End of Host Family Stay

End of Summer School

The Thursday before we had closing ceremonies for summer school during which the best performing students were rewarded with school supplies and the students performed skits. My host brother performed the best in his class and received his reward. I was so proud. My friends who taught him would always tell me how well he did on his tests. Considering a 50% is passing in Burkina and he gets 19s and 20s out of 20 on exams, everyone was really impressed. 

Mass of the Assumption of Mary

On my way out the door to the summer school closing ceremonies, my host mom had given me pagne (pronounced pawn-ya), or fabric, for the Assumption of Mary celebration the next day. She doesn't give me gifts very often, so it was super sweet! She told me I could take it to the tailor and then wear it the next day to the Catholic mass. Take it to the tailor? Today? For tomorrow? Challenge accepted. Sure enough, the tailor's daughter was more than happy to make something simple for me with a Catholic pagne because her family is Catholic, too. I had them make what we call here "mini bou bou," which is a smaller version of the long traditional dress shirts that the men wear here. I picked it up Thursday evening and was all set for the next day!

The mass started at 8:30am on top of a hill, nowhere near the church. My friends Meghan and Wes met me at my house and then we biked the 20+ minute journey uphill with my host brother to the ceremony. My host dad, who isn't Catholic, took my host mom by moto. She yelled at my host brother to slow down and let us take breaks as she and my host dad whipped by on moto. It was hilarious. Well, I certainly appreciate that she went by moto and got there early because by the time we'd made it up the hill to the site of the ceremony, my host mom already had our seats all setup. When I say seats, I mean 6-inch tall cinder blocks with a pagne draped over to keep our outfits clean from dirt/moss. But, it was better than sitting on the ground like majority of the congregation! Also, she got there early enough to reserve our seats in the shade. Thank goodness for that because we'd be sitting on those cinder blocks for 3+ hours!
 

The mass started like most of the masses I've been to. The main difference is that there was a statue of Mary near the altar and women carried her in at the beginning of the mass. Well, each reading was given in three languages: French (official language of Burkina), Mooré (widely spoken local language of Burkina) and Nuni (local language of Léo). There are three readings, plus a homily given by the priest. Can you imagine why the mass was 3 hours now? Once in a while, my friend Meghan and I would look at each other during the Mooré sections as we put together words and phrases we knew.

During a normal mass, chosen bring the bread and wine to the altar to be blessed. Since this was the Feast Day of the Assumption of Mary, additional gifts were brought to the front as an offering: fruits, vegetables and grains were among the gifts. My host mom, since she's one of the godmothers of the church, got to bring up one of the baskets! That was one of those moments of the mass where I didn't care how much everyone around me would judge me; I took out my camera and took pictures and video! I could tell she was nervous. Also, these baskets were large and very full. The first woman had difficulty smoothly removing the basket from atop her head and handing it to the priest. My host mom executed her handoff quite gracefully. I was so proud. I had no idea that she was going to be involved in the ceremony!

After receiving the bread and wine, official people of the church usually come up to give announcements and closing remarks. Well, yes of course these were also given in at least two languages.  One lady gave her speech in 4 languages! On the beginning of the fourth language, my host brother grunted and buried his head in his knees. I thought that was hilarious. I was lucky if I understood the French speech, but the other three were all local languages! When the priest came up, he thanked the European visitors for coming and then pointed to us. We all laughed as everyone turned and stared. "You're European, yes?" We smiled and Wes blurted "Américains!" The priest smiled and responded, "Américains? (In English) How are you?" It was hilarious everyone was cracking up. Whenever English gets thrown into conversation after French or local language, it's surprising and funny.

Once the remarks were finished, the women picked up the statue of Mary and paraded her around the congregation again. This time there was more music and singing and the women carrying her lifted her up and down and up and down and side to side. It looked as though Mary was dancing through a sea of people. It was pretty awesome. I got some amazing video and look forward to being able to share it.

Feast

Once the ceremony was over, there was a 3 hour feast before Mary would be paraded down the hill with the congregation following to take her back to the church. I couldn't stay for that because I needed to get back to the Peace Corps training center for my afternoon language sessions, but I definitely stayed for the feast. My host mom put a pagne on the ground as a make-shift picnic blanket and then she told me to sit while she looks for things. I walked over to my friend Bridget to see that her host family had already given her dolo, which is a locally made beer. The best way to describe it is the fruity taste of a cider mixed with Natural Light. Not the greatest!

