PCV Michael O'Sullivan is health extension volunteer in Burkina Faso
Read and comment on this story from the News of Delaware County on PCV Michael O'Sullivan who is a health extension volunteer in Burkina Faso. "There are lots of benefits being there, learn a new language, live in a new place, experience things I would never get to experience if I lived in any other part of the world," he says, "but you get to see how three-fifths of the population lives on a daily basis and it is hard." Read the story at:
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Peace Corps experiences follow UD man home
By: Bill Donohue, STAFF WRITER January 02, 2003
It is a simple, neighborly gesture, as 24-year-old Michael O'Sullivan makes a holiday visit to an Upper Darby jeweler he hasn't seen in awhile.
The two converse in French as O'Sullivan updates the Armenian man on his family and inquires about business.
For O'Sullivan these friendly meetings have become a way of life - right down to the French. He has lived for the past year and a half as a Peace Corps volunteer in the French-speaking, West African country of Burkina Faso.
Each day on his way into town he participates in the tradition of saluer, which is French for "salute."
"To saluer everyone, to say 'hello' to everyone, is very important to the culture," says O'Sullivan. "It is a very humanistic culture."
As a Peace Corps health extension volunteer in the 2000 person village of Loropeni, O'Sullivan's job is to work at health clinic with six locally elected health committee members.
"I help the ... committee run their dispensary and lead the health outreach activities to improve the overall health and well-being of the community," he says.
But before he could begin his outreach work, he had to become a part of the village.
"Building that trust is very important those first few months," he says. "You have to go into people's homes and say, 'I am the American living in town. It is nice to meet you.' You have to do all of this in French or the local language."
An intense, two-month training period in the Burkinabe city of Bobo-Dioulasso helped O'Sullivan brush up on his French and learn the culture.
"Having no running water, no electricity, no phone, no Internet access didn't bother me," he says of his first days in the subsistence-farming village. "It is hard being away from your family and friends.
"Before you can build relationships with other volunteers and people in your village, you are still clinging to your American identity. That awkward period is hard, but then you start to make friends and it helps," he says.
His family and friends at home in Upper Darby had similar adjustments to make.
"Of course it was difficult," says his mother, Kathleen O'Sullivan. "It was so hard to let him go, but I had to share him with the world."
Once he became a part of the culture he could help with projects on a Guinea worm eradication effort or teach people how to filter water.
"I am also collaborating with a women's group to get women involved with small commerce activities ... and I am engaged in a Peace Corps camp for girl's empowerment."
At the end of the day, he walks back to his three-room cinder block house with a corrugated tin roof. He might eat a bowl of pasta for dinner or some rice and vegetables if he can buy any at the market. He then settles in for a deserved rest on his foam mattress.
"It is so hard to capture the essence of what it is like to live in an impoverished West African village," he says. "The reality they live is so different than many of us are used to.
"There are lots of benefits being there, learn a new language, live in a new place, experience things I would never get to experience if I lived in any other part of the world," he says, "but you get to see how three-fifths of the population lives on a daily basis and it is hard."
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This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Burkina Faso; PCVs in the Field; Special Interests - Health Extension
