A different kind of "work from home".

Finally, back in the comfort of my own home. My trips to Ouaga, where, incidentally, I have access to the Internet, are generally so action-packed, I seldom have the time to breathe, let alone write a coherent, Blog-worthy entry while I am sitting in front of a strange device known as a PC.

9 PM and it’s a temperate 91 degrees in my home. Who am I kidding? I’m sweating up a storm. I have been in this country for over nine months and I still live like an American. You see, 9 months out of the year, it is generally too hot to do anything inside the house. For most “au village”, the home is a place to put one’s belongings and, in the event the temperature drops below 80, a place to sleep. All household activities take place outside. I addition to the house, most courtyards have what is known as a hangar, essentially a semi-permanent awning made of several 7-foot long logs and a pile of Millet and or Corn Stalks (dried) which are draped on top to create an outdoor shaded area. This is where the men spend much of their day, sipping on tea, talking about life, football, etc…while the women are generally doing laundry, pounding millet into flour, and/or fetching water from the pump.

I, myself, have quite a lovely hangar (see photos). It is extra tall and completely enclosed, for my privacy and avoidance of that pesky star known as the sun. In time, I will be sleeping under this hangar, as the Solar Oven known as my house will soon be impossible to sleep in. In the meantime, my hangar space has become not only a social hotspot for wandering men in search of hot tea and broken-French conversations, but also my very own, fully functioning workspace. On Thursdays and Sundays a handful of attention span challenged 12-year olds come by my house to study. Normally, I snag their workbooks, see what they’ve been studying, then I quiz them orally. After a few weeks, I casually mention to my friend Salam that I want to create a cement chalkboard on the side of my house. Two days later, Salam arrives with a 4’x7’ wooden chalkboard, ready to go. And like that, I have myself an education center.

In fact, I’ve found many ways to do my work from home: Our newly formed Women’s Empowerment Association holds its meetings under my hangar. I will be sure to take plenty of photos to give you all a virtual tour of my pad. While I love the idea of “ doing development from home”, I do try to get out into the community, chatting with friends, telling the old guy selling tomatoes, for only the 500th time, “no, I don’t have a wife” and “NO, you need not give me one”. In many ways, being the only white member of a village of 7,000 makes me a novelty. But at least now, after 6 months in my new home, I am a familiar novelty. I hope this short entry, brought to you by Air Mail and then my kind father finds you all well.

Thanks for reading

J.

(From Letter Dated 6 March 2007)