I made it quite a ways, wouldn’t you say? A whole year and a half. Not bad, Philippe, not bad.

Thank you so much to all of you who were generous enough to me send care packages! (And for those of you who weren’t, well, I guess I forgive you. This time.) You spiced up my life, literally. I wasn’t even able to get through all of the wonderful spices, so I’ve left them in my PCV neighbor Imane’s equally grateful and loving care.

To all the volunteers, thanks for making it worth it. I love you guys.

Thank you too for those of you who wrote to me to tell me how much you enjoyed my stories. You’re the only reason I kept writing this shit down! Without your encouragement, I would have never had the satisfaction of sharing all my most gruesome and painful experiences with all of you. The promise that you would later live them vicariously was what got me through some of them in the first place.

Yes, I’ve been a bit quiet these past few months. Well, I had to save something for the book, didn’t I? Does that make me a greedy capitalist pig? Well, I gotta feed myself somehow. There will be a book! If your 3rd cousin twice removed’s boyfriend’s stepdad is in publishing, let me know.

But really, my hiatus had less to do with moolah and more to do with laziness and not having enough hours on the computer to keep typing it all up.
Frankly, I was also a bit burnt out. I mean, how many times can one bitch about horrific transport experiences from hell? What’s that? You want more? All right then. Here’s one for the road:

GOLDEN SHOWERS

I’ve seen cows loaded on the roof. I’ve been crammed and smooshed, sat upon with an old guy’s knee in my crotch. As many people on top as inside. I’ve seen the van loaded down with so many motos that the roof buckled and threatened to cave in. Man, I’ve been through some shitty ass transport in my day. Whenever you think you’ve seen it all, just when you consider yourself seasoned, whenever you think transport couldn’t possibly get any worse… That’s when Burkina really delivers.

The bush taxi heading to Ouaga showed up already packed, with 30-some goats tied to the roof. So far so good! I was waiting to get on along with the French and Peruvian ladies who live in Meguet, each of us with a bike and a pack. I wasn’t worried that there wouldn’t be room. There’s always room.

The ladies got placed up front (the seat of honor, though I don’t know if you can call it such when you’re sharing half the middle seat jammed between the driver and a large Burkinabé man). I got into the back, and was mildly surprised that instead of a floor, the van’s bottom was covered in–yes, more goats. So I kicked off my birks and buried my cracked feet into the warm live goat-fur rug. The problem with live goat-fur rugs is that they like to nip. Hell, I would too if I were bound up on the floor while people prodded me with feet as nasty as mine.

The granny sitting beside me just got a goat-piss shower from the roof and I caught some of the spray. And, so we go, bouncing merrily along the dirt road, inhaling dust, listening to the goats’ eerie child-like screams, enjoying occasional golden showers from the goats up top, resting my feet on the squirming bodies on the bottom, all while squished between 3 women and a baby. And chickens! I forgot the chickens! Welcome to the next 4 hours of your life.

The goat on the roof pissed on granny again. And this time it kept pissing and pissing. There was no room to scoot over, and no way to close the window since the pane was missing (of course). But not even the people sitting next to closed windows were spared. Granny saw me laughing and so she started flinging piss at me, and that’s when I just lost it. The situation was so far beyond annoying, leaping past pain, bounding past torture, and was just so ridiculous that I couldn’t help but laugh. And laugh hard. I had tears streaming down my face, and granny and the rest of the 25 passengers were laughing at me for laughing.

Granny looked to the transport guy and held up her shirt and said, I’m not paying! Look at me, I’m covered in piss! I’m not paying! I buried my face and sat there laughing uncontrolably. Granny turned to me and said, You’re going to sit here and I’m going to sit there! NO! NOOOO way, granny! I don’t want to! I don’t want to get pissed on by goats! The transporter turned and asked me, Is there health? Oh, there’s health all right! Nothing but health! Granny over here might not agree, though!

I talked to my mom on the phone just before I got into this clown car. She told me, you know, you should be grateful to Peace Corps for giving you all these experiences. Yeah, yeah, ok mom. No, really! Even though it may not be working out, Peace Corps has let you have experiences that you would have otherwise never had. Be grateful.

And now, surrounded by goats and covered in their excrements, I suppose, in a weird masochistic sort of way, I am grateful for all of it.

You know, as much as people whine about it, these sorts of things just don’t happen on the Greyhound. Or on Air France, for that matter. But I’m gonna ask for aisle seats just to be safe.

Peace out!
Love,
Philippe

I thought this would be a good occasion for sentimentality, looking back on what exactly was going through my naive little head those first couple days in country.

First, though, let’s examine what the hell I was thinking when I applied. I started the Peace Corps application online late one night in the fall 2003. In truth, I’ here only as a result of a spontaneous decision to start the application while procrastinating a film paper due the next day. Afterwards I realized, oh shit, now I still have to do this stupid film paper, and then I’m getting sent to a tiny village in Africa for 2 years where I’ll never get laid. That’ll teach me to procrastinate! I’ve learned my lesson, I swear.

The application asks for a statement on what motivates you to join the Peace Corps. What DID motivate me to come here? I decided to take a looksy. And I quote:

[ahem] Before I get entrenched in a career, I’d like to challenge myself some more by living somewhere completely different from what I’m used to, roughing it a little, and working hard to make a positive influence in peoples’ lives. [well, save the last bit, I’m certainly meeting my goals!] Humanity’s biggest flaw at the moment is its inability to care for itself. [uh-oh… here it comes…] As advantaged Americans, it should be our duty to end war, poverty and disease for everyone, not limiting our efforts to within national borders. [and there it is. Translation: I want to save the world!] It’s important to strive to balance the disequilibrium of opportunity, health, education, and stability in the world by giving a piece of ourselves to helping others. [Wow. I should be a politician. Except then those photos would surely get leaked….]

And I end quote. Flash forward 8 months.

It’s an odd experience opening a package in the mail that will tell you where in the world you’ll be spending the next two years of your life. Almost as odd as boarding a plane to that place. In June 2004 I eagerly opened the green Peace Corps invitation packet and there was my destiny staring at me in the face: Burkina Faso! I was overcome with giddiness. Knowing now exactly what was in store, that reaction seems a little irrational. Perhaps even insane. But it was exciting just to have a spot on the globe to point to, even though to me it was nothin more than that.

Tucked inside was an official letter of congratulations from GW: “Take this opportunity to build goodwill and to help lay the foundation for a more peaceful world.” Uh… right. I will if you will, Dubya!

The package also came with a little brochure describing the country and our future job. It sounded like something out of Mission: Impossible. Your mission, should you choose to accept it: You’ll be living in one of the poorest countries in the world, amongst its poorest people, fighting against the evils of AIDS, malaria, polio, and Guinea Worm. You’ll be out in the middle of nowhere, in a foreign land with a foreign tongue. No running water. No electricity. Bats, mice and cockroaches might live in your house [an actual quote!]. You’ll be forced to fend off marriage proposals on a daily basis [never imagined I’d see the day where I thought of proposals as a regular nuisance]. The variety of fruits and vegetables is somewhat limited, with only one fruit or vegetable often available during any given season [and do you know what that only fruit or vegetable is? Onions. For the past 4 months, nothing but onions. And I have to bike 30k to get them.] Public transport is slow and uncomfortable [the understatement of the century]. The pace of work and life is slower than what most Americans are accustomed to [or maybe THIS is the understatement of the century]. All of this while sweating you ass off in 100 degree weather [try 120!]. Can you do it? Are you tough enough? Are you brave enough? Are you good-looking enough?

Back then the answer was, Yeah! Bring it on! Watch your back Malaria! Philippe’s gonna fuck you up and then go after your boyfriend AIDS! Let me at em! I can do it!

A year later I realize, no, actually, it’s impossible. That would be why it’s called Mission: Impossible. How could you not get that? I’m reminded of a headline from The Onion that a volunteer posted up in our hostel:
NEWLY FORMED PEACE CORPS TO RID YOUNG AMERICANS OF IDEALISTIC DELUSIONS

Reality is certainly humbling. But I don’t at all regret taking the blue pill. Or was it the red pill? Whichever pill it was that brought me here. Before I came I had no concept of how much of the world lives. While Burkina might be on the extreme end in terms of poverty, I would guess that the majority of people on earth live in conditions more like those here than those in America.

But even living in the midst of it it’s easy to lose sight of the reality. Too often I’m preoccupied with being annoyed at people. Whenever somebody goes off on their sob story, about how America’s so rich, and Africa’s so poor, and it’s too hot, and life’s not easy, I think, oh Jesus, not again. I’m living here right next door, and it’s not easy for me either! It’s just as hot in my hut! But I forget that I have something they don’t. A plane ticket home. I forget that AIDS and malaria really do kill, that people have it tough, that they go hungry part of the year. They have hopes and dreams and ambitions–It’s true, Africans are just like us!–but they have far fewer opportunities and much greater obstacles to fulfilling them.

So what can I offer? Pity for the poor Africans? No thanks, there’s more than enough of that to go around. (Though I’ll graciously accept pity for the plight of this poor PCV–send to Philippe Gosselin, PCV, CSPS de Zamsé, BP 34 Zorgho, Burkina Faso) What can I do? I still don’t know. Maybe nothing. Maybe all I can do is live alongside them for a while. Try to understand what their life is like. Give them my encouragement, for whatever it’s worth.

The mission pamphlet concluded, “You will rarely see direct results of your work. But your presence alone is making a difference in the lives of those around you.” God, I can only hope.

PHILIPPE’S DIARY[AH!]

So here it is: an exclusive look into Philippe’s most intimate, salacious thoughts from one year ago. It begins on Air France, somewhere over Algeria…

28 July 2004
I keep wondering to myself, Why are these people going to Ouaga? I can’t imagine that many of them are tourists, but most of them are white. I just never imagined anyone other than PCVs and host country natives would have any reason to go there…

[I’ve sinced learned that actually, 198,376 tourists visited Burkina in 2002. Of these, 55% were confused surfers who accidentally bought plane tickets to Ouagadougou instead of Honolulu; 30% were French sex tourists; 10% were victims of practical jokes (Oh, Burkina’s got great jungle safaris!); 4% were masochists; and 1% were friends and relatives coming to visit PCVs (most of those for Chrissy).]

Kaya, 29 July 2004
Arriving may have been a mind trip, but waking up to Africa was something else entirely. Made it sink in, and I look around at everything in a strange sort of awe. Everything s new, and it’s very refreshing to have no idea what to expect. The food, the money, the toilets, the people, the critters (geckos and oxen and goats… and who knows what insect freaks of nature we’ll encounter). [oh, Philippe, you have no idea…]

The drive this morning from Ouaga gave us our first look at the people and the life here. We return their stares, because for now they’re as much of a curiosity to us as we are to them. It helps to have a group to dissipate the attention–it might get tough absorbing it all by myself in a village. [oh, Philippe, you really have no idea…]

On the way from some place to another, I asked Courtney, a PCV helping out with training, So where is Kaya? She’d said that Kaya was one of the larger cities in Burkina. We walked along the dirt street, mostly empty except for the occational goat or ass or shanty along the sides. Oh, we’re in Kaya, she said. [oh, Philippe… all looks, no world experience]

I thought I would be stressed out of my mind, but instead I’m just soaking it in, eagerly awaiting what comes next. [Patience, Philippe. The stressed out of your mind part comes next.]

Boussouma, 5 August 2004
Our only instructions were to “integrate with the family.” I was all for it, of course, and went in with a positive mind, following my new host dad on his bike to my new home for 3 months. When we got there, they pulled up a chair and we sat in silence. The dad left after a few minutes, leaving me with his teenage son, who speaks a little French.

I tried to make conversation. I asked him how old he is (16), if he was in school (no), if he played sports (volleyball)… What else?? He didn’t return the questions. I started to freak out. It was 9:30 am and I had time to kill til 2. I’d already run out of conversation. I hadn’t been prepared for this! What the hell was I supposed to do? I didn’t think I could take it. I’m not cut out to live in an African village! I can’t handle it, especially not alone! This was within the first 20 minutes. I sat with Guillaume for a painful half hour then asked to take a nap.

