A Day in the Life of Jane--That's Me!

In addition to the adventures I had in my first week of model school, I think I’ll also describe to you what a typical day in Ouahigouya, Burkina Faso is like for me. I’ll begin to commence! And yes, I’m aware that that’s redundant. What a chuckle.

5:30-6:10: I get up. Even on Sundays I can’t sleep past 7. Why? My body won’t let me, and I suppose the screaming kids in my courtyard could also have something to do with that. On the positive side, my host twin sisters have stopped calling me “Nasara.” Now every time they see me they shout “Jane Lindborg!” Although it sounds more like “Gane Inbor!” but I’m not fussy about pronunciation. Prisca, one of the twins, sometimes sings a song that goes something like this: “Nasara, Nasara, ma soeur Gane (Jane).” Even though she calls me Nasara, she also calls me her sister. I dig it.

6:30: I carry my bucket outside in our courtyard and fill it up with water. Then I bathe bucket-bath style.

7:00: My breakfast is always waiting for me on the table in the living room after I get dressed. Often breakfast consists of plain bread (baguette) with Nescafe. I know it’s scary, but I’ve started to drink coffee in the morning. I need the caffeine, and if I put tons of sugar in the coffee it only tastes semi-horrible. Every once in a blue moon my host mom gives me gateau instead of bread. I love the gateau! Gateau is cake in French, though it’s not really cake in the way that we Americans think of it, with glorious gobs of frosting. Instead it’s like fried bread, or beignets like the ones I had in New Orleans. Sometimes the gateau is sold with this topping (which, silly me, the first time I tried it I thought it was cinnamon) that actually tastes like Ramen noodle flavoring mix, the beef one. It is no bueno with the gateau, but other people really like it. I take mine plain and greasy.

7:30: I bike to school. On the way I say “bonjour” to about 100 people, including the kids who shout “Nasara!” and “La blanche!” at me. White I am, thank you captain obvious.

8-12:30: Class, usually language or technical/cross-cultural sessions, sometimes medical sessions. Since the beginning of last week, this time is reserved for Model School.

12:30-2: Lunch! I usually have avocado sandwiches, omelet sandwiches or spaghetti, or sometimes rice with a tomato-base sauce. But I’m not a huge fan of rice, unless it’s with sushi or it’s Mom’s green chile cheesy rice dish. The other trainees and I frequent several places around Ouahigouya, and I usually stop by an alimentation store to pick up a delicious coke.

2-5:15: Class encore.

5:15-6:30: I usually need some time to decompress before heading back to my host family. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy their company and I can actually have conversations with them now, albeit short ones because my vocabulary is still quite limited. But I like to hang out with the other trainees before going home. We play cards, got to the buvette to have a drink, make inappropriate remarks. It’s lovely.

6:30: I return chez moi. I talk to my host mom for a while and then I take another bucket bath. Clean Jane! At first I was impressed with how tan my feet were getting, and then I really scrubbed them hard during one bucket bath and discovered that the “tan” was merely a film of dirt. Nice.

7:00-8:30: Hang out with the family and eat dinner. We sit outside because it’s usually so hot inside the house. My family likes to watch soap opera TV from Brazil, and then it’s the news at 8. By the way, they’re still talking about Michael Jackson’s death over here. Peculiar. For dinner, my host mom knows that I like pasta and cucumber salads the best. Other times I’m served rice dishes with sauce and fish. I usually eat inside by myself. I don’t really mind eating all by my lonesome, and I am glad that my family doesn’t see me struggling with my fork. It’s custom to eat with your right hand, and sometimes my aim isn’t great with my right hand. But I am improving! And now I don’t even have to remember to eat with my right hand—it comes naturally.

8:30-9: Homework and/or bedtime.


I am a party animal.

Sunday is my only day off, and that day is reserved for laundry. I miss washing machines.


Okay, new subject. Model School.

