From atop the cliffs of Takalédougou, many glories can be beheld. Sugarcane fields, cashew orchards, cassava fields, and rolling hills beyond. But the cliffs themselves are also worthy of attention. There be crags and grottoes so enormous that a village councilor once told us the whole 2000-person village could fit into a special "cachette" cavern if trouble were ever to happen upon this peaceful region.

But come late August and the last hurrah of rainy season, the deluge starts coursing off the cliffs. Overnight, waterfalls start popping up every which where. As my volunteer work winds down, I've been increasingly putting on my Indiana Jones hat and pioneering solo and team expeditions to take photos. To bring you these photos, I've risked life and limb trudging through marshlands and dodging booby traps, such as low tree limbs, and ferocious beasts, such as squirrels.


Waterfall number one, pictured on the right, is really far away and I would have had to machete my way through a few football fields of overgrown underbrush to reach it. It's barely visible in this low-quality picture, but to me it resembles the waterfall from Pixar's "Up." If there were any houses here flying on helium balloons, I didn't notice them. Below this paragraph are three pictures of waterfall number two.



Waterfall number three, tucked away in the crevasse, required that I in my gym shorts and camera trudge through a family's field while they were working. They were fairly forgiving, playing it off like it's something that happens every day out in the wilderness.


The last waterfall has special significance for the village. Every year in mid-August they have an all-day culture party atop it. People drive in from all across the country to drink, dance, and watch performances atop the raging rapids. Tana and I first visited the infamous Cascades of Takalédougou back in dry season in early 2011. To get there, you must scale one of the many irrigation pipelines that the sugar corporation SOSUCO uses. Our courtyard family members, Fatouma, Mogomake, and little Natagoma, accompanied us one foggy day to the summit where there was barely a trickle of a waterfall.




Under stormy skies, we came again recently when the scenery is much more lush. You can see the highway and then sugarcane fields in the distance.




This time when we came, we brought some friends: volunteer Barry, Fernando (a Portuguese organic farming researcher), Daouda (Fernando's friend), and volunteer Anne. Barry set his camera in a tree on a timer, then barely made it into the picture.



After waterfall hunting, we all made some fajitas, traded movies, and then went to see a talent competition at the local bar.

We've been amidst some politically weighty world news during our time here. Here's a running list from whatever random news sources I could scrounge up that represent some of the big events that have affected our lives and work:

Nov 26, 2010 - Blaise Compaore re-elected in Burkina Faso landslide - He has been the president since the eighties.

1 January 2011 Burkina Faso Ranks 176 out of 178 on UN Economic Human Development Index

10 January 2011 - Al Qaida 'behind Niger kidnapping'  - This led to Peace Corps Niger closing.

Tunisia
14 January 2011 - Tunisia: President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali forced out 
 14 January 2011 - Tweeting Tyrants Out of Tunisia Only a three countries north of us, Tunisia's government was overthrown and the revolution set off a chain reaction for the Arab Spring.

Egypt
25 January 2011 - Anti-Government Protests Continue in Egypt 
28 January 2011 - Egypt's president imposes nationwide night curfew
5 February 2011 - Egypt ruling party leaders resign but regime holds  -The revolution in Cairo that led to Mubarak's fall. We listened live on BBC World Service with our shortwave.

Cote d'Ivoire
6 April 2011 - Gbagbo negotiating exit from Ivory Coast 
7 May 2011 - Ouattara takes oath months after Ivory Coast vote 

Burkina Faso
18 April 2011 - Students Burn Buildings in Burkina Faso Protests 
15 April 2011 - After Protests, Burkina Faso’s President Dissolves Government 
18 April 2011 - In Burkina Faso, military mutiny spreads 
19 April 2011 - Burkina Faso gets new PM as mutiny spreads
22 April 2011 - Burkina Faso pres. names himself defense minister 
27 April 2011 - Merchants torch buildings in Burkina Faso 
28 April 2011 - Police in new mutiny in Burkina Faso
23 May 2011 - Protesting students ransack Burkina ministry building 
25 May 2011 - Burkina Faso averts crisis - We also wrote about being stuck inside our transit house in the city during all the April protests. During the heat of the unrest, we were put up in a nice hotel far from the protests where we played kickball and ultimate frisbee and had a delicious Easter dinner.