There were so many formative firsts in Burkina: My first roach, my first scorpion, my first shit…

6 August 2004
My first time squatting on the latrine, worrying about my aim (after assuring myself there were no monster roaches in sight). I felt God there with me when it went straight down the hole. I’m beginning to see why they say this is the toughest job I’ll ever love. Tough, but boy did I love being through with it. I’ve learned that PCVs love to talk about their poop, some more than others (ahem, Cassie). The color, the texture, viscosity, is all a subject of conversation. Not to mention the latrines themselves, and the process… Adjusting to the food here does some weird shit to one’s digestive tract. For example, Cassie found it necessary to inform me that hers resembled the slimy sauce she ate with her To as if it simply passed through her unchanged. When I suggested she send in a MIF kit to test for parasites, she said she’d have no problems collecting a sample since she always misses anyway. This from a small, pretty, proper girl. What is it about PC service that makes people think it’s ok to just plainly discuss the most unmentionable of bodily functions? Better to share with Philippe than to write home about it. [And then Philippe will write home about it later!]

It wasn’t until after my first week that I saw the true extent of the wretched human conditions in Burkina:

7 August 2004
Music video hell. I accompanied my host brothers to the village TV on the side of the road. There were probably 50 young guys surrounding the 14″ TV captively watching some of the most bland music videos I have ever seen. Maybe I was sent here to teach the Burkinabé about production values.

While I was watching, one guy came up to me and rescued me from my supreme (albeit amused) boredom by striking up a conversation in shaky English… He told me about his desire to go to America, where he could be rich, and escape the lack of opportunity here. He brought up my American guilt by asking if he could go back with me, or if I could help him. “I want an American boyfriend,” he said several times. “Can you help me get an American boyfriend?” I was very amused by the wording, though I didn’t point it out. I felt guilty that after 2 years I’ll be going home, but they’ll be stuck here in poverty with their shitty music videos. Perhaps I shouldn’t tell them what they’re missing.

HARRY POTTER AND THE CIRCLE OF LIFE

As of July 4, I’m the only gay male PCV remaining in Burkina. The only one who’ll admit it, anyway… I notice the other boys stealing lustful sideways glances at me when their girlfriends aren’t looking. Oh yes. In any case, on August 2nd, Air France will deliver us 50 new trainees, contributing to the Peace Corp’s continual cycle of renewal, flushing out its jaded cynics and replacing them with new batches of doe-eyed idealists.

This is the mother-load. The biggest incoming group of PCVs Burkina has ever seen. For all of us here–well, all 3 of us who are still single, anyway–there’s only one thing on our minds. My mom says I should leave more up to the imagination in these posts, and so I will. Ok, ok, I will tell you that it involves Harry Potter Sex. I mean, Sex! …No, wait, I can say it: Harry Potter SIX. I’m so desperate for Harry Potter SIX that I don’t know what to do with myself. If there’s nobody on that plane who can “give it to me,” well, gee, I’ll be screwed. Or, more accurately, I won’t.

And even if there is, we’re not supposed to solicit Harry Potter SIX from trainees, and after training they’re stuck in village for 3 months, and if there’s an even number of them they’ll surely share it with each other before I even get a shot, and then you gotta factor in the chances of someone wanting to slip me the old “Oliver Wood” and me wanting to “play Quidditch” with that particular someone, and also that, as many cold bucket baths as I take, I still reek of desperation. Also I just plain stink. And they could all turn out to be lame-ass “Muggles.” It’s hopeless. Hear that, Love? Hopeless. I’m still not expecting you. Love… the biggest bitch of them all.

A TEST OF CHARACTER

Pretty much the only way to “Get the hell out of Dodge” (aka Zamsé) and make a decent living in this country is to win a job as a functionary, a government worker such as a nurse, a teacher, a police officer, etc. There is a tiny private sector, but it is overrun with nepotism. If you’re not linked to someone high up through your dad’s 3rd wife’s uncle Amadou, then you’re shit out of luck. A few lucky ones get jobs with rich development or aid organizations (like Peace Corps). But for the most part, the only viable way to get out of a life of farming in village is to get one of these aforementioned jobs through an annual national competition. The state provides full scholarships to the winners and then after their training assigns them to a post somewhere in the country. But the competition is ridiculous… For each slot available, there can be something like 300 applicants.

My language tutor Souleymane is one of those bright, modestly ambitious guys who just wasn’t meant to live in village forever. He took exams for a couple different positions last year. The competition results were announced on the radio. Can you imagine the nerves? Like having your SAT scores announced on MTV. He heard his name and went all the way to Ouaga where he learned that SEVEN Souleymane Ouedraogos won competitions, and he wasn’t one of them. So this year he’s giving it his all to make it. He’s taking 6 different exams, for nursing, teaching, accounting, etc. He wants to become a nurse, but he’s gotta take whatever he can get. He bought the pricey study guides with all the practice questions, so I got to see what he’s up against.

My God. Each exam is 2 hours long. They’re all essentially the same, no matter what position you’re trying for. A big section of abstract problems, like out of an IQ test. Find the pattern, predict the next number, which of these shapes does not belong, etc. And then a section of questions on general knowledge and current events. No easy shit like, Who is the President of the United States? No, no… More like “Who is the king of Cambodia?” Want to try some more?

1. Who was the first Chinese astronaut in space?

2. What is the Quebecois political party whose sole goal is the legalization of cannibis?

3. What is the biggest optical telescope in the world?

4. Who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2004?

5. What is the smallest capital city in the world?

6. The UN charter is composed of how many articles?

7. Who are the biggest alcohol consumers in the world?

8. The first film was projected in what year?

9. What is the process of sperm production called?

10. In Greek mythology, who is the god of forests?

Applicants are expected to know the answers to questions like these when they’ve never had access to TV, CNN, the Internet, textbooks, encyclopedias, libraries, or even books. All they’ve got is radio. Even Americans, who are constantly bombarded with all of these media would be hard pressed to compete in a test like this. Sure, exceptionally brilliant people like myself know off the top of their heads that the answers are 1. Yang Liwei, 2. Bloc Pot, 3. Keck One, 4. Elfriede Jelinek, 5. Thorshavn, 6. A hundred and eleven, 7. The Czechs (they beat the Russians and the Irish!), 8. 1895 (I was film major, after all), 9. Spermatogenesis, 10. Sylvan, and that the King of Cambodia is Norodom Sihamoni. But how the hell is the average person supposed to know? It might be a good way to pick out Jeopardy contestants, but to choose teachers? Nurses? Souleymane’s a smart guy, but more importantly he’s good with people. Does the test doesn’t give a damn? Nope. Explains why all the functionaries I work with are pretentious smart-asses.

In addition to all this, the exams require an in-depth knowledge of Burkina facts and figures. I put my chin on Souley’s shoulder and give him backrubs while he studies. (Uh, they make you smarter, I explain. But only if you’re not wearing a shirt) I’ve picked up quite a few interesting Burina tidbits by doing this, like the number of tourists to the country cited above. Some more examples:

Cotton production makes up a whopping 31% of Burkina’s GDP. The GDP per capita is around $300 USD (in the US it’s more than $30,000). 45% of the people live under the poverty level, on $2 or less a day. The life expectancy in 1997 was 53.8 years. In 2001, 28% of the population was literate. 8% have electricity. There are more than 60 ethnolinguistic groups in the country, living and starving together in peace and harmony. 360,000 Burkinabé returned to the country following the crisis in Cote d’Ivoire–they all go there for work! Burkina produces between 50 and 60 thousand tons of onions a year. Indeed, that’s all I eat. There’s a good chance that Shea butter you pick up at Bath and Bodyworks originated here, since Burkina’s the world’s 3rd largest producer of shea nuts. Burkina was home to 782,891 dogs in 2003, and 24 million chickens. And finally, Burkina has 320 tourist sites–I assume these are all the places where you can get a cold beer.

Souley’s not taking any chances with the competition this year, so he went and got his fortune told at the fêticheur… I don’t know what this is in English. Fetishist isn’t quite right. It’s something like an animist witch-doctor. You go tell this guy what it is you’re after, and for 40 cents he’ll tell you what you need to do to get it. Usually it’s something like sacrificing a chicken. Souley tells me, “So I went, and instead of telling me to bring him a chicken, he told me I needed to sacrifice a sheep!”

–Whoa… A sheep! Isn’t that a bit expensive?

**I know! I tried to negotiate with him, and make it a chicken, but he wouldn’t budge! So I said fine. A sheep it is. But I don’t know what I can do… I can’t afford a sheep! I still need to pay my way in Ouaga.

–Couldn’t you just forget it?

He gives me a look that says, you dumb-ass nassara!

**No I can’t forget it! I need to win a competition!

–So you actually believe the guy? Aren’t you muslim??

**Of course I believe him!

(everybody here, no matter what their nominal religion, still carries around some animist superstitions and beliefs.)

–Didn’t you do a sacrifice for your exams last year?

**No, and look what happened!

By now the subtext was quite clear that he wanted me to help him buy the stupid sheep. It would surely upset the values of the Shave the Sheep Vegan Society at Wes, but it obviously meant a lot to him, and if helped boost his confidence… I agreed to give him an advance on his tutoring salary.

–Can you at least bring the meat home to your family to eat?

**No! Not even. Sometimes you can, but not with this guy. He keeps it for himself.

–Souley, I think you need to find yourself a new fêticheur.

**Yeah, you know what, I do. I’ll look into it.

Don’t tell him, but I’ve already decided to pay for his school if these competitions don’t pan out. It wouldn’t be for lack of effort or deserving. This guy needs a ticket out of village, and would make a fine nurse. And I mean Fiiiine! UNH! I have the money saved up somehow from my volunteer allowances. And if it can make a real difference in somebody’s life, hell, I won’t miss it a bit. Though a plane ticket to Paris would be awfully nice… And some time on the Mediterranean… Study your ass off, Souleymane, and let’s pray this damn sheep sacrifice works!

THE STATE OF THE INNARDS

Philippe Gosselin here with your Peace Corps Burkina Faso 7-day Bowel-Watch Forecast, brought to you by Giardia. We start off the week on Monday with the usual light diarrhea. Look for conditions to worsen gradually overnight. Runny all of Tuesday with a 30% chance of leakage. Now we’re keeping a close eye on this high pressure gas system that’s coming in on Wednesday, and may bring with it painful indigestion and decreased appetite alternating throughout the day with pangs of starvation for a decent American meal. Or Chinese, or Mexican, or even Ethiopian. You’ll want to be especially cautious on Thursday as the gas system moves down through the gut, potentially creating emergency conditions with explosive spurts and a much higher than usual 60% chance of missing the hole. Look for things to shift suddenly into Friday, which for now looks to bring with it the start of another long bout of constipation lasting throughout the weekend and likely well into next week.

Keep it tuned to RWO for further bowel updates and special alerts on extreme gastric conditions. Or get reports by SMS, or by logging on to our website. Or by phone, or by fax, or email. Or via post, pager, telegram or RSS feed. Or by biiga, by carrier pigeon, smoke signal, telepathic messaging, or prayer. Or remain blissfully unaware of the horrors that lie in store the next time you eat that sketchy street food. It’s up to you.

A DISGRUNTLED POSTAL PATRON

When I first moved to Zamsé from my training village last October, I biked down to Zorgho to make friends with the good people of the local post office. I explained to them that I live 45km away, and that it would be difficult for me to come down every time I got a package, cuz I have but a bike to get me here, and a round-trip in a single day to pick up a package would just about kill me. My counterpart, the head nurse, rides into Zorgho regularly on his motorcycle. Would there be a way for him to pick up packages on my behalf? No. Not if they’re addressed to you. Really? Nothing I can sign to give him permission? No. You understand that it’s difficult for me to come all the way down here? Yes, we understand. Ok… What if I asked people to leave my name off the package, would that work? Yes, that could work. Great! … And so I told y’all to send packages without my name. The packages would just come to me, and I would be happy.

