, or in one of the middles? Look at each square as if it were divided in four sections - in which section are you supposed to draw the shape?

Some kids weren't able to grasp any of the concepts - locating squares on the grid, copying lines and shapes, scaling up from the smaller images, connecting forms from one section to another, even moving from drawing in one square to drawing in another. Some kids couldn't even seem to make a shape. Others, though, eventually got the gist. They could be left to draw and make mistakes for a few minutes before I came over to check and correct them. One student, however, rose above all the others and frankly saved the never-ending "day". He was not from the village but actually the brother of the 1st grade teacher and therefore a very well-educated "city-kid". Sanou and his sister come from Bobo-Dialassou, the second largest and arguably most developed city in Burkina Faso. This child wound up drawing most (if not all) of Africa as well as much of South America. He was truly the only student who really understand how to draw the map and I told him he could come anytime he wanted to. Is it unbelievable that there wasn't even one village kid educated enough to honestly get it?

In any case, as I mentioned, progress was SLOW. Before we had finished even one continent, a teacher or the director would ask a question like, oh so you're not done yet? or, oh so you didn't work this morning? There was one day about a month after we had started when I picked up a pencil and took over for a few minutes. I drew a few lines myself to get the section done quickly. The director saw me and asked oh, so now its you who draws everything?

I worked exclusively with the 6th grade for the first month because they are the oldest school kids and for goodness sake there are 65 of them with only a handful understanding the process of drawing! When we finally got about 70% drawn (more than a month into working everyday on it) I felt I could move on to another grade. Even if we draw two squares every day of the next week, at this point we could feasibly and move onto the painting phase. Enough is enough!

The 5th grade has about 100 kids. We decided I would call one or two groups of 10 kids everyday for about a week. Every student would get one chance (and one only!) to participate. If she did not volunteer to draw something, too bad. If he did not show up, too late. Otherwise, since I did not expect much progress at this point, I also planned to do some quick geography lessons. What is this a picture of? Where is Africa? How many continents are there? Which ways are north, south, east and west? Most kids did not recognize the world map. Most could not point out Africa. Many couldn't name north, south, east and west. Some knew north in respect to Belehede (its that way!) but could not translate it to a map even if I explained, south is the opposite of north (that way and that way!) and on the map this is north so which way is south? Some of the biggest deficiencies in education here are the abilities to think critically and creatively. Many kids had trouble realizing that the picture in my right hand and the picture in my left were one in the same: a world map.

At this phase, there were not many surprises. Some of the 5th graders did indeed succeed in drawing something. That was great. But most just got a quick lesson. Others never showed up. But the biggest change for me was that at every session, the 5th grade teacher showed up. For the first time in over a month I finally had a Burkinabe educator at my side filling in the gaps of my lesson or my explications in French. While I had had the school director mentioning the shortcomings of my project periodically over the last two months - you are going to have to go over everything again; you'll have to make the lines darker; you must correct all those mistakes - finally one teacher was participating.

I decided to end the drawing phase with the 5th grade and wait until the school (and the teachers) went on break to start the painting of the map. Honestly, they had had two months of chances to "buy in" to the project: to make productive suggestions, to offer their students or class time, or to participate. The kind support of the one teacher cast into relief the apathy of the others. So I left village to celebrate Thanksgiving and announced to the parents and the community: Get ready because when I get back you and I, the old and the young, the women and the men and the kids will PAINT!

To be continued...