Since I’ve not had steady internet connection since moving to our field site, Orodara, in mid-March, the blog has taken a long siesta. It’s been hard to summon the energy to write during the past couple of months as it’s been extremely hot and the transition has been difficult. I’ve never really embraced transitions; as exciting as something new can be it’s hard to leave something familiar. After 6 months in Bobo-Dioulasso, I was beginning to feel comfortable there but recognize that if something’s too easy, it’s time to move on. I recently read a quote by Alain Bashung that has stayed with me: “If everything’s complicated, it’s not working; if everything’s simple, it’s not enough.”
My first impressions of my new home were pleasant surprise: a newly constructed home with tile floors, a ceiling fan in the living room area, 2 bedrooms, a bathroom with a toilet, shower, and a sink (albeit the size of an airplane sink). There’s even a kitchen, although no sink, no counters, and one plug outlet. It’s on the edge of town, literally at the border, with an empty field across the dirt road: a colleague visited and remarked, “The view reminds me of my village; it’s quiet, nothing in sight!” Yes, not much in sight, but my main collaborator lives next door to me and around the corner is a new acquaintance – the woman who works at the copy shop where we photocopied hundreds of test survey forms during our first two weeks in town.
Leslie stayed with me for the first week, helping us with the survey training before she returned to California. I was grateful for her company and her enthusiasm about the house, despite a lack of furniture other than two deck chairs, no running water during the day, a leaky shower head, and a broken toilet. We’d run outside to turn on the water at night for a shower and then run outside after to turn it off, lest the shower drip all night. And not just drip-drop, but a continuous stream of water that could collect 5 liters of water in just a few hours.
For breakfast, we ate packages of biscuits and drank Nescafe made with room temperature bottled water. Lunches and dinners for the first week were variations of rice and sauce, eaten with the team during the training sessions, and at the restaurant in the evenings. My ankles were swollen by the end of each day after eating so much MSG in the Maggi cubes added to all meals prepared here. I spent each evening laying on the floor of the living room, with my legs outstretched up against the wall in attempt to reduce the swelling. Leslie found this highly amusing and would occasionally join me.
Unfortuantely, my nice welcome to Orodara was interrupted. Not two days after Leslie left, I returned home from the last day of survey team training to discover my front window torn apart. A thief had broken the weak iron shutter and twisted the window covering to force entry. My belongings were scattered everywhere; it looked like a windstorm had blown everything around the living room. My neighbors (3 of my collaborators sharing the “bachelor pad” next door) came over right away; two of them went straight to the police to file a report and returned with two officers. I paced frantically, unsure of the extent of the damage and assuming the worst.
My senior collaborator arrived with the team driver and gave me hug. Already fragile and on the verge of tears, I was so surprised by this gesture, and from him, that I started crying. (Burkinabe greet family, close friends, colleagues, and strangers alike, with a handshake. One of my American colleagues once tried to hug a Burkinabe colleague upon her departure and it was so awkward that we all laughed about it.) When we went inside, I discovered that the thief took things that, although adding up to probably a couple of hundred dollars’ worth, were replaceable: my radio, voltage regulators, fabric, my backpack. Passport and other personal items were okay, and fortunately, I had not been home and was safe and in good health.
After the police wrote down the items missing and left, my colleagues sat with me on the porch and told story after story. Maybe it’s just the Burkinabe way, to tell a good story and get a laugh out of the audience for the love of a good story, or maybe just how they’ve learned to pass time when there’s not enough electricity to stay awake reading, no television, no internet. I half-listened; my French isn’t fluent enough to fully understand, and I didn’t have the energy to concentrate hard enough. But I was grateful for the distraction and the company. They brought food and beer, and though I had appetite for neither, I nibbled some bread and rice and sauce and took a few sips of beer and shared the rest with my neighbor. We sat outside until midnight then everyone retired. I was quite touched by their support. My main collaborator, and neighbor, slept at my house, on a spare mattress under the broken window that night, and the driver organized for the window to be replaced the following morning. My senior collaborator facilitated the placement of 24-hour guards at the house the following night; they’ve been here ever since.
It’s taken a while for me to feel comfortable at home again. Some nights I would lie awake, afraid that someone would try to break in again. On multiple occasions I considered moving to another house, closer to our office and closer to town, but discovered that housing is limited, especially with indoor plumbing. Other times I felt angry and wanted to simply toss in the towel and leave. But, running away was not the solution. I’d think about how someone had tried to steal my car in Seattle as a reminder that no place is immune to crime.
As expected, with time, it’s gotten better, and I’m feeling more at home. I’m grateful to live next door to my collaborator and close friend, and to have become more at ease with the team and my new surroundings. I’ve also figured out that the water is on from 8 pm until 6 am, and again from about 1 pm until 3 pm, so I can stock water and have a shower during those times. I also hired a woman to clean the house, wash clothes and dishes, and do some food shopping for me, which makes life exponentially easier. The guard calls me “Patron” even though he knows my name. He greets me, “Bonjour, Patron!” and occasionally asks if I would like him to wash my bicycle. I keep insisting he call me Shelby but I can only assume that Patron is easier.
The transition has been smoother as I’ve started to make it my house my home: I now have an armoir, bed, table and chairs, bookshelf, gas stove, and small refrigerator. The night that my bed was delivered by the carpenter, it felt almost ceremonious to take down my camping tent, hang my mosquito net, and declare to myself, “I live here.” It felt wonderful to sleep on a mattress that was off the floor and I almost felt giddy to take my clothes out of plastic bags on the floor and fold them on a shelf or hang them in the armoir.
Furthermore, after working on this project for a year, we have finally started to collect data (a major milestone in any research project). It’s exciting to see it in motion after months and months of writing protocols, calculating personnel needs and budgets, revising timelines, developing staff training programs and data collection tools.
Third time is indeed a charm, when it comes to office space. We initially planned to renovate a government-owned building that would have been rent-free and close to town. However, the list of repairs kept growing, faster than the marks left by termites who were in the process of taking down the building, which was more of a tear-down than a fixer-upper. Relieved to hear that our team was abandoning that option, the next possibility was a new villa not far from the two houses rented for my collaborator and me. Although I was wary of living next door to the office, the convenience factor was favorable and the building was available. There were just a “few finishing touches” to be completed before we moved in. However, the installations were anything but speedy and this was quickly abandoned when the amount of work left to be completed far outweighed the work that had been completed.
For a while, we created space to work wherever we could: under a tree, in my living room, or borrowing a meeting room at the district health office. Our search for office space stopped when we discovered two houses located just off the paved road and halfway between the town center and my house. The houses are nearly twins, and across the road from one another; while one has larger rooms, the other has an enormous mango tree with lots of shade. Space for staff won over the mango tree (although we asked–-only half-jokingly—if we could move the mango tree to the other house) and we moved in two weeks later. Our office is spacious, with rooms for the coordinating team, data entry team, survey managers, logistics and administrative staff, a kitchen that will be transformed into the laboratory, and a driveway to securely keep the two study vehicles and the dozen motorcycles.
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