One day, my counterpart got a package slip, saying a package had arrived from the USA. But they wouldn’t give it to him. The nurse was going away and wouldn’t be able to pick it up for another couple weeks. So the next time I was passing through Zorgho on my way to Ouaga, I went in and said, hey homies, wazzup! I got this here package slip, and that package there has got my name written all over it. No, it doesn’t. Well, you’re right, it doesn’t actually have my name, like we agreed, but it’s for me. You can’t pick it up. Only the CSPS nurse can pick it up. Well, the nurse told me he tried and you wouldn’t give it to him either! What gives? He didn’t have an official stamp. Great. I’ll tell him to bring it next time. But for now, since I’m here, and I just biked 45k, could I pick up my package please? It’s not for you. Uh, yes, you see, that’s my home address in the upper left corner. Helene Gosselin, that’s my mom. She sent the package for me. But it doesn’t have your name. No, you said I could leave off the name, and I wouldn’t have any problems! We can’t give it to you. It’s my package! You KNOW it’s mine! Yes, we know. So PLEASE JUST GIVE IT TO ME! I WANT MY PACKAGE FROM MY MOMMY. PLEASE, JUST GIVE IT TO ME. IT’S RIGHT THERE AND I’M RIGHT HERE AND I’LL JUST TAKE IT IF YOU DON’T MIND. It doesn’t have your name on it. AAAAAAGH!

You would think, this being a third world country, that they could be a little lax about these things. Make life a little easier for a brother. But no. The folks at the Zorgho post are the tightest-assed tightasses I’ve ever encountered. As I walked out, fuming, throwing an inner tantrum, desperate for the boxed piece of home that was just on the other side of the counter, they called to me, Make sure the nurse comes back to pick it up soon! We don’t want this thing lying around. There’s no room.

On another occasion, I went to the Zorgho post with Imane. We biked from Imane’s village and arrived at the post around 11:15. She had two packages to pick up (with her name, thankfully) and I wanted to mail a letter with some photos I was sending to my former host family. It took until 12:30 for me to get my stamps and Imane her packages. There were no other clients. There were two people working. I thought of tacking up a Bang Head Here poster to the wall. Sure, you have to go through paperwork and sign in triplicate and pay the fees, but seriously, folks… And when we finally left, they called out: Next time, could you get here a little earlier? Indeed, they had worked half an hour into their siesta.

Around this time I found out that Katy, another volunteer in our area, had made an arrangement for a courrier to pick up packages bearing her name from the post on her behalf. Interesting. Very very interesting. She gave me a copy of the procuration agreement she had signed and gotten officialized at the police. I took it and copied it, had my nurse sign, biked to Meguet, waited an hour at the police, paid the fee, got all the stamps, and then biked the rest of the way to Zorgho. I strolled into the post with a victorious, cocky, sweaty air. I gots a little sumthin for you folks. Perhaps you’d like to read it? I handed over the contract. The guy at the counter took it to the manager in the other room. Five minutes later, he comes back with the paper. This won’t work. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was expecting something to go wrong, and I was ready to go off when it happened. WHAT? What do you MEAN this won’t work? My friend did this exact same thing! I’m doing everything to make you people happy, and you keep giving me shit! No, sorry, this needs to be done on our official forms. And he handed me copies of the official form I needed to fill out and get stamped in order to have someone else pick up my packages. Um, I believe I asked you people for this a long time ago. Would have saved me a lot of trouble. No you didn’t. YES I DID. I ASKED FOR IT QUITE SPECIFICALLY. Was it me you asked? No, it was some other guy, but– You didn’t ask. JESUS CHRIST!

@@@ Yes, Philippe?

I’m not generally an angry person. I never yell at people. But, Jesus, I can only take so much bullshit. What would you do in this situation?

@@@ I would bust out the French.

And so I did: VOUS FAITES TOUS POUR QUE LA VIE SOIT DIFFICILE! J’EN AI MAR DE CES MAUDITES CONNERIES! VOUS ETES DES VRAIS INCOMPETENTS! VOUS ME FAITES CHIER!!

But I’m a blubbering mess when I’m enraged, and wasn’t able to get it out nearly as eloquently as Jesus might have. The guy chuckled, and told me to calm down, there were other customers. I took the new forms and huffed outside to my bike, but the guilt set in before I could flee, so I came back with my tail tucked between my legs and apologized for my outburst. …Jesus told me to do it.

WHO SHIPPED MY CHEESE ECONOMY?

In spite of these difficulties (which I pray I’ve resolved), the mail in Burkina is actually quite reliable. The only problems seem to arise when West Africa isn’t specified in the address. Most people, American postal clerks included, don’t think Burkina Faso is a country. Recently I got a letter from Alpha Delt at Wesleyan (you didn’t know I was a frat boy?) that was stamped MISSENT TO JAMAICA. Gee. Sure wish I’D been missent to Jamaica! But it found its way to me eventually.

Only once did I think a package had indeed been swallowed by the postal system. My parents sent it on January 13. It landed in my hands on July 11. Why did it take so long? The package was marked Economy Mail all over. I took a look at the customs form. Aha! It was my dad who sent it. That explains things. The postage cost an arm, but if he had just thrown in a leg I could have gotten it in 2 weeks instead of 6 months.

But no matter. It was in my hands. I was ecstatic. On top was the Thermarest I’d asked for. My back had gotten used to sleeping on my rock-hard cot by this point. Oh well. There was also food. So much food! And pictures of me from my college graduation over a year ago. DAMN, I looked good back then! I was jacked. It’s tough to stay that way when I’m eating for 300. Me and my 299 intestinal worms.

But the most exciting of all was the Parmesan Cheese. I was gonna eat me some CHEESE tonight!

It took me a while to admit to myself that the Parmesan cheese had gone bad.

–Philippe, I think it might be bad.

**No, no, it’s fine!

–No, really, Philippe, smell it. It smells like blue cheese.

**Well, what’s wrong with that?

–You hate blue cheese, it’s disgusting!

**It’s an acquired taste.

–Philippe, the color’s not even right. It’s brownish-yellow.

**Well, who knows, it’s reduced fat, that’s probably what it’s supposed to look like. I’ll just taste it, all right?

–Fine. Tastes disgusting, doesn’t it?

**Well I don’t know, I haven’t had Parmesan in a while, maybe it’s supposed to taste–

–WAKE UP, Philippe! Wake up and smell the rotten cheese!

** Cheese doesn’t go bad! Least of all delicious fake processed reduced fat Kraft Parmesan! Maybe I just need a little more.

–No, Philippe!

**Yes, I want more!

–You’ll ruin your meal!

**Spaghetti with CHEESE!!

–PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER MAN!

**MORE CHEEEEEESE CHEEESE SAY CHEESE! …….Oh god. You were right.

–I was right.

**Oh, god, this is nasty.

–What’d I say?

**A whole bottle of Parmesan cheese and it’s BAD! For once I get cheese and it’s ROTTEN! Oh god, no. No! NOooooho ho ho! Oh the humanity! I’ll never be hungry again!!

…It was one of the saddest moments of my life. This is what happens when you send Reduced fat Kraft Parmesan cheese via Economy mail. THIS is what happens! The cheese goes around the world on a boat and when it finally reaches your self-sacrificing cheese-starved child in Africa it’s gone BAD.

I ate the spaghetti anyway. I’ll give the cheese to Imane. Maybe she won’t notice.

You see, America is wonderful because you can have all kinds of cheese. Mozarella, swiss, American. It comes in all forms–sliced, powdered, individually wrapped. In chunks, in spray cans, in jars, or old-fashioned wheels. Cheese goes in sandwiches, in chips, in dips. Cottage, cream, parmesan! Spread it, spray it, melt it! On pizza, on pasta, on salad, on cracker! On bread and on soup and on fries and baked taters! Cheese is everywhere. And when it runs out… you just go buy more! Brie, munster, goat, soy! My fellow Americans, living in Burkina Faso, one learns what makes America great. Tonight, after one year away, I can tell you that the answer, my friend, is toilets. And KJ and Pepe, who, in my hour of need, sent me black gay erotica, which doesn’t go bad, thank god. But most of all, it is great for its great abundance of CHEESE.

God Bless Cheese! And America. Goodnight!

–Philippe

AN ABBREVIATED HISTORY OF PHILIPPE

I had a little dilemma when I landed in Burkina almost a year ago. Just after landing, in fact. I had this rainbow pin on my backpack. I’d placed it there when I was in the midst of coming out my freshman year of college four years prior, back when I was becoming a poster-child for gay pride. I was gay, and I wanted everyone to know about it, goddamn it! It was my time to come out and be proud and maybe finally find myself a boyfriend or two. Or three or four. I was gonna come out and get lots of love. I was 18, and my purity score was embarassingly high. I even went on MTV to spread the word that I, Philippe André Gosselin, am gay. [wild, spontaneous thundering applause, and a couple of cat-calls. Work it, honey!] That’s not what I said on MTV, but that’s the message that got out nevertheless. You’d be surprised how fast the word gets around once you go and say it on MTV.

So, my first semester at college, the modest rainbow ribbon got pinned to my backpack and it’d been there ever since, following me everywhere I went. Now I had landed in Africa, and was pulling out my backpack that had been neatly stowed under the seat in front of me with my tray-table in the upright and locked position and my seatback fully erect. And there was the rainbow. Shit… whaddoIdo, Toto, whaddoIdo? I couldn’t just take it off. Well, I suppose I could, but what kind of a statement would that be making? Perhaps this hesitancy needs some explaining.

You see, if I learned one thing in my years amongst the hyper-politicized neo-hippie fascists at Wesleyan, it was that everything you do, whether you mean it or not, is a political statement. The way you dress, cut your hair, who you sleep with and how, who you talk with, who you meet with, the “political spaces” you create, the way you sneeze, tie your shoes, the way you do the things you do, it all implies a political statement of sorts. And you have to be oh so careful about the political statements you make. Thus, the intellectual discourse on campus went something like as follows:

“You offend me.”
“No, YOU offend ME!
“No, you are offensive!”
“No, I am offended! And if you respond, that’s also offensive!”
“Don’t silence my voice!”
“Don’t silence MY voice, you straightwhiteuppermiddleclassmalehegemonist OPPRESSOR!”
“Don’t oppress me with your labels!”
“You think YOU’RE oppressed?!”
…etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

At Wesleyan I also learned that students at prestigious liberal arts schools are full of shit. So I guess that’s two things.

But then why was I so troubled by the statement I’d be making by removing my pin after all these years? I was over those days of gay this, gay that, everything is gay gay gay! (or “queer queer queer” if you want to fit in at Wes) I’d let go of the cause to some extent (though my mom has taken it up in my place). Here I was, embarking on a journey that could be two years of my life… I knew I wasn’t gonna be able to be out and proud in Burkina like I’d grown accustomed to since I started college. I knew I was making some sacrifices by coming here. But it was tough, thinking that I would be letting go of a part of me that had come to be as much of me as anything else. Could I really just put it away for two years?

Actually, that’s not where the story begins. Why on earth did I end up joining the Peace Corps in the first place? Well, for starters, I’m a saint. That’s a given. And joining the Peace Corps is just what saints do. But saints have needs too, you know. This saint first started feeling those needs around the tender, confused young age of 13. You see, back then I was feeling young, confused, and tender…

Ok, we’re gonna skip all that and go straight to this summary of my past 10 years:

High school: Nothin. Get into gayest college possible.

Freshman year: Out of the closet and ready for love. Come ‘n get me! …nothin.

Sophomore year: Right then, I’ll settle for hookups. Nothin. Well screw Wesleyan I’m going abroad! But first…

Summer in LA: Nothin. But smog. And horrible public transportation.

Fall abroad in Paris: Nothin.

Spring abroad in Madrid: Nothin.

Summer in New York: Nothin.

Senior year: Nothin. By this time I was starting to see a trend. A whole lot of Nothin can bring a saint down. Even a handsome ripped saint with the body of an adonis. What good is a body with nothing to rub it up against? Where did I go wrong? One night, while procrastinating a paper, the saint had a lightbulb go off over the glowing ring above his head. Everybody always says this sort of somethin somethin happens when you least expect it, and here I am looking in all the most obvious places! Going to a queer school (if there ever was one), doing summer internships in gay indie film, studying abroad in romantic capitals of Europe… Please! How cliché! Why don’t I join the Peace Corps? I certainly won’t expect it there, sweating in a mud hut doing saintly things somewhere in Africa. It’ll set me up perfectly.

