Last October, my brother, David, and his fiance, Maggie Lee, ventured to a small country in western Africa, Burkina Faso, to join the Peace Corps, essentially starting a new chapter in their life. 

Shortly after their departure, I was a bit worried that I would lose all communication, seeing Burkina is hours ahead of Boston and the lack of telephone/computer availability.  But I was wrong!  As a PR executive, I rely on various social networking tools and email to communicate with journalists, clients and other professionals.  Imagine these tools being your only source of communication to your family & friends back home?

I’m proud to welcome David Swenton and Maggie Lee as Guest Bloggers to PR Nonsense, where they will share their thoughts on social networking, means of gathering news and their Peace Corps experiences to date.  “One of the three goals of Peace Corps is to help promote a better understanding of other people on the part of Americans,” said Maggie.

LS: You’ve been involved with the Peace Corps for almost a year now.  Of course, it’s difficult to make a phone call, how have you found social media tools helpful to communicate with people back home?

DS: Facebook has become my second email service and address book.  However, it is impossible to keep up with everyone when the first eight pages of my news feed are now from the last two hours.  I spend, on average, four hours per week online at the cyber cafe so you have to carefully choose how to spend that time.  While it would be nice to know what five things are in everyone’s wallet when they leave the house or what five movie characters they most closely resemble, it comes down to doing only the necessary browsing and research for my projects. 

It seems that responding to proper emails has almost become intolerable for people; yet replying to a Facebook message remains somewhat less daunting.  Given the ubiquity of email in the office, perhaps emails now carry the connotation of “work” and seeing a number of unread messages becomes a burden or obligation. 

Within Burkina, everyone depends on text messages.  Or, if you are just looking to say hello, you can “beep” your friends; this is to say you call them, let their phone ring once and then hang up before they can answer, thus avoiding any charges.

ML: Given how expensive it is to make local phone calls, you can imagine how often we make outgoing calls to the U.S.  Therefore, email is largely our primary means of outbound communication.  Many Peace Corps Volunteers here also use Skype and Google Chat (Gchat) to keep in touch with folks back home.  Our blog has been really helpful in centralizing our stories, pictures and other informatoin that we want to disseminate widely but not through individual emails.  For me, Facebook is more of a fun leisure activity to pursue than an actual information portal because the updates are too minutia-orientated and the pages load very slowly (broadband does not exist here).

LS: In the U.S., most people gather their news from the internet versions of newspapers and magazines, like Boston.com for the Boston Globe.  With the internet not readily available as it is here, how do the people of Burkina gather their news?

ML: Radio is a widely  popular medium for communication in Burkina.  Radios are relatively inexpensive and most regions offer stations that broadcast in the local language (Burkina is comprised of a number of ethnic groups, each with their own languages).  The French international station, RFI, is also popular here, but obviously among populations that speak French.  Dave & I have a shortwave radio, so we primarily get our news from the BBC. 

DS: In larger towns and cities, those with electricity do watch television.  The one network available broadcasts the news on a schedule similar to that of the U.S.  The news tends to cover the same subject matter as well: what the president is doing, public meetings, floods and fires, soccer scores and the weather.  BlackBerry’s have just arrived on the scene but are prohibitively expensive for all but a small group.  Word of mouth probably remains the quickest way for information to spread.

LS: When you return to the U.S. in 2010, are there things you’ve learned in Africa that you’d like to incorporate into your daily life?

DS:  I’d like to tell myself it will be difficult to fall back into American habits and the comfort of life in the U.S., but I feel it will be hard to resist the conveniences.  Yet, I do feel there are little things that I will try to incorporate into my life, such as making more time for family, neighbors and my community.  Being the outsider, I’ve also become more confident and assertive about asking for help or seeing who could use my help, which would be a good thing to retain in the U.S.

ML:  Due to the lack of food diversity here, I’ve become used to planning and preparing meals as a cornerstone activity of my day.  Cooking at home is something I’d like to do when I return to the U.S.  However, if I move back to a place like Allston, a community jam-packed with many affordable ethnic eateries, cooking may not be a high priority. 

The things I’d be happy to abandon when I return to the U.S. are doing laundry by hand and washing dishes out of a bucket, living without indoor plumbing and the FDA and assiduously hunting down and killing the myriad tropical insects in my home! 

I’d like to personally thank David & Maggie for sharing their thoughts and taking the time to partake in some “nonsense”.  Your dedication and courage is truly inspiring and I wish you the best in your remaining time in the Peace Corps.  As I was writing this, Toto’s Africa was subconsciously looping through my head…

For other great Burkina tales, stories and pictures, please visit Maggie’s blog and feel free to spread the word!