I taught 5 classes last week. It felt like 20. I’m teaching the Chemistry section of the Physics/Chemistry program to about 40 Burkinabé students at the 8th grade level who want to get ahead for the upcoming school year. I attempted to teach the students about combustion, and I brought in candles and wood to burn. I felt like I improved as a teacher throughout the week (in terms of board use and communication skills), but I finished each class with the feeling that not everyone understood the material. Like Friday, for instance. I was talking about explosive combustion reactions, and why some reactions are more explosive than others. The example I used was butane/oxygen compared to butane/air. I don’t know how many times throughout the week that I explained that oxygen was absolutely necessary for combustion reactions, but the students still didn’t understand why pure oxygen mixed with butane was more explosive than a mixture of air, which has a lot more nitrogen in it than oxygen. It was frustrating because my French isn’t fabulous, so I struggled to try to explain it to them in a different way. However (and this makes me happy), by Friday I was starting to rephrase some things for the students if they didn’t understand it the first time I said it. Yay for improving French skills. Slow and steady.

I’m administering a test next week, so I have to plan that out soon. I’m also trying to be a strict disciplinarian in class. If people were more than 5 minutes late to class I sent them to the surveillant (person who takes care of disciplinary issues). Some kids tried to sneak in on Wednesday with late slips. At first I didn’t look at the slips closely, but after they sat down I noticed that the time for reentry wasn’t until after my class was over. So I kicked them out, and no one misbehaved for the rest of the class. I like to think that I’ll be a strict but fair teacher. Maybe the kids will like me, but it’s more important that they learn and understand the material, and know that they can’t screw with me.

So I have another week of chemistry to teach, and then I think that I might change my subject to math. Since I don’t know which subjects I’ll be teaching in Bouroum-Bouroum, I figure it will be better to get some practice in on teaching all the subjects.

Last thing before I sign off:

I spent last night in Bogoya with some of my amis. Bogoya is a village about 8 km from Ouahigouya. The GEE (Girls’ Education and Empowerment) trainees live and go to class there, and I and two other SE trainees (Krystle and Emma) stayed with Sabrina there (my roomie in Philadelphia).

What a change from Ouahigouya. For one thing a lot of people don’t speak French, so I used what little Moore I know to greet people. Aside from “Ny yibeogo,” “Laafi,” and “Y barka” I’m pretty useless when it comes to Moore. Also, the kids there haven’t seen as many white folk as the average city kid, so there was even more shouting and me almost running over kids with my bike than usual.

But the people were incredibly nice and helpful, especially when we were using the foot pump to get our water. It was kind of like a dance, stepping on the pump at the right moment and then shoving off again. However comma it made me le tired.

I did carry a bucket of water on my head! Though I spilled all down my front, I walked all the way to Sabrina’s house from the pump with a bucket of water on my head. I’m really impressed with the women here—they carry 3 times as much weight on their head and they make it look effortless, whereas I’m soaked from water and sweat and I’m dragging my feet. At least I can take comfort in the fact that I’m a constant source of amusement for the Burkinabé.

Below are some pictures from my Bogoya sleepover. There were about 20 kids in Sabrina’s courtyard last night because there were 4 Nasara all in the same place. So we decided to get them even more riled up by taking out our cameras. Another picture is from our delicious dinner of pasta, rice and lentils in one huge bowl with four forks. We had mangos for dessert! There are a couple of goats tied up next to Sabrina’s courtyard, and we gave them the peels of our mangos. We slept right next to the goats and throughout the night they’d wander over to our tent, “Baaah!” at us, and then go back to sleep. Sabrina’s family also has a cat that follows you into the latrine and purrs at you/rubs up against you while you’re doing your business. I have to say it was comforting knowing that the cat would eat any cockroaches that cross my path while using the latrine.

This morning we were fed chicken for breakfast and it was aaaamazing! Chicken is really expensive here and so I don’t get it too often. But last night Sabrina’s dad called her outside; he was holding the poor bird upside down and asked her if we wanted to eat it. At some point in the night he killed the bird, we ate it for breakfast this morning, and then the kids in the courtyard were playing with its feathers.

I felt bad because after breakfast her dad asked us if we were going to help him cultivate, but I told my host mom that I was going to be home in the morning (as did Krystle and Emma, and Sabrina wanted to spend the day in Ouahigouya), so we had to decline. But maybe before stage is over I’ll help her dad cultivate. If not, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of opportunities to do so when I’m in Bouroum-Bouroum.

The last couple of pictures are silly ones of us in bike helmets on the side of the road in Bogoya. I posed with my trademark Jane look (Mamita calls it the “village idiot” look), and then I got the rest of them to do it. Word.