Pre-departure Summer in San Francisco: Ka-CHING! DING DING DING DING DING DING! Tika Tika Tika Tika Tika! (also, it was freezing)
But by this time, I’d already accepted the invitation to Peace Corps and had a one way plane ticket to Ouagadougou with my name on it. Leaving in 2 weeks. Paradise gained… paradise lost.

Lest I leave a less than honest impression, I’ll admit that I wasn’t entirely innocent before I reached San Francisco. And I must say I was very fortunate to have experienced all these places despite finding myself hard up in all of them. But folks have had better luck, too. I joked to myself, Sure, you’re probably gonna have to be celibate for two years, but it can’t be any worse than Wesleyan! One year later, I find myself eating those very words, because I’ve got nothing better to eat; furthermore, they were untrue. Oh, how very naive I once was.

DANCIN’ IN THE MOONLIGHT

Within our first week of training we had a session detailing the risks of coming out in Burkina, or accidently outing other volunteers. It’s a small country, word could get around. And since the country is heavily Christian and Muslim, the only logical thing to do if you discover a man prefers men is to ostracize and possibly beat him. I mean, what else is there to do? Go on with your life?

This said, nobody will ever suspect you to be anything but straight. People have heard of homosexuality before, but they assume it’s something only freaky frenchmen do. It’s perfectly acceptable for same sex buddies to walk around holding hands in public, cuddle and caress, and to do some heavy and obscene bumping and grinding on the dance floor. Just as long as you don’t seem to enjoy it TOO much. On the other hand, for opposite sex couples to do the same in public is considered quite scandalous and inappropriate. Amen to that, I say! Keep the breeding in the bedroom, you perverts!

It’s a little disconcerting at first to see two young men walking hand in hand through the market, or sitting with their hands on each other’s thighs, or leaning a head on a shoulder, or making out in a corner. I find myself wondering, Where am I?? Ok, so there’s no making out. But the rest is perfectly common. And how refreshing! Nobody could get away with that at home. Men have to keep a 5 foot radius between themselves and other men, watch how they dress and what music they listen to how they speak and be sure not to bleach their hair, or they set off a gay alarm. (*krchshshs* We have a suspected code Pink, please call for backup. Confirm that. Man with tight jeans and excessive hair gel listening to Christina. Designer underwear label showing. That’s code pink, over. *krshschsch*) That’s why it’s so liberating to just come out and forget about all the bullshit. I feel sorry for the straight men in America, all the self-censoring they have to do lest they raise suspicions. Here you do anything, wear anything (or possibly nothing) and nobody blinks an eye. All that registers is: LOOK, A WHITIE!

One evening during training while I was living in a host family in Boussouma, I was hanging out with my host brothers and some of their neighborhood friends, sitting on a bench outside of the courtyard, by the millet field. The moon was shining, the millet stalks waving, and there was a crackling radio playing some slow jazz. My oldest host brother, around 19, is a tall handsome guy, and that night looked rather like Tiger Woods, wearing a baseball cap and a polo shirt tucked into khakis. Barefoot of course. He took the hand of one of the smaller more raggedly dressed neighbor boys and started to twirl him around to the music. They laughed as they twirled, and then they settled into each others arms into a swaying slow dance. The radio, the moon, the stars, the breeze, two boys just dancing out in the field as the rest of us sat and watched. I was mesmerized. I’ll be damned if it wasn’t the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen.

[pause for reflective sigh]

[deeper, slightly melancholy sigh]

[sharp, conclusive sigh]

It didn’t matter that I didn’t get a turn. Just watching was enough to fill this deep, longing hole in my… if only for a moment… I’m sorry, I can’t go on. [blows nose into microphone] Can we turn the cameras off? Can we get someone to come fix my makeup?

THERE’S A TINY HETEROSEXUAL DEEP INSIDE EVERY ONE OF US BURSTING TO GET FREE

So began my rebirth as a straight man. Sometimes volunteers make up stories about a “certain someone” back home to stave off overzealous suitors or the inevitable questions that arise. But I wanted to retain at least a modicum of honesty, so arriving in village I began with a tactic of subtle evasion: ARE YOU MARRIED? No. WHY NOT? Cause I don’t want to be. Look, a goat! WHY NOT? Cause I don’t have a girlfriend. How bout this heat? WHY NOT? Jesus, I dunno… Women are too complicated! Sure is a hot one, huh?

Of course, such answers, like claiming you don’t have a religion, just make no sense to the villagers. And so they nagged and nagged until I finally decided, ok, just say whatever it takes to satisfy them. I never bothered to make up a story, so I can never keep my answers straight. …erm, consistent.

DON’T YOU WANT AN AFRICAN WIFE? I’ve already got a wife. YOU SAID YOU WERE A BACHELOR. Did I? Sometimes I forget… She’s so very far away. SO YOU HAVE A WIFE IN AMERICA, WHY NOT A WIFE IN AFRICA TOO? She’s a jealous jealous wife. SHE’LL NEVER KNOW. YOU HAVE NEEDS! Lord, don’t I know it! HOW ABOUT A GIRLFRIEND? Already got one of those, too. You know Imane? WILL YOU MARRY MY DAUGHTER? Your daughter’s 6. SO? You know what, you’re right. Age is an arbitrary thing. I’ll marry her after these other 4 girls that have been bestowed upon me.

When I went to visit my neighbor Imane’s village in the beginning, we made a show of our separate sleeping arrangements. Imane actually does have a fiancé back home, and it would be no good if her villagers thought she was some kind of slut. Look, people! He’s sleeping on the porch! But of course, deny as we might any romantic or physical involvement, people will assume what they want to assume. So now if somebody asks if there’s anything between us, the answer is No, we’re just fucking. What other reason could we have for seeing each other?

Unfortunately because I can’t be open and honest, in village I feel like a horribly lame version of myself. When I can’t make comments about hot guys or complain about not getting ass, what is there left to talk about? The weather? Goats? It just isn’t any fun. Not to mention I’m one lonely and randy rabbit.

LUST HURTS

In a way though it’s easier here. Sure, the desire is still there, unrequited as always, but I came without expecting to find anything or anyone. And how nice it is to have my expectations met, for once in my life! Whereas usually my thoughts have been along the lines of: This sucks! I can’t believe I can’t even find me a man in Paris! Now I simply think: This sucks! It’s a subtle difference, but you see, finding a man here is beyond my control, and therefore I’m completely justified in whining incessantly while making no efforts to rectify the situation. There’s simply nothing I can do. Which is actually quite a relief. Or possibly a releif. No, relief.

Ok, I admit that while I fully expected the gay scene in Burkina to be about as barren as the landscape, I secretly hoped Peace Corps would be teeming with progressive homosexual studs like myself. What young gay man wouldn’t want to leave behind the gyms, the clothes, the clubs and the hair gel to come live in poverty in the remotest place on earth? Apparently not quite as many as I thought. Instead, I find myself in the company of a group of straightwhiteuppermiddleclassheterosexistmonogamist OPPRESSORS. But they’re Ok once you get to know them.

These hopes dashed, I was no longer expecting love. (You hear that love? I’m not expecting you! Look at me, twiddling my thumbs, reading a book. I daresay, this is probably the moment in my life where I’ve expected you the least! …) But nor did I expect to arrive in Africa and be consumed by lust! All we ever hear about Africa back home is genocide, famine, disease, poverty. Am I missing anything? Exotic wildlife. So of course, I imagined I’d be living amongst poverty-stricken, disease-ridden, war-torn starving folks. And elephants. Does the news ever mention that in addition to all these things, there are also hot men in Africa? Never. News flash! There are some seriously hot men in Africa! Not just because it’s 110 degrees! And some of them even have damn nice teeth! This all came as quite a surprise to me. Perhaps the growing attraction is a natural part of acclimating to new people and surroundings. Or maybe it’s due to a condition I’ve developed known as “desperation.” I don’t know. All I do know is when I go play shirts and skins soccer, my eyes aren’t on the shirts. Nor are they on the ball. Rather they’re glued to the many topless muscly torsos writhing and twisting and flexing under smooth black sweat-drenched skin glimmering by the light of the setting sun… And then I get hit in the face with the ball, which has happened enough times that I’ve taken to just sitting and watching with the people on the sidelines. Lust hurts, man. Ouch… Or as they say here, “WHYYYYYYY!”

FIRST CONTACT

After months and months of being heterosexual, I found my beautiful gay rainbow flower slowly, sadly wilting inside of me, with no Diana Ross to rejuvinate it. I needed to know I was not alone on this continent. So when I found myself on an unexpected extended medical leave in Dakar, I decided to do some snooping around. Senegal may not be the land of plenty, but like almost every other country in the world, it’s got way more going for it than Burkina. Because Senegal, and Dakar in particular, is so much more developed, internet cafés are more popular and widespread and allow for gay folk to find their fellow family (not to mention fornicate). After some google forays, I sent off an e-mail to the head of Dakar’s underground gay organization explaining who I was and how I was hoping to learn about the gay community here. Surely enough, he responded and we set up a rendez-vous for an informal chat. It wasn’t til later that he told me he’d had to ask special permission from the board of the underground organization to meet up with me, an outsider, and share his story, with the hope that I could provide some help… I’d stumbled across some deep shit, man.

I arrived by taxi at the appointed hour and place. We were to meet at a busy intersection. I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to pick this guy out, cause all I knew was that there was a good chance he’d be black. And in Dakar I wasn’t the only whitie walking the streets. But I needn’t have worried: The man had a flame brighter than the African sun. He had the lisp, the wrist, the swagger, the look. You work it, sistah! I was nervous and excited as he led me to a more private spot, a nondescript restaurant/bar/club down the street. This was my first contact with family in Africa…! I wanted to know all about it.

We were seated in a private corner. My contact–I’ll call him “Deep Throat”–or better yet, Z–told me that the server was safe, aka in the loop, and the server sat in on parts of our conversation. We ordered beers and I asked away. Turns out the situation for gays in Senegal is much more precarious than in Burkina. The gay identity there is much more salient, and the government officially condemns it. Men in Dakar don’t hold hands or bump and grind on the dance floor because of the possibility they’ll be labeled. Gays have to be very careful how they meet up and be very discrete in their appearance, which I realized must make life awfully tough for guys with flamboyant traits like Z.

He formed the group about 5 years ago, with a goal of providing a social meeting space for gays in Dakar. They’ve since expanded their mission to include HIV/AIDS education for its members and political activism, trying to reverse government persecution and abolish a law forbidding homosexual relations. Since they’re officially banned from meeting, it all takes place in secret, communicating through word of mouth, email and phone. It started out with 50 members, but now has over 1000, 400 of whom live in the capital. Z told me the membership includes gay men, bisexuals, and lesbians. Many of them are married, some are sex workers.

Because of his position as head of the organisation and his efforts to get support from various non-governmental organizations, he inadvertantly became something of a public figure in Senegal. A couple years ago, he was attacked and severely beaten by a group of people on the street. He went to the hospital, but they refused to treat him after they discovered his identity. He had to go into hiding and managed to escape to France for 6 months.

The law used to persecute gays, Article 219, was put in place by the French during colonial times, and it still exists in all of their former African colonies, though somehow not in Burkina. It’s actively enforced in Senegal. Z gave me the example of two of his friends who were arrested on trumped up charges of public sex while they were sitting together in a park that had a reputation of being a cruising spot. The possible punishment is between 1 month and 2 years in prison, and they were both condemned to 2 years. They weren’t even allowed to speak in their own defense at the tribunal. Z told me that nobody bothers to refute the judgements because the society’s attitude is, “They’re gays, they deserve it.” Z’s organization also helps its members who are AIDS patients find people who will agree to treat them, because they’re often refused treatment at local hospitals or clinics. Even organizations like Amnesty International have offered nothing but sympathy for these injustices, claiming that if they help the gay community it would sully their relations with the government would harm their capacity for addressing other abuses. Other NGOs have refused help and funding for similar reasons. For instituting all this homophobic discrimination and persecution, we’ve got the Frogs to thank. DAMN THOSE DIRTY FRENCH AND THEIR TOAST!