2 May 2011 - U.S. kills Osama bin Laden decade after 9/11 attacks 

10 May 2011 - Peace Corps Volunteers Speak Out on Rape
21 November 2011 - Obama Signs Kate Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act 

20 August 2011 - Nigeria leader, UN vow to work on after HQ bombing 

6 September 2011 - Libya convoy enters Niger, Gaddafi not aboard
3 October 2011 - Residents flee Gaddafi hometown
21 October 2011 - Gaddafi dead 

18 November 2011 - Benin: Pope Heads to Voodoo Heartland On Africa Visit

15 December 2011 - Victoria’s Secret Revealed In Child Picking Burkina Faso Cotton 
13 January 2012 - Child Labor For Victoria’s Secret Cotton Examined By U.S. 

16 April 2012 - Charles Taylor convicted of war crimes in Sierra Leone

Mali
3 April 2012 - 200 000 flee fighting in Mali  - By September 18, 2012 there are still 108,000 Malian refugees in Burkina Faso
6 April 2012 - Mali coup: al-Qaeda linked rebels declare independence 
12 July 2012 - White House offers $10 million for Mali refugee aid 
29 July 2012 - Mali's Interim President Outlines Political Transition - Peace Corps Mali was suspended and we began to see more ex-pat development workers and missionaries around Banfora and Bobo staying at hotels.

16 July 2012 - U.S. Peace Corps volunteers questioned in Ghana over death

25 July 2012 - Ghana VP sworn in hours after President John Atta Mill's death 

6 September 2012 - Burkina Faso's Paralympic team overcomes bureaucratic/logistical obstacles to compete

14 September 2012 - Widespread protests against U.S. over anti-Muslim film - Due to a slanderous film targeting Mohammed produced by an American ex-convict, there is outrage in the Arab Spring: enraged extremists react violently in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Lebanon.
16 September 2012 - Burkina Faso: President deplores Muslim violence

18 September 2012 - Burkina Faso ambassador to France  resigns after being accused of embezzling $518,000

Behold Siaka reigning supreme over his kingdom of cassava plants. All through late July while his neighbors were harvesting their yields, Siaka lay in wait, counting down the moments until his master plan could be hatched. You see, he and his wives are locally known for their business of manufacturing and distributing attiéké, a delicious starchy dish, like rice or couscous. Siaka is a beloved community luminary, one of the few non-city-dwellers I've met here proficient in English. He's also our village's own farmer version of Warren Buffett, dedicating countless hours to writing out business plans and plotting out how to get some sort of foothold on his future.

Today Siaka took the first step in his ascent to becoming the business tycoon he's destined to be. He took a microloan through an online microcredit institution called Zidisha. And it's all thanks to his own persistence as well as the awesome legwork and string-pulling of friends (previous volunteer Amanda and her family, former assistant PC director Dan Rooney, and James and Julie alongside their entrepreneur friend also named Siaka).

On the Zidisha website, Siaka made a profile and within a few days, generous donors from all over the world chipped in. Before he knew it, the money was wired to the Banfora Ecobank: a thousand bucks for a gas-powered cassava grinder and some sifters. On a first-come, first-donate basis, a group of philanthropists (most of whom had never met Siaka before) pitched in their pennies, which he'll pay back each month as he builds his empire. Today, Siaka has the honor of being the second Zidisha loan in the country and has further invested in solar panels so that his village women employees can work into the night. Here's a look at the online system that made his loan possible:

Hey, let it be known that we are still alive and still doing the same stuff we usually do, whatever that is. One of those things we're supposed to do is share local language with people outside of Africa. In the spirit of this, here are some phrases in the Jula (Dioulla) language that I've picked up recently.


Tubabuce, i nun kala kadjan
Hey, white man, you have a big nose

Tubabuce, i ka don ke cogo majni
Hey, white man, you dance weird

Tubabuce, i ka sabi bo
Hey, white man, your smell is coming out

Tubabuce, i ye nambara mogo lo ye
Hey, white man, you're not a good person

Tubabuce, i kera kumi a sigeni lo
Hey, white man, you look exhausted

Tubabuce, mun kera i bi kuma i yera ma?
Hey, white man, why are you talking to yourself?

*Note: Nobody ever actually says any of this... in this sense these aren't all that colloquial. But from the look on people's faces sometimes, I could swear they're thinking some of these things.

I've been wanting to write for some time about my actual work here as a volunteer. It's just hard to put into words the complex combination of progress, setbacks, pride, humility, frustration, and awe that inevitably result from Peace Corps work. On the one hand, I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but on the other, I don't want to downplay something that is actually meaningful or impactful. I also hesitate to say when things aren't going well, because I don't want to discourage anyone who reads this.

