There are plenty of reasons to be excited as a British
volunteer if you’ve been assigned to a placement in Burkina Faso, and the
opportunity to travel to a country like this should never be taken for granted.
In Burkina you will adjust to a more relaxed pace of life outside of work,
become accustomed to accommodating families and enthusiastic greetings, find
yourself standing at a more intimate distance with the stars, and if you can
find the odd vantage point atop a rock you might just be able to see that
African savannah you’ve been keeping at the back of your mind for all these
years. But to focus on the peachy, sentimental, travel-guide aspects of the
placement would be to neglect the character-hardening perils that will test
your resolve while you’re here. These things will make the experience worthwhile
as much as they will act to jeopardise it –
trust us Brits to point them out though!
Hazard 1: The Heat
Train
When disembarking from the plane at Ouagadougou you will be
hit by a train. The heat train. Medical advisors and programme coordinators
will inform you that the heat is something you will become acclimatised to;
after a couple of weeks you’ll see the heat train approaching and have the
wherewithal to step away from the tracks. But this is simply a fantasy. The
heat train will flatten you from day one of your placement and it will continue
to pummel you into the floor until your pores are bone dry. If your placement
takes place late in the year, Burkinabe nationals might raise your hopes by
telling you that December brings about a cold-spell in the country (albeit a
cold spell of 25 degrees). This too is a fantasy, however, thanks to climate
change.
Survival tip: If you want to survive in this land you’ll
need to scrap for access to the office fan. It’ll be the single most important
resource you use during your placement.
Hazard 2: Rice
Do you like rice? You do? Yeah?! No you ruddy well don’t, at
least not compared to the Burkinabe. One can scarcely look left or right in
Burkina Faso without encountering a bowl of rice, and chances are the rice is
intended for you. Finish one bowl and another will spawn in its place,
accompanied by a demand from your host family to eat until you’re physically
unable to move. And that’s when they'll strike with another bowl of rice.
Survival tip: Be prepared to decline food in an apologetic
manner.
N.B. When receiving a plate of food, keep on the lookout for
dog toes.
Hazard 3: The
trade-off game
If you turn on the fan in your host home there’s a chance
you’ll trip the lights and be plunged into darkness. The question is, which is
more important – tolerable temperatures or the ability to see?
When you go to the outdoors toilet at night you can either
use a torch or try to brave the dark. With torchlight you can scatter the
toilet-dwelling cockroaches back into their hiding holes at the expense of
attracting mosquitoes to your exposed posterior. If you do not take a torch the
mosquitoes are more likely to leave you alone, but can you be sure that the
cockroaches will extend the same courtesy?
There are innumerable trade-offs like these that will teach
you to appreciate home comforts that you’d never even considered before.
Survival tip: Learn from the experiences of your friends and
in-country volunteers.
Hazard 4: The sheer
tedium of manually washing your clothes
If twisting a nob and pushing a button is too much like hard
work when it comes to doing your laundry in the UK, despair awaits you in
Burkina. Washing clothes on placement involves a laborious process of filling multiple
bowls with soap and water, and then scrubbing and rinsing your clothes with
your bare hands one garment at a time. If you aren’t careful this can take up several
hours of your Sunday at a time when you probably want to rest. On the plus side, you
won’t need to rescue your clothes from the washing line because of rain. There
is no rain.
Survival tip: There are two options. The first is to learn
to wash everything for yourself from an early stage in the placement. The second option is to call upon the expertise of your counterpart volunteer so that you can split the burden. Perhaps you can thank them afterwards by offering them a Brakina*.
*A popular alcoholic beverage. Soft drinks also available.
Hazard 5: Disintegrating
Bikes
ICS is kind enough to offer bikes to many volunteers situated
in Burkina. Owing to the realities of the country, however, there can be wild
variations in the size, handling, and condition of said bikes, and the
likelihood is that you’ll need to visit the repair shop every few weeks when
parts start falling off. While bike faults came as no surprise to our
cohort once we’d ridden on the bumpy rural terrain out here, unscrewing saddles
and ropey handlebars were still the source of recurring nightmares for several
volunteers.
Survival tip: Abandon your volunteering principles and
requisition the best bike for yourself. Leave the others for dead.
Things to pack:
A dustpan and brush to clean your room. Because dust.
Vacuum-packed bags to protect clothes from dust.
Light, comfortable clothes.
Board games.
Plenty of music.
An appreciation of football.
- Matthew Cole
No comments:
Post a Comment