Speaking of toast, by this point in the conversation the beer had reached my head, and I was feeling a little toasty. It was wonderful to finally be in the company of somebody I could relate to on a deeper level than the weather. I felt my supressed activist tendencies boiling back up, and I had saintly visions of myself taking these people under my wing, getting them condoms, books, funding for an office, helping them form a network with other gay groups in Africa, publish a website, educate the gay community about AIDS and STIs, get them treatment. Maybe I could even help a group in Burkina get on its feet. In Peace Corps I’ve gone between feelings of being mildly to completely useless. But now here was something I could be passionate about, working with people I have a connection to, who I care about, and who I can possibly help, somehow, and maybe get laid doing it… We’ve got a whole big family in Africa who are struggling to find their own sense of pride, and if only we could all get together and hold hands and sing Kumbaya, it would be so beautiful…

Then the server brought over the bill for the 2 beers, and that brought me out of my buzzed idealistic stupor awful quick. I’d invited Z, so of course I was paying. The bill was for $12. Two beers in Burkina cost about $2, and in Dakar it’s normally only a little more. Maybe it doesn’t sound like much, and to any other whitie in Dakar it wouldn’t be, but $12 was my entire day’s living allowance, and I still had taxis and food to pay for. This for a volunteer who’s looking to help you? Z, perhaps noticing the look of shock on my face, said he’d already paid up a bit to ensure we wouldn’t be disturbed, put he offered to put in $2 as I laid down a ten. We said goodbyes, and I left with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. I realized, though, as I was going away, that this was just another hurdle Z and his group had to deal with, paying dearly for the privilege of being able to meet and speak openly without trouble.

Z told me he has a contact with Burkinabé doctor who was trying to establish a group in Ouaga. Unfortunately, my attempts to follow up with him have gone unanswered, and so, to this day, I’m left high and dry in Burkina.

AN INDECENT PROPOSAL

After returning from Senegal, I started wondering, is there really nothing I can do, no way to find these people? They’ve gotta be out there. Probably even in my village. I set my gay-dar on high alert, but didn’t pick up anything. I did note some suspicious activity one day, when I spotted a group of three young guys taking turns showering in a cement brick shower out in the open near the clinic. The ones who weren’t showering were hanging around, chatting, leaning against the shower wall, and, I dunno, man, it looked like the dudes were checking each other out as they took their turns getting nekkid! Unfortunately there was no way to go verify this nonchalantly.

One evening, around this time, I was chilling with Souleymane after he’d given me a Mooré lesson. We were sitting around, shooting the shit, staring off into space, casually nudging each other’s arms. As you may already know, I’d developed a bit of a crush. Souleymane holds hands and gives affection along with all the other boys, but unfortunately, since I’m a Nassarra, I’m not generally included in these displays. (Nor have I ever been a participant in the dance-floor bumping and grinding. Well… unless you count that one drunken night down in the south…) Souley and I have graduated to an occasional hand on the knee, though, which I’m happy for. On this particular evening, we’re sitting silently, I’m trying to detect signs of sexual tension, and then he blurts out, “Have you ever slept in a mud hut?” Umm, no… (my house is made of cement bricks and a tin roof–not technically a hut) “Well then you’ll have to come over and we’ll spend the night together some time.” Well! Whoa there, Souley! Nobody’s ever tried that pick up line on me before. Could this be the love connection I’d been waiting for? I mean, not at all expecting? I was skeptical of course, but amused by the possibility that his invitation was something more. And so were other parts of me.

As I got up to leave, my backpack carefully positioned in front of me, one of the wives in his family said something to me, which Souleymane translated. “She asked if you were going to stay the night and sleep with me. She’ll feed us Tô.” And then one of the dads asked, “Aren’t you going to sleep here?” So his family was in on this too? I was a little taken aback, though this probably meant the whole thing was an innocent sleepover. But who knows? Maybe this sort of thing happens all the time. Maybe his family obviously saw the tension between us and thought, please! Just sleep with him already! It could happen. But I figured, well, the least I’ll get out of the deal is some innocent cuddling. And I could sure use it. Anything more would be just a pleasant surprise. A very pleasant surprise.

Souley was building himself a new hut at the time, and it was still missing some things, like a door, so he said when it’s finished he’d invite me over. It was finished a couple weeks later, and he took me on a tour. It wasn’t a very long tour. But we sat on his bed, and he said, “See, my new hut is a little distanced from all the other ones. So we can have fun without being bothered by all the kids.” HOLD UP THERE! What did he mean by “have fun”? Because where I come from, that would be a blatant come-on. But what do I know? I stuck to my policy of zero-expectations, but I was a little giddy thinking about it. And so were other parts of me. That backpack comes in handy.

Eventually, with a little prodding from myself (remember…? when you told me…?) the day came that he invited me to stay. We’d gone out into the bush for our Mooré lesson, out to a spot where the crocodiles are. We didn’t spot any, but we took pictures and had perfectly romantic time of it. We went back to his family’s courtyard, I watched the kids play while he bathed and walked around without his shirt. He cooked me beans, and we ate, and it got dark and we sat and talked. “So, do you want to sleep inside the hut, or outside on a mat?” Well… inside, of course! “Allright, in that case I’ll sleep outside on the mat.” I was too flummoxed to respond… WHAT? Aren’t we at least gonna cuddle? Cuz dude, I really need to. You have no idea how much I was looking forward to it!

He brought me inside, lit a lamp as I stripped to my boxers, and asked if I needed anything, like a good host. Aren’t you gonna come sleep inside?, I finally asked, trying not to sound terribly disappointed or forward or needy. “Why, are you scared?” Ummm… yeah. He laughed. “Don’t be scared. I’ll sleep outside until it gets cold and then I’ll come in and we’ll sleep together. Don’t worry.” Ok then. Was this a good sign? Maybe he was sleeping outside just for show, and then at the stroke of midnight he’d come inside and strip down and he would rock my world. Or at least hold me close. Ah…. I tried to fall asleep.

I got up a couple times in the night to pee. Midnight, he was fast asleep outside the door. I made as much noise as I could coming back, but he didn’t stir. 2am, same. 4am, I was fast awake. Dude, it’s gonna be dawn soon. Should I wake him up? Would that be obviously desperate? Well, I wasn’t gonna get another chance, so I opened the door and called to him. Souley, aren’t you gonna come inside? “Oh… yes, ok.” He put away his mat, came in, and crashed on the bed fully dressed with his back to me. He was on the very edge, leaving a good 6 inches between us, and he stayed that way. NOOOOOOOOO!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Well, shit.

Souley was up with the sun 45 minutes later, along with the rest of the family. I got up and dressed after stewing in my disappointment a little while longer. “So how was the night?” Souley asked, smiling. Amazing, Souley, just Amazing. He asked if I wanted leftover beans for breakfast, but I declined. “You’re gonna invite me over to your place one night, right?” Ha ha… Sure, souley! Let’s see… Now it’s way to hot to sleep inside, but I got this one-man tent… Of course we can both fit! Please, this is Africa! I’ll take your clothes. All of them. Now you go ahead and crawl in. I’ll just lube up and…slide right in on top! I’m sorry, there’s really no other place to put my hand. Now, let’s see… Put your arm here… move your leg around this way… slide my arm here… slip on this condom… and there we go! Comfy?

Would you believe a few days after our Night of More Nothin’, I saw Souley all over a guy in the market. They were holding hands, leaning on wooden posts together, hands around the back… He even did the “ha ha ha, you said something funny and now I’m leaning in and touching your chest” move. Souleymane, you bitch! It didn’t help that the guy was incredibly handsome and dressed better than me. I asked Souley the next day during our lesson who the guy was. Oh, just the son of the new chief. I’ve given him the cold shoulder ever since. But I still grab his knee sometimes.

And so, my gay life in burkina faso canned be summed up in a word: zip. Will it be so for yet another year? Will I manage to stay that long? Stay tuned.

Would you believe it, I just had a beer with a gay former volunteer who’s returned after 2 years away to visit his Burkinabé lover. So there’s hope after all… But I’m not expecting it. Nope. No siree.

Oh, I almost forgot. What about the pin? Well, I took it off just before we deplaned. And stuck it on the inside. Not that it would have made a difference, as I discovered. I could go marching down the street waving a huge rainbow flag with spandex rainbow shorts and glitter and pink feathers in my mohawk and NOBODY KNOWS I’M GAY painted across my chest and no one would have a clue. So maybe I will. My Ouagadougou Gay Pride for one.

HAPPY PRIDE!

Love,
Philippe

KILL THE WORM! ERADICATE! ELIMINATE! RAH RAH RAH!

I joined 6 other volunteers for a Guinea Worm week around Djibo. Guinea worm is something you get by drinking contaminated water. One or more thin white worms grow inside of you for a year til they’re a yard long or so, and then they shoot out of your chest in a gory shower of blood. Ever seen Alien? Actually, the worm is a little less dramatic. It picks a part of your body, often the feet or hands, but it could be anywhere: genitals, boobs, even eyes. The emergence is a very slow painful process, taking a couple weeks. If at any time you stick the affected body part in water (say a pond) for some relief, it shoots out its eggs and contaminates the water thatother people to drink. Of course you could die if the exit wound gets infected, or, say, you’ve got 80 worms coming out of you at the same time. Oh yeah, and once you’ve gotten it there’s nothing you can do but wait for them to come out. Sucks to be you.

The good news is that Guinea Worm is on the verge of being eradicated in Burkina Faso, thanks in part to the dedicated work of handsome gregarious studly PCVs like yours truly. In fact, I’ll just claim all the credit for myself, thank you very much. Most of the cases left are in remote areas on the borders, and so we went up to 2 affected areas near Mali. We rode around in truckbeds all week, not on roads so much as sets of tire tracks in the sand, got dropped off in villages, each of the PCVs with a team of 3 or 4 local volunteers, and we walked from courtyard to courtyard, across vast distances in the beating desert sun, uphill both ways (even though it’s flat!), and educated every single person about The Evil Worm and how to crush it! (with water filters, which we then distributed.)

Our job was to sit on our ass as the local volunteers did all the work–hey,we don’t speak the language! It’s tough, but somebody’s gotta do it. Our official job was to manage the team, make sure the sensibilization sessions were thorough and effective, and supervise the distribution of filters. One of the first villages we worked in was a gold dig site, not so much a settled community as a jumbled collection of huts, with a somewhat rough-around-the-collar population. Sheer chaos. Hundreds of kids following us around everywhere. They didn’t care what we were saying, they just wanted whatever we had to give out. People pushing and fighting, kids clawing over each other to get straw filters, which they quickly took apart and dragged on the ground behind them, like they do with all their toys. Fortunately I was there to impose order and save the day (”throw the filters and run!”). My contribution was to dash into the crowd, say my piece to the team (”remember to wash out the cup! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”) and flee until I was once again needed. I learned that sometimes in health work you can do nothing but try, and hope that something was accomplished.

The rest of the week went much better. People listened and learned, everybody got filters, and my team kicked some Guinea Worm ass! Watch out, worm! Go pick on somethin your own size!

YOUR TENT, MY FRIEND, IS BLOWING IN THE WIND

At night we stayed at the local clinic where we were based. We had to walk around with our headlamps vigilantly scanning the ground in front of us lest we step on a scorpion or get a 2-inch thorn in our foot. We had a number of close calls for both, but no puncture wounds or poisoning, dieu merci.

We set up our mosquito net tents outside. My one-man tent (”the taco”) was the subject of much ridicule and cruel taunting from the other PCVs. Our first night, Jackie, who was helping coordinate the week, just stood and laughed for what had to be 20 minutes at my tent as it flailed helplessly in the slight breeze, as I tried to go to sleep. Ok, my tent is small. I admit it freely and without shame. There’s barely room for my arms, let alone another person. In fact, it would be nearly impossible for another person to sleep in my tent without having sex with me (the others suggested I find a way to use this to my advantage). But it’s not the size of the tent that matters, people! It’s… other things!