Some of the moments here are incredible, like the (upcoming!) story about my health club students. But sometimes little successes can bring on the warm fuzzies in full force. Hearing someone say, "Wow, you can really speak Jula now!"  Seeing a friend become extremely animated and inspired while we debate a social issue together.  Finding out that my mentor, Oumar, feels like he learns something new from me whenever we're together.
Other times can feel downright useless. Since I'm being honest here, I'll admit that there are some days I shut my door and pretend I'm not here because I'm tired, sick, or just don't feel like speaking in another tongue. There are times when I really give myself a hard time for not doing enough, or talking to enough people, or going to the clinic enough. But nobody said the Peace Corps would be easy. They just said it would be worth it. There have been times when I've doubted even that. 

But more recently, I'm seeing my service as one long project rather than 800something days added up. I've taken stock, and I feel good about what I've accomplished even if I have had to spend some time on the bench from allergies, amoebas, and mild anemia.  I've been here almost a year and a half, and I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but I've become an actual part of the community.  Of course I still stick out, but less like a sore thumb and more like the quirky nerd I've always been.  

I've often been asked what a typical day is like in my life as a PCV. Like I mentioned, you could pick two of my days at random and one would make me look like a saint, the other a sloth. So here is my best shot at a fair and honest depiction of a typical week walking in my dirty, Nike memory foam flip flops:

Sunday. Get up at 8 to wash the clothes.  Have instant coffee and a snack. Wash all morning. Stop to eat lunch once hands start hurting. Rinse whatever's still soapy and leave the rest for next time. Spend the rest of the day recovering from the exhaustion. Play scrabble by lantern light with Chad after dinner.


Monday. Be woken up by a neighbor knocking who wants to borrow my bike. Give her the bike, go back to sleep. Get up for real when she gets back from the market. Spend the next hour talking on the porch about her marriage prospects. Weave in discussion of family planning options and how to discuss it with her partner. Eat brunch. Call another volunteer about girls' camp preparations. Hang out at home until sunset, then go to a friend's house and drink cashew apple juice as we discuss the future of her business. Then head home for dinner and catching up on my favorite shows on the computer.


Tuesday. Have tea and pancakes. Bike 1km to the health clinic for a meeting with the new health staff. Explain what Peace Corps is and discuss plans for upcoming training activities. Stop by the school briefly during lunch time to ask the director a question about spring break. End up talking with a teacher for two hours about literacy rates, student motivation, and behavior change theory. Go home very hungry. Make plain noodles with parmesan (thanks, family) and then help my surrogate grandma sweep up the leaves in the courtyard. Try to learn some new guitar chords.

Wednesday. Wake up feeling motivated. Start cleaning the house. Get overwhelmed and give up. Start watching a movie instead. Get interrupted by a friend I haven't seen in a while. Sit on the porch together and discuss a possible budget for building a new pigpen for her family farm. Grab lunch once she leaves and fall asleep, overheated. Wake up confused, drink lots of water and talk for an hour with Chad about my new ideas. Eat dinner together and finally at least get all the dishes done. Well most.

Thursday. Grab coffee and a granola bar then head to a nearby town for a family reunion. Greet all of the important family members, including the eldest women who are in the ceremonial hut, complete with four disembodied bull heads. Proceed to being forced to eat oily rice with beef after insisting that we already ate, thank you. Smile to hide some mild gagging. Hand over the remaining beef chunk to Chad (the benefit of serving as a married couple). Drink copious amounts of water. Leave after a polite amount of time. Lend a friend our camera to record the rest of the event. Grab a semi-cold Coke and go home to finally finish that movie.

Friday. Eat. Bike to the school to remind the kids of the upcoming health club meeting. Stop by two houses where individuals do composting. Discuss an upcoming training opportunity in broken Jula then take their pictures for use in the composting publicity. Realize too late that I forgot to put on sunscreen. Go home. Eat. Go to bed early.

Saturday. Wake up in the middle of the night from mouse noises. Think of a great project idea and write it down. Have a bottle of water and go back to bed. Get up for real later and make sure everything is ready for health club. Have breakfast. Invite a friend to come help teach the kids. Bike to the school after lunch. Teach the basics of nutrition and play a sorting game based on favorite foods and a matching game with food and food groups. Discuss upcoming spring break activity plans. Then hand over the soccer ball and watch to make sure they don't hurt each other. Grab a Coke, almost cold this time, on the way home, and spend the evening drawing and maybe playing guitar and singing.




Note:  This is just an example to create a picture of what my personal experience is often like. Peace Corps service is very diverse, between volunteers, across sectors, and around the world. Some volunteers work 9 to 5 schedules. Some take every meal with their neighbors. Some fill clear job positions, and some, like me, create their jobs as they go along. There is not just one right way to be a volunteer. The key is that we try to live by consistent principles of development and respond to the real needs of our communities. Feel free to post any unanswered questions you may have as a family member, blog enthusiast, or future volunteer. I will be glad to post a FAQs entry some time soon.