Anyway, I walked back over to where my host mom and brother were sitting and we ate the pasta she'd brought, locally made tofu, hard boiled eggs and raw peanuts. A man walks up the hill was an animal skull in his hand and meat on his fingers and mouth. "Invité," he joked. It's custom to invite anyone and everyone to your meal if they walk by while you are eating. People will rarely accept your invitation if it's a personal-sized meal, but you invite them regardless of how much food you have on your plate. So, knowing that I'm not Burkina and would refuse, the man asked and I smiled back and said, "merci," which thank you, but in the context of an invitation, means no unless followed by a "oui." He continued the joke by asking a few other times, as well and I just laughed and said no. My host mom pointed down the hill to a group of men purchasing cooked meat from a man. "They're buying dog meat," she said. So, I of course curiously asked what that man had been eating and she said, "oh that was dog, too." No. No. No. That was a dog skull. I didn't realize people ate that in Léo.

Well, that wasn't the only odd food that I encountered during the feast. A man walked up with caterpillars that had been fried and covered in a dark sauce. My host mom explained that she'd had that the other night. This was news to me. I had no idea that she ate caterpillars. Both she and the man tried to get me to try them, insisting that they were really good. I never doubted the sauce was good, but I would never be able to get over the texture. No way.

It became time to leave, so Bridget and I hopped on our bikes and my host brother took us back to the town so we could grab our backpacks and head to the training center. We were about 5 minutes away when it started raining, then down pouring, the torrential down pouring! We were only a couple minutes from the house, but the rain was coming down so hard that it was difficult to see, so we ran into the nearest shop overhang to wait out the rain. I could ring out my pagne and pants. We were all cracking up. Luckily no harm came to my camera and phone. Once the rain wasn't so bad, we hopped back on our bikes because I didn't want to be late to sessions. My host dad was laughing when we arrived soaking wet to the house. I grabbed my backpack and was headed out the door and they looked at me like I was crazy. I hadn't yet changed, but I explained that I had dry clothes in my backpack and then made my way to the center.

Host Family Thank You Ceremony

The following day, Saturday, we had our closing ceremony to thank our host families for taking care of us and supporting us the past 10 weeks. A parent representative would come up to speak and a trainee representative would come up, too. My host dad turned out to be speaker! I guess I wasn't so surprised once he was up there because he's probably one of the older, and thus respected, host parents. He explained that our departure is bittersweet. They are sad to see us go, but they are happy to see our accomplishments and ability to move on to the next stage of Peace Corps, living on our own in their country.

Like the opening ceremonies, our Language and Culture manager called our host family's name and then we met them in the center to shake hands and hand them a certificate. My host brother didn't come up, so I shouted out to him and everyone laughed. He needed to be in that picture! We then feasted on some rice, kebabs, peanuts and soda.

Later that night, I gave my host family a thank you note and a snow globe I'd gotten for them in San Francisco. The power was out when I gave it to them, so my host dad turned the light of his cell phone on and was inspecting it super close to his face. My host brother thought it was super cool. They'd never seen anything like it before.

Leaving Léo

Sunday morning I awoke early to wrap up my packing, eat breakfast and then head to the training center to load the bus and head to the capital. My host mom came into the hallway to say goodbye as she left for church. It was kind of awkward because I don't think she knew what to say, so I gave her hug. Well, that started the waterworks. She started tearing up and wishing me the best of luck in Boussé and some other things. I was exhausted and trying not to cry myself, so I can't quite remember everything she said. I gave her a last hug and then she did the sign of the cross over me asking that God be with me. She's always such a happy person, so seeing her cry was very hard. Thank goodness my family is strong and kept it together when I left California, otherwise that would've started my waterworks.

My host dad took my giant suitcase to the center, strapped to the back of his motorcycle and I followed with my duffel strapped to my bike and my backpack on my back. I thought he'd head back to the house after we dropped my things off, but he stayed for a while, watching them load the giant truck with our large items. When he saw my friend Meghan arrive, he said, "now that your friend is here, I'm going to go to church." He'd been waiting until he saw a close friend arrive. So sweet.

It was definitely sad to leave my host family, especially considering all of the cultural moments I'd experienced with them leading up to my departure. But, there was also a lot of excitement surrounding swear-in, so it wasn't too bad. I have their phone numbers and plan to visit at Christmas with some other friends.