We got a taste of the weather up north in the form of wind and sandstorms. These tended to blow away our tents when we weren’t inside, and even sometimes when we were, which led to some wild chases across the desert.

While not making fun of me, chasing tents, or running from scorpions, Andy and Pei, the Asian Americans in our group, were busy convincing our burkinabe counterparts that Jackie Chan was their brother and Bruce Lee their uncle. Burkinabe only ever watch Kung Fu/martial arts action movies, and so Bruce and Jackie and Jet are the best known celebrities after Michael Jackson. And of course since they never see Asians in person, it’s only too easy to convince them that they’d better not pick a fight with Andy or Pei, cause baby, they got some moves you don’t want to experience first hand.

LAAFI LAAFI LAND

How’s everybody doin tonight? Aw, come on, you can do better than that. I said, how is everybody doin tonight?! Is there health in the crowd this evening? Lemme hear you say LAAFI BEEME! Nothin but health? Lemme hear you say LAAFI BALA! I’d like to start off with a new number tonight. A little song I like to call Laafi Laafi Land… It goes a little somethin like this:

Everything is Laafi
In Laafi Laafi Land
And if you mention otherwise
You’re likely to get banned!

Beneath of every baobab
Inside of every hut
You’ll find a load of Laafi beeme
And nothing but!

Sure we got malaria
And the runs can make us blue
But to us it’s all Laafi bala
By the way, how do you do?

I don’t care if you’re dying
Or if your mom’s not well
You’d better tell me Laafi be
Or you can go straight… to… the… SaHELLLLL! Hey!

Thank you! Thank you ladies and gentlemen and folks in between! You’re beautiful! I’ll be here two years!

LAAFI LAAFI LAND: THE THEMEPARK

Yes, yes I can see it now. Laafi Laafi Land, Africa’s first mega themepark, and that will be its theme song. It’s mascot will be a loveable cartoon vulture with a squeaky voice. The park’s main area will be the Mossi Kingdom, a family fantasy-land of millet mazes, donkey-cart rides, and lots and lots of hoes. We’ll offer discounts to families with over 10 children, and a tops-optional dress policy will be popular with European and African women alike.

Later we can add the Lipicot Center, a futuristic space whose centerpiece will be a huge round mud hut containing a time-travelling ride. Recline on a cot and watch as two years of your life pass you by. Then, once we’ve racked up the cash, we can expand and create the Animal Kingdom, a zoo with a selection of Burkina’s most fascinating and exotic wildlife, ranging from goats to sheep to donkeys to chickens. It’s companion park could be the Insect Kingdom, with swarms of flies and mosquitos, and rides like Scorpion Encounter and Locust: Raiders of the Lost Crops. Then maybe add a waterpark, Marigot Madness (watch out for that schisto!)… the possibilities are endless, and the potential windfall for investors unimaginable. Any takers?

Truly, Burkina is a country ripe for investment. I already mentioned a while back the Burkinabe diet, which will trim you down with intestinal parasites while toning you up with work in the fields, and all the while not getting enough to eat. Shit, sweat and plow the pounds away! Another entrepreneurial possibility would be to open a chain of Sweatbox Yoga Spiritual Retreat Centers marketed to new agey american tourists. In trendy cities like Chicago and DC, yuppies flock to these places, rooms where they jack the thermostat up to 120 degrees and do yoga. But why bother with the heating bill? You could do Sweatbox Yoga anywhere just by stepping outside into the sauna that is Burkina. And what better way to find yourself, what could be a more spiritual experience, than sweating profusely in an African village?

Burkina is also well-poised to offer services to the fashion industry. Open any catalogue and you’ll see loads of pre-faded, worn-looking, stone washed, frayed hemmed clothing. Americans are so damn lazy that they can’t be bothered to wear-in their own wardrobe, so they spend millions of extra dollars buying clothes that have gone through these fancy machines and acid-wash vats that beat them, fade them and tear them. Instead, just send em to Burkina, where the unclad locals would be happy to wear them in and beat them up much more cheaply (and thoroughly!) before shipping them back off to Abercrombie and American Eagle. And while we’re at it, why not have them take over the pesky chore of wearing in your new Birkenstocks as well?

I’M TOO SEXY FOR MY SHIRT

Actually, Africans probably already are wearing your clothing. If you’ve ever wondered what happens to all those old t-shirts you dump in the Goodwill bin, well, they end up here. Rumor has it that once a volunteer spotted a villager wearing his high school’s class t-shirt with his name on the back. Volunteers love to dig through the piles of clothes in the market to find campy shirts from the 80s. But more interesting is seeing villagers walking around with t-shirts with slogans in English that they obviously don’t understand. Some of my favorites:

–A guy wearing a D.A.R.E. to Keep Off Drugs! t-shirt, while his friend standing next to him wore one with a pot-leaf print.

–”One by one, the penguins steal my sanity” in bright red on a guy walking around ouaga.

–”Nuke a godless communist gay baby seal for Christ” on a guy hanging out at a cigarette stand in Koupela.

A couple of times I’ve seen other gay references on t-shirts… One of my village friends always wears a California Aids Ride tee with a large logo for the LA Gay and Lesbian center. Another volunteer apparently saw a singer on TV in a Burkinabe music video wearing a t-shirt reading “I can’t even think straight!” Oh, if they only knew. Course, assuming that nobody can read the shirts backfired once for my neighbor Imane. She found a shirt in a market in ouaga boldly proclaiming “MASTURBATION IS NOT A CRIME”. She had to snatch it up, of course, how could she pass? She wore it a couple times in village before coming to the realization that “masturbation” and “crime” are actually the same words in French.

When I first got here, I couldn’t for the life of me remember who was who in village, because they’ve all got names like Issa and Issaka and Issouf, and, frankly, they all looked to same to me! (and I’m sure that now when I go home I won’t be able to tell all those nassaras apart–I’m having a hard enough time with the 13 new volunteers!) I tried to remember them by their t-shirts, but then I thought to myself, wait, when they change their shirts, I’ll be screwed! But after a couple of days, I realized that the shirts don’t actually change from day to day, making it quite possible to remember people as Burger King guy or Pittsburgh Steelers chick.

It’s not just what they’re wearing, but how they’re wearing it. The unaboob look is all the rage amongst my village women, who keep a single long breast hanging out of their Beckham jersey collars, sometimes with a small child attached. Even though I’ve pretty much seen it all, there are still those moments when I think Wow… that’s just surreal. Like the time a woman came into the clinic wearing a fluorescent green mesh tanktop. She was exposing it all, which all the women do anyway, but the mesh tanktop made it look quite naughty and inappropriate to wear out in public. Of course then she whipped out a boob to feed to her baby and normalcy was restored.

FROM SURFERBOY TO PUNKASS

And speaking of looks, I’ve recently given up on letting nature take its course with my head. My hair grew, and it looked good when I could keep it wet and kempt, which was never. It also grew wild, with a number of small bug families taking up residence. And then the small bugs attracted the small brightly colored birds and their nests, which was cute, but the bird crap was just too much. I came to Ouaga and before the party for the newly sworn in volunteers I asked Chrissy to take clippers to my head. Shave it! And the hair was shorn, and then there was a mohawk, and it was good. Better than good, it was badasssss! Check out the before and after photoshoots:

http://photos.yahoo.com/pgosselin8
(where you’ll find a folder of simmering “Glamour shots” as well as some new photos from Guinea Worm)

Then exercise your right and duty as an american and VOTE for your favorite at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/realworldouaga
and click on polls.

Not that your vote makes a difference, of course, unless it comes with bribes. The mohawk feels so much better in this infernal heat. And the new punk ‘do comes with a phat new ‘tude. Whatchou lookin’ at, kid? You gotta problem wid dis shit? No, you can’t have the damn nalgene! Ok, so the attitude is pretty much the same, but my head will never be. I’ll let you know what the village thinks.

Peace out, yo.

–Philippe

The herders are happy for the rain, since it means more abundant food and water for all the animals. But for the vast majority of the villagers, rain means it’s time to buckle down and work their asses off cultivating for the next 4 months so that they can grow enough to feed themselves for the coming year. Unfortunately, they don’t harvest until October, and the stores of millet from last year’s poor harvest are already running low (especially in the north, which got hit by the locusts), so for a lot of folks that means cutting back to one or two meals a day during their time of huge physical exertion. Yikes. Still, everyone is eagerly anticipating the rains’ arrival in full force. In addition to incessantly pointing out how hot it is, the standard conversation now continues, So you think it’s gonna rain? When’s it gonna rain? How bout those clouds over there, do you reckon it’s rain? Sure would be nice if it rained, cause, damn, it’s hot.

THE HORDE OF THE FLIES

The arrival of springtime also brings with it the arrival of new life, new life that contents itself with crawling up my legs and buzzing around my head at every moment of the day. In truth, the flies here are almost as bad as the children! As soon as the sun peaks up at 5:30 am, I wake (alone, alas…) to the grating bzzzzzz of the flies hurtling themselves at my one-man screen tent, and then, when I emerge from my protective cocoon, hurtling themselves at me, like crazy insatiable fans. Philiiiiiiippe, you so sexxzzzzzzy! Weeeee wanna touch your abbbzzzzzzzzz! Can I give you a kizzzz? No? How bout now? No? How bout now? How bout now? We lovezzzz you!! Kizz? No? Pleeeeezzzzzz? [WHACK] OOO! Careful, you frizzzky!

Damnit flies, learn how to take a hint! It’s not myself I’m trying to slap over and over again! I’ll autograph whatever, just leave me alone! Please, I beg you!

The flies don’t understand, simple souls that they are, their only drive in life to be near my radiant beauty. They land on my nose, I swat, they land on my nose, I slap, they land on my nose, I smack, they land on my ear, I pound, they land on my other ear, I punch, they fly up my nose… So on and so on, so that by the time I’m getting ready for lunch I’m thouroughly bruised and battered, with a black eye and bleeding from my nostril and gums. Have I killed any? Not a one. They’re impossible to kill. I’ve tried kung fu, jujitsu, judo, karate, tae-kwon-do, boxing, bitch-slapping, etc, but the flies are well versed in the art of evasion maneuvers, putting my superior streetfighting skills to shame.

Naazzzzzzarra’s getting sweaty! Oooo, we likezzzz sweat!

And then, to add insult to my self-inflicted injury, a randy pair of flies, unbridled in their fanatacism, lands on my perspiring forhead for a quickie. Why God, why? Why do such horrible creatures exist?

~~~BECAUSE, MY SON, IF THERE WERE NO FLIES, WHAT COULD THE SPIDERS EAT?

God, is that really you?

~~~OF COURSE, MY SON, WHO ELSE? I’M NO LARIAM HALLUCINATION! [hearty laughter]

Ok… but then why spiders?

~~~OH, I DUNNO, FOR THE BIRDS TO EAT…

Why don’t they just eat grass or something? And while I’m asking, why the mosquitos? Why would you ever even think to come up with them?

~~~WELL, BECAUSE… BECAUSE–JESUS!

