*The opinions expressed here are Garrett's and not Peace Corp's, especially in the last few paragraphs, these are STRICTLY GARRETT'S VIEWS*
Greetings everybody. It's been a very long time, there's little to say when life continues on as normal. Given that school's been out for a while, I've only had a few projects to do.
The main thing that's been on my mind is the drought of this season. June-September is generally the rainy season here in Burkina, and May had a couple rains. Well, in this season, May had equal rains to June and July, which was really bad. Those were just a few small rains. To me, the reality of global warming taking place has come. Global warming is no longer a future worry in my mind. It's a unique situation for me because I'm seeing my villagers, who are people who'll be the type most negatively impacted by global warming in the coming future, trying to understand this phenomenon. They complain and worry about the lack of rain, and I tell them it's because of cars emitting gases and their cows farting a bunch. But, they just shake off my explanations and accept their fate. When I talk to them about agricultural techniques that will help crops grow in the face of drought, they often shake it off because doing such techniques betrays what they do by custom. I've been thinking about the effects of villagers having a diminished harvest and how hungry my students will be during the school year and how tough it will be to teach them. On the one hand, I'm sad I won't be here to help those in need. On the other, I'm relieved I won't have to see so much agony.
However, at the very end of July, we finally did get some good, consistent rains. That's a relief, the harvest shouldn't be a disaster. It just depends on if the rainy season ends early or late. I've told my replacement in village, Jonathan, that he has a lot of tough work ahead of him. I've left him notes on secondary projects to do at school to cope with these problems. The big thing I've asked him to do is continuing some senisitizations with the students on why not to get the female students pregnant. That was a huge problem last year with our 23 pregnant girls who had to resort to prostitution in order to get enough food to survive. Because they're far from their parents, they have to rely on others for food. The key thing for improvement in that area is to have more ambitious projects and really set forth expectations for the students to behave well.
In the meantime, I've also worked in the training of the new Peace Corps trainees. It hearkened back well on my life in training: the diarrhea bouts every week, the stress of constant workshops, the being thrown into a different culture. The new group is a good one, they're creative with how they teach, were full of confidence (at least in the beginning), and nobody has dropped out yet. My replacement in village, Jonathan, is a nice, guitar-playing, song-writing science expert. He made a visit to my site where I was host for him in my/our house and helped introduced him to the big men of the village. He seemed a tad overwhelmed, especially being thrown into a place where French is necessary to speak. I hope his confidence wasn't shot, because he'll need it for the challenges up ahead.
The other big event in my village was the creation of a new agricultural association. My friend and his fellow villagers attended an agricultural conference a few months back on the big details of agriculture that most traditional farmers aren't aware of. They felt inspired to start an association to collectivize their crops and sell them on the market. They have taken me as a bit of a moral leader, even naming the association after me using my village name, Wendyam. I get to hear all their decisions and approve of everything. My goal has been not to interfere in the democratic structure of the 6 members and present my ideas as possibilities and provide objective info. I gave them a little investment to start things up, which they spent on peanuts and fertilizer. The focus for them is registering their association with the government in order to receive microfinancing in the future. It's an interesting phenomenon seeing villagers deciding to do something new, especially starting something so official-looking and dedicating themselves to do work. Villagers don't have the mindset necessary in a capitalist society of putting in a lot of work for a possible reward in the distant future. They tend not to be comfortable accepting that you can put in work on a project with a lot of risk, thus receiving nothing in the future. But, I enjoy seeing them accepting the new responsibility that's unlike what is expected of them in their African communities.
Overall, my adventure in Africa is pretty much done. I've got exactly two weeks left here. All that's left is a week of training the newbees and then having one day to say goodbye to the people in my village. My journey in Africa has brought me everything I've wanted: a reality check of what life is like in the third world (though I was only given one example of it), a chance to challenge my ideas of the world which I've changed, a chance to experience the bondings of a traditional community, a chance to appreciate something that's not America, a reason to greatly appreciate my own country and culture, and a lot of time to rest my mind in fast-paced America.
There is one viewpoint of mine that has changed the most. Before, I had the typical attitude of people with my political viewpoints that the world's poor are strictly victims of problems of which they could never surmount on their own. For example, I used to believe that people in the third world were incapable of paying off their IMF and World Bank debt or that global warming is going to make their lives impossible. Since I've been here, I've seen businessmen taking the courage to buy merchandise and sell things in a fashion which is so alien to their culture, but which has brought benefits of improved salary and comfort to their family which has been appreciated. I've seen these businessmen pay off their personal debt, and I realized that African countries can surmount their problems if their people take the courage to take risks and not become involved in the all so tempting corruption. I also see now that there are agricultural techniques that villagers can do with minimal resources which will allow them to sustain their lifestyle in the drought-ridden future. They just need to accept more work and benefits which will possibly come in a future that's more distant than they have the habit of looking at. The viewpoint that the have-nots have insurmountable obstacles, I’ve realized, is very belittling to their intelligence and capacity to do good themselves. And for the view that the have-nots are complete victims of their problems, I’ve learned to see communities of people can surmount these big issues if their individuals personally decide to adopt the key virtues in life like: hard-work, courage, open-mindedness, and a capacity for thinking critically of their problems.
On the BBC, I often hear a lot of the wiser, more worldly Africans saying that Africa's problems need to be solved by Africans. I've seen how that's true here. Many people want hand-outs from Westerners thinking they can become rich that way. The wiser Burkinabe I respect greatly, realize their future and their material wealth is strictly in their own hands. Westerners can only help these people by giving knowledge and reason to take initiative in their lives. Peace Corps has trained us well to be wary giving people money out of our salaries, and I've realized the reason for it: that encourages dependence on Westerners. I often think of a lot of liberal accounts of the future being apocalyptic menaces ridden with global warming, mass poverty, societal collapses, and so on. I've learned to see in Africa that little by little, people will become aware of these things and people will have the courage and willingness to work with people different from them to fix the challenges of the future. People will become more educated and worldly, better able in the future to think critically about their challenges and work with others in a peaceful, rational manner. In an unexpected way, I think the greatest gift I got from Africa is a positive view of the future.