(@@@ YES, GOD?)

~~~NO, I WASN’T TALKING TO YOU! LISTEN, KID, I’VE GOT WAY MORE IMPORTANT CRAP TO DEAL WITH. I’VE GOT WARS, FAMINE, AIDS, ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION, REPUBLICANS, AND WHEN I’M THROUGH WITH ALL OF THOSE I’VE GOT JENNIFER ANISTON’S BROKEN HEART TO MEND. I HAVE NO TIME TO LISTEN TO YOU WHINE ABOUT SOMETHING SO INCONSEQUENTIAL! HOW DID YOU EVEN GET THROUGH? I’LL HAVE TO FIRE MY SCREENERS, GODDAMNIT. DON’T YOU GIVE ME THAT DIRTY LOOK, JESUS! I CAN USE MY OWN NAME IN VAIN! [click]

Jesus Christ, God’s got quite the temper!

@@@ YES, HE DOES SOMETIMES. DON’T WORRY, PHILIPPE, HE’LL GET OVER IT. AND IF IT MAKES YOU FEEL ANY BETTER, I THINK FLIES REALLY SUCK TOO.

Thank you, Jesus. You can tune back out now.

@@@ ROCK ON.

Flies and mosquitos aren’t the only things blooming in Zamsé, of course. The past few nights in village I’ve had several dramatic encounters with other members of the insect kingdom, all ending in murder. One night I went to reach for the door to my hut when my headlamp came across a large black spider right beside it. As soon as the light hit it it sprinted away. I frantically tried to follow it with my light, but I lost the dark blob somewhere on the porch. Shit. Do I just let it go? NO! If I let it go, it will be back! It’ll be back and it’ll make babies! It’s the ones that get away that breed! I must kill it! I looked all around the table where I’d been sitting reading. Not there. And then it ran up on top of the table. I cringed all over. As soon as my light hit it, though, it jumped off the table and made a dash for it. I whipped a flipflop off of my foot and dashed after it, hopping on one foot around my courtyard, waving the flipflop in my hand. For some reason, my adrenaline told me this was the best course of action. I smacked the ground twice and missed before finally hitting it.

The very next night, I saw another similar spider as I came through my gate into my courtyard. I freaked out again, of course, but this time just stepped on it rather than going through all the acrobatics. Now, I’ve heard other Burkina Volunteers talk about these spiders called Scorpion Carriers that are up to 6 inches long, very fast, and supposedly harmless, but you try sleeping with one of them wandering around your hut! I’ve never seen one. These spiders weren’t big enough to be Scorpion Carriers, and besides, Scorpion Carriers have nothing to do with scorpions, but for some reason I had the urge to shine my headlamp up on my mudbrick wall and there I saw…

Awww, HELL no!
No. No way. No. You are NOT a scorpion. There is NOT a scorpion sitting on my wall.

I went on like that for a good 2 minutes, but then it dawned on me that actually, there was a scorpion sitting on my wall. What to do? Think, think! No way was I gonna try and kill it with my flipflop… I decided to face the scorpion like man. You stay put Mr. Scorpion, I’m just gonna go right inside and get my little can of insecticide spray. Would insecticide work on scorpions? We were about to find out. I gave it a good long spray. The scorpion’s tail unfurled. It just sat there. Are you dead?

The scorpion answered my question, and I shrieked like a 4 year old african village girl whose never seen a nassara before, as it ran off behind the wall. Jesus Christ, what now? Jesus wasn’t listening. Or maybe he was just chuckling to himself. Run! Let it go! The scorpion deserves a chance at life! No, you coward! You can’t let it go! Look, over there! A big stick! I grabbed the stick and went around the wall. Fighting my instinct to flee the scene and run for a biiga-child to help, I gave the scorpion a good whack. I gave it more good whacks. It was finished. I dropped the stick to the ground and stared at my hands. The hands of a murderer. What have I done?? I went and ate my leftovers.

So now when I sit outside, I’m consumed with paranoia. When will the next one appear? What will it be? HOLY SHIT, what’s that crawling up my neck??! Oh. That would be my overgrown hair. I’ve decided I’m gonna order a bee-suit and wear it all the time. It’s just safer that way.

RAISIN’ THE ROOF

Every once in a while, I like to get up off my wicker throne, go out into the village to mingle with the commonfolk, observe their quaint ways of life, and vaccinate them. In May we once again had a four day vaccination spree in all our satellite villages, with 7 teams of 2 going house to house to house giving out oral polio vaccine and vitamin A to all kids under 5. That’s hundreds and hundreds of children. My job was just to keep count. Some highlights:

*A woman wearing Penn State Volleyball camp t-shirt

*An old grandma with an impressive pair of pecs underneath a saggy set of boobs.

*A freshly killed goat getting skinned, and gettingits feet and head chopped off. A ha! So that’s why I’m a vegetarian! Well, all the animals here are free-range, so at least it had a chance at a fulfilling, liberated life of bleating and chewing cud before it was slaughtered.

*A man with elephantitis. It’s a condition caused by a parasite spread by, why yes, bites from a certain species of fly! With longterm exposure it causes an appendage to swell up to huge size. Sometimes it’s an arm, sometimes it’s a leg, and sometimes, as was the case with this guy, who had very large unsightly bulge in his pants, it’s the balls. Ouch.

*Two weavers working on homemade looms. Very neat.

*Boobs and more boobs.

*Screaming children, though thankfully not so many this time.

*A runner. Sometimes the children kick and scream and spit the vaccine out, but this time, a girl decided to run. Her mom ran after her, but of course the girl was faster. She got a good 2 football fields away, running back and forth along the horizon. Eventually one of her older brothers caught up with her on his bike and held her down while she was vaccinated. That girl was determined, I gotta give it to her.

*A roof-raising. A family took advantage of our sinewy presence to put a heavy straw roof on top of a new round mud brick hut. Everybody gathered round, we lifted it above our heads and slid it into place on the hut. Truly, it takes a Peace Corps Volunteer to raise a roof.

MOORÉ 102

Every time I call home it seems my parents are asking me how my language is progressing, and I feel guilty and inept, cause honestly it’s not. After 7 months in village, I should be able to say more than Laafi Laafi Laafi, health health health. And sure, I am making some progress, though not terribly substantial. I did end up hiring a Mooré tutor, Souleymane, the guy I mentioned a while back. He’s around my age, and one of the few good French speakers in village, but didn’t have the money to finish up school. The arrangement is working out fine, he’ll hopefully use some of the money to take the competitive exams you have to pass to get any government job, like nursing–basically his only possible ticket out of Zamsé. So anyway, it´s his fault I’m not really learning anything.

He puts effort into planning the lessons, but really, it all goes to waste. When I come over for a lesson, most of the time he’s hanging out shirtless. Can he be bothered to put one on? No. We sit next to each other on a delapidated wooden schoolbench, and I spend the whole time concentrating on nonchalant ways to rub elbows and nudge knees. I nod and say uh huh uh huh while staring at his chest. I’ll lean over to look at his notebook, and sometimes he’ll lean over me to check if I’m copying correctly. I’m sorry, but it’s just not fair to expect me to learn anything under these conditions.

What have I learned in my Mooré lessons? Black is beautiful! The blacker the better! Amiina! It would be a sin to ask him to cover up that body, so I’m making due. Since we’re also working on forming an AIDS discussion/condom demonstration group together, I’ve had to ask him about certain essential vocabulary, like the word “penis”: YOORE. (Mooré is prounounced like spanish, with the double vowels held longer). Learning this word, combined with what I’ve already learned, has significantly increased my conversational possibilities. Ahem:

FO YOORE YAA BEDRE BI BANOGO?
Is your penis big or small?

FO DAT N GUESSE MAM YOORE BII?
Do you want to see my penis?

WILIG MAM FO YOORE.
Show me your penis. (Mooré has no word for “please”)

I was awfully happy with myself, until I realized that the word for “name” is YUURE. That’s an awfully subtle difference. Well, shit. I’ve probably been going around village introducing myself saying,

Good afternoon. My penis is Philippe. What’s your penis?

When we learn a language we only figure out after the fact that we’ve been making complete asses of ourselves. Back towards the end of training while I was getting to leave my host family, I’d packed up all my belongings in a big trunk. I was gonna have trouble carrying it all the way to the road, and when my host mom saw me, she immediately called over my host brother, 10 years old and half my size, and she put it on his head so he could carry it for me. This was both impressive and quite humbling. I had just started Mooré, so I told his mom:

A TARA PAGA! A TARA PAGA WUSGO!

Wanting to say: He’s got strength! He’s got lots of strength!

Usually my host mom laughed and encouraged me when I learned to say something new, but this time just smiled politely, obviously confused. That’s odd. When we got to the road, I helped the kid get the trunk off his head, and I told him

FO TARA PAGA! You’ve got strength!

He seemed equally unimpressed by my attempt at speaking Mooré. Fine, whatever, I won’t even try!

Ten minutes later I kicked myself realizing the word for Strength is PANGA, not PAGA. PAGA means “wife.” He’s got a lot of wives! Great.

People have been telling me I’ve gotta get some potassium to cook with my beans so that they cook faster and don’t make you as gassy. I heard that the old ladies selling leaves and okra and tobacco under the big tree in the marché usually have some, so I went to ask for it. I thought that the word for potassium was ZHUIIM. But the word for potassium is actually ZHUAYM. ZHUIIM is the word for blood.

Good afternoon! How’s the family? The work? There’s Health? Good. I’m looking for Blood.

–What?

Blood. I want blood.

(What does he want?)

–He wants blood.

Yes, you know, blood, to put with beans.

–You want beans?

No, not beans, blood!

–There isn’t any… Check over there.

There’s no blood?

[Luckily here Isaaka strolls over and asks what I’m looking for.]

–He wants blood?

**No, he doesn’t want blood, potassium!

–Ooooohh, potassium! say the 7 women who are now listening in.

Right, that’s what I said, blood!

Turns out there wasn’t any potassium either.

Course I’m not the only one who makes linguistic flubs. I found a copy of the 2nd Harry Potter in French in the volunteer library, so I brought it back for Souleymane to read, since he only has 2 novels which he reads over and over again, and I was interested to see what he thought of this one. He just started, but he’s keeping notes as he goes along, so I asked him to tell me what he had so far.

Harry Potter’s a magician, and he’s going to school, but at home he’s not liked because he lives with Muggles (Moldus in French) which are non-magic people. He’s not allowed to use magic outside of school because he’s underage, and every night he holds a big cigarette in his hand–

–Wait, a cigarette?

Yes, he smokes a cigarette…

–What? I don’t think so… do you mean a wand?

No, I read it, Harry Potter is a smoker!

Well, I think I would have noticed that, but what did I know? Maybe the French version was adapted to make it more culturally relevant. Souleymane looked up the passage in question. Turns out he misread cicatrice (scar) for cigarette. He he he… Oh Souleymane.

AND speaking of the 2nd Harry Potter, not one person has responded to point out the Burkinabe reference, and therefore, no one will be receiving my undying admiration. Tough. If anyone’s curious, Book 2, Chapter 9, page 141, the self absorbed phony Lockhart mentions:

*** “. . . I remember something very similar happening in Ouagadogou,” said Lockhart, “a series of attacks, the full story’s in my autobiography, I was able to provide the townsfolk with various amulets, which cleared the matter up at once …… The photographs of Lockhart on the walls were all nodding in agreement as he talked. One of them had forgotten to remove his hair net. ***

Ouagadougou is misspelled, but there’s really only one place he could be talkin’ about. I am in that place called Ouagadougou. Funny, isn’t it?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go fight the forces of evil! …where did I put that spandex?

Love,
Philippe

PS: You can put my name on any packages you send, and my counterpart should be able to pick it up for me at the post in Zorgho.

Philippe Gosselin
CSPS de Zamsé
BP 34 Zorgho
Burkina Faso

Thus has been the sum total of my verbal communication for the past month and a half, because really, actually, it’s hot. And for some reason, we all feel the need, even the villagers, to point it out, multiple times to every person we see: It’s hot. Amen to that! You be speakin the truth sistah! Tell it like it is!

I spend the hours between 10am and 4pm sitting in the shade on my porch, my eyes glazed, my mouth hanging open, moaning softly to myself as the sweat beads trickle down my forhead, down my prominent dignified french-canadian nose, over my pouty kissable lips, down my strong jaw, down every part of my sinewy rippled torso, down through the crevaces of each abdominal of my 6-pack… twitching and slapping myself every few seconds to shoo the flies, which usually turn out to be yet more beads of sweat or stray strands of hair. Really, can insanity be far off?

Occasionally a light breeze will help me cool off, which feels especially nice when I’m entirely drenched, except when it’s a hot desert breeze that stings my eyes.

In the evening, I brush the dried salt off of my forehead into my soup, and I journal about how hot it was that day. I drag my cot outside, cause sleepin in is out of the question, and stick my one-man mosquito net on top (most volunteers have roomier 2-man mosquito tents, but I’m just not that optimistic). And I lay down inside, sweating, though not quite as much as during the day, and I pray for a breeze so I can fall asleep. Or I point a twig at the sky and shout VENTILIARUM! which usually works. (Yes, I started Harry Potter last week, and I’m now on book four). If I do fall asleep, I wake at 6 am to a burst of heat as the sun climbs in the sky.

The animals are also suffering. My dog lies on the floor, her tongue hanging out of the side of her mouth onto the floor into a puddle of drool, panting at 80 mph for the better part of the day. Sometimes her doggy friends will come over and lay down and drool on the floor beside her. I went to visit Imane, to chat about the weather. She has a scrawny little overly-affectionate roach-eating black cat with a big hernia in her side that she inherited from the previous volunteer. She had her mouth hanging open, breathing heavily–the cat, that is, not Imane–and I do believe that’s the first time I’ve seen a cat panting. Only in Africa!

And the villagers are quick to point out that the heat, life in Africa, it’s not easy! Because, well, it’s not, and therefore it should be pointed out in every conversation at least once. And when I think about how not easy it is, about the heat, and the lack of burritos and gay men, and that somewhere out there there’s a cool paradise with an abundance of both burritos and easy gay men called Castro Street, then a year and 6 months to go starts feeling like an awfully long time. But I’ve got this huge stack of 50 books waiting to be read, a bunch of care package food and spices waiting to be devoured (and for which I’m terribly grateful!)… and it would be a shame to leave when I’ve still got a motherload of complaints to air and you, my loyal, devoted, faithful readers clamoring to hear them. So until I do run out of all of the above, I’ll stick around. And the latter in particular could take a while. So lets get to it, eh?

MORE ADVENTURES ON PUBLIC TRANSPORT, or THE LITTLE PIGGY THAT COULD

Coming back from our recent trip to the prettier, greener, cooler south, my friend Katy and I had to pick a bus line to bring us back to Ouaga. No, bush taxis aren’t the only option for transport. We’ve also got big tall busses, of the Greyhound variety, with luggage stowed underneath and stairs going up to the seats on top. The bus lines aren’t up to Greyhound’s exceptional standards of comfort, so they squeeze 5 seats to a row instead of 4, but it still beats taking a crammed bush taxi any day… one would think!

[cue ominous music]

Since Bobo-Dioulasso is the 2nd biggest city in Burkina (no, I don’t know how they come up with these names) there are lots of buslines that make the 5 hour trip on the paved road to Ouaga. For an extra $2, TSR had an airconditioned bus leaving at 2 oclock. Also, if you stay on the bus after the 1st stop in Ouaga, the bus continues on to the 2nd station, which happens to be right next to the Peace Corps hostel. No dealing with taxis or biking through Ouaga’s chaos, a nice air-conditioned trip through this hot-season inferno… Sold!

We got to the TSR station around noon, and I stood in line to buy tickets while Katy watched the bikes and bags. The sun was beating down as I waited, but the woman behind the ticket window took her sweet-ass time. Even without a computer, how it could take so long to sell a bus ticket I could not understand, but 20 minutes later the line in front of me had dwindled down from 6 and it was my turn.

Two tickets for the 2 oclock bus!
*It’s sold out.
What? But surely there’s room…

We heard that the more expensive air-conditioned bus was hardly ever full, but oh well, there was another bus leaving at 3 minus the AC. I spent the last of my cash buying the tickets.

What about the bikes? I asked.
*That’s somebody else.
Of course, but who?

Of course it couldn’t be simple, where we could buy the bike tickets along with ours, I knew that. You order a drink at a street restaurant and the waitress says, Whoa, whoa there buddy, that’s not my job! Ask the drink lady when she idles around. The ticket window lady told me to ask one of the bagage handlers in the blue jackets. And so I went off, looking for blue jackets, around and around I went, until finally I realize that there aren’t any. We needed to get the bike business cleared away to make sure they saved room for them on the bus… Unlike the bushtaxis, they can’t just throw em up on top along with the goats and your mother.

I handed Katy our tickets and she asked if there was anything she could do, as she stood sweating and applying sunscreen. No, no, I’ll take care of it.

I got back in the ticket line and waited my turn again. The ticket lady didn’t sympathize that there was no one to ask about the bikes, so I stormed off, muttering to myself profusely. This is @$&@#$@bullsh#$… haven’t you ever heard of @#$!@ customer service you #$@%&@#%@$? Now I’d learned in dealing with these situations that I just gotta muster up all my patience and keep my cool, but the sun sure weren’t helpin none. I ambled back over to Katy, who’d stripped down to a bikini and was working on her tan to the bemusement of the ogling muslim men feigning shock. Actually she was fully dressed and having about as much sweaty fun as I was. She asked, Is there anything I can do to– No! I’ll handle it!

Behind her was something that looked like it could be an office, so I walked in to inquire about the baggage people. The blue jackets, a girl said. There are none! The girl came out of the office to take a look. Do you believe me now? She pointed me to another room next door, which was supposedly the baggage office. I climbed over the bags and waiting passengers in the packed hangar and looked inside the door. Inside were indeed 3 guys in blue jackets. Sound asleep. EEERRRGGH!! Must I really wake them up? Umm… excuse me? No, I can’t. I climbed back over the bags and people to Katie, exasperated and flabbergasted and friggin hot, what with my wet shirt clinging to my impressive pectorals, the sweat dripping down my tight round butt, down my thick hairy thighs, etc etc. WHAT… IS… WRONG… WITH… THESE PEOPLE??? THIS CONTINENT??? DO THEY NOT CARE? HAVE THEY NEVER HEARD OF CUSTOMER SERVICE?? RAAAAHHRRR!! GAAAAAAHHH!!! I kicked my bike just because. Katy wasn’t able to respond to my queries to my satisfaction, but thank god she was there to take charge, cause she’s got more balls for these kinds of situations than I do.

Somehow, after a couple minutes, she got a guy with a roll of tape to come over and tag our bikes. He started to walk away, so I ran after him.

Hold it! Where do we pay to load the bikes?
*That’s not me.
Right, of course not, but who? And where should we put them?

Rather than respond, he chose to walk away, just like that. But fine, we tried. The bikes were marked. Let’s go find us some cool beverages and shade, shall we?

[intermission]

We came back around 2:30 to get ready for the 3 oclock bus. There were actually 2 busses waiting with hoardes of people and bags surrounding them. Were we late? Turns out that because it was the end of a holiday, they’d called up an old reserve bus to fill the extra demand. The first was already loaded and ready to go, so Katy and I hurried to get our bikes and bags through the chaos and loaded onto the second one.

We found our friend from earlier, Mr. Unhelpful. After asking him twice what to do with the bikes, I grabbed and asked, which worked better. He told us to wait with them there and they’d take care of it. We waited, and I could see the seats on the bus filling up, so I told Katy that one of us had better go save our seats. She took charge, and said You go get seats, I’ll take care of the bikes and bags. Are you sure? I asked, meaning Yes, please do that, thank you! I got on the bus and scrambled to save us two seats, difficult when they were almost all being saved for other people. I could see our stuff out the window, and Katy ran off to find someone to help. After a couple minutes, she reappeared under my window, slightly frazzled.

There’s no room for the bikes!
*Of course there’s room, this is Africa, there’s always room!
They keep telling me there’s no room!
*Just keep trying! I shouted.

Katy ran off again as I slumped in my seat. Oh my god… this trip just wasn’t worth it. I can’t take the stress!

A gray-haired guy in a blue jacket holding a wrench showed up and wheeled Katie’s bike to the other side. FINALLY, they’re loading the bikes. Sigh of relief. When the gray-haired guy came back around and walked past the rest of the stuff, I shouted out to him

The other bike! You have to load the other bike!
*What? You mean this is yours too?
Yes, the bike and the big black bag!
*There’s no room!
Yes there’s room! You must try!

Next thing I knew, my large black hiking pack was coming through my window. There’s no room for the bike! he shouted. Your friend will have to take the next bus at 6!
There’s gotta be room! Try! I felt bad for yelling at the guy, cause he WAS trying, and he was the only person from this station who’d wanted to help us at all. He shook his head and said sorry. Oh no… The next bus was in 3 hours, and wouldn’t get to Ouaga til 11. Katy came back around, her long blond hair standing on end.

Where’s my bike??
*They loaded it…
I’ll have to see if they can change my ticket for the next bus… I guess I’ll just take your bike with me.
*Can’t you try–
I tried, they can’t. I’m gonna go see if they can change my ticket!
*WAIT!

I felt terrible. I should be a gentleman and offer to let her take this bus. It was her bike on board, after all… But the thought of waiting another three hours in that purgatory… I need my ticket! I shouted. She handed it to me and went back out of sight. Oh… Karma will make me pay, I thought. I supposed it wasn’t a good time to also ask her if she could loan me $10, as I was broke.

The driver placed a guy in the seat next to me, the last unoccupied one on the bus. But–but–that’s for my friend! I whimpered to myself, dejected. Before I could see if Katy had gotten everything straightened out, the bus was lurching out of the station. Shit shit shit shit shit. Could this get any worse?

[ominous music refrain with hint of danger]

I fidgeted in my seat, shooting a dirty look at the guy who was sitting in Katy’s spot next to me, though he was kinda cute. Skinny, but cute. I could go for him, I supposed. Oh, Katy! Damn it all. I tried to read, but I couldn’t concentrate. I needed to chill out. I was on my way, there was nothing I could do. I opened the window and sat with the breeze in my face, watching the scenery pass as we left Bobo behind. I needed to sleep, I decided.

The thing that makes sleeping on the bus between Bobo and Ouaga difficult, besides the normal difficulties of sleeping on a bus, craning your neck every which way, and the potholes, is that the bus blares its horn every 20 seconds or so to signal the donkey carts and bicycles and motos and people and cows to get outa the way, cause the breaks don’t work. I was desperately tired, but the sleep didn’t come. Not with the HOOOOOOOOOOOOONK coming through the window. Two hours later, as the sun was getting low, I was on the cusp, ready to finally pass out, having been hypnotized by the endless HOOOOOOOONK HOOOOOOOONK HOOOOOOOONK HOOOOOOO–CLUNK! Whoa! Apparently something… someone? didn’t get out of the way in time.

The bus chugged and slowed, pulling over to the side of the road, I assumed to go check on whatever had been hit. Word got around that it had been a pig. And when everybody started getting off the bus, I learned that they hadn’t stopped out of concern for the poor animal, but because by giving its life, that little piggy had brought our goliath 50 ton bus to its figurative knees.

Oh well. It’d give me a chance to stretch my legs and piss on a bush. Since I had no idea what was going on, I figured it would be a good chance to bury the hatchet with my seat mate and make friends, so that he could tell me. After about half an hour of waiting around, watching a group of men hover around the engine, my informant told me that word had it TSR was sending a replacement bus from Bobo. You’re kidding! It’s really that bad? A replacement bus would take at least 2 hours to drive from Bobo, then we’d have to transfer all our stuff over… Ugh, what a mess! Well Katy, looks like we may be getting into Ouaga around the same time after all!

Since this was gonna take a while, I took a seat by the road next to my skinny, semi-cute friend, a Molecular Bio student at Burkina’s one and only university who spoke french a mile a minute. He offered me some palm wine, the alcoholic beverage of choice in the south, what with all its palm trees. They tap the tree at night and collect it in the morning, and it ferments naturally as the day progresses. I accepted to take a sip. Instead, he filled my entire nalgene with the stuff. It was easily one of the nastiest beverages I’ve encountered in my life, but I couldn’t exactly tell him that since he’d just given me a liter of it. He asked if I liked it, and I told him it was… interesting… tastes a bit like sulfur, like rotten eggs, wouldn’t you say? I forced myself to drink, and anyway, I needed a drink.

We sat, and so did everyone, watching as the sun set, and as the busses from the lines we should have taken passed us by.

[entr’acte]

Now pitch black outside, word had gotten around (because no one was actually telling the crowd what was going on) that the people working on the bus were going into the town a mile or so up the road to find a welder, and a replacement part had been sent on the next bus from Bobo. What the hell was going on? Wasn’t the replacement bus due sometime soon? Skinny-boy told me it was gonna be a while longer and suggested that we take a walk to the town ourselves to get food and water. The walk took a good 20 minutes,