:)

IST is finished! It was actually a super productive week for me. My homologue Yago came for the last 3 days of it and it was amazing. We discussed a lot of the problems that we are faced with in Yoro and we discussed the problem of literacy. We came up with an entire action plan to help raise the children’s reading levels. We are going to begin our project after the holidays. It’s really exciting for both of us. It’s great that he’s very motivated and very open to my ideas. I also have a meeting with the head nurse at the CSPS to come up with our action plan for baby weighing/nutrition/family planning awareness campaign. I’m very much looking forward to beginning all of these projects in my village.

We got to visit our host families while we were in Ouaga. The Peace Corps drove us all to spend time with them. Unfortunately the time was cut very short but it was still an amazing time. Sudawg and I went to the Marché to say hi to our friends there are everyone was really excited to see us. We found out that Sue’s family wasn’t there so I went to see m family. My Ma and Baba were so happy to see me, they both gave me hugs. My brothers Michael and Emanuel were there and they said that they wish I hadn’t left. Then the best part of all….Epie (the Down Syndrome child that lives near my house) came over to the house. He doesn’t speak but when he saw me he started laughing and screaming and ran up to me. I scooped him into my arms and was fighting back tears. He is such a beautiful child and I had missed him so much, and he had been missing me too! Then Sudawg came over and I said “look epie, Susanne (this was in French which Epie doesn’t really understand but he understood Susanne) he sees her and puts his hands on his head and starts giggling. It was magical. Then he took us both by the hands to visit the group of old ladies and we talked and drank Dolo. My mom and dad wanted to take us to the marche and who comes running along but my baby brothers Leopold and Landry. Landry is so big now, he goes to kindergarten but is still shy as ever. We visited a few other families before heading to the Marché hand in hand with Epie. When Leopold saw that Epie wouldn’t let me go I think he got a little jealous so he slipped his hand in mine and off we went. There wasn’t much time so Sue and I quickly drank a beer with my parents; we caught up on things happening in the family. I found out that I have a new niece. So now my family is growing It was such a beautiful time spent with them. I was lucky to have such a great family that I still talk to at least once a week. I wish that I could have spent more time with them but I intend to go back soon. Baba told me that my room is always there for me.

I did a lot of Christmas shopping while in Ouaga. I bought a soccer ball for the boys; a new shirt for Wend Kuni; a bracelet for Madaline (new host mom); 2 dresses, a pin wheel, and a stuffed dog for my baby girl Kristian; and I’m still in search of something for Gabriel. If nothing else at least everyone will have something nice for Christmas. I spending Christmas in my village this year. Not sure how well that’s going to go but I have high hopes. I’m really missing home and wishing that I could be home just for Christmas. 

Hey, I've been living in Burkina for 6 months!

So I'm currently in Ouaga at in-service training. Essentially it's 10 days where we talk our first 3 months at site. 3 months at site! I've been in Burkina for exactly 6 months now. I got to thinking about what I've done in these last 3 months. The thing is, sometimes things feel like they are progressing so agonizingly slow. In the days leading up to IST I was worried that I hadn't done enough at site. It's really easy to hear about other volunteers' projects and classes and thing that it's very very easy to compare your service to theirs. I got to talking to other volunteers and I started talking about how my time has been going. It was during the talk that I realized that I've been doing so much in my community. I've made so many friends in my village. Now anytime I leave my house for a bike ride or walk I get stopped by people to say hi, or to just have a chat. When I get bored I go and visit my friend Oueadrago and drink tea with him, I drink tea with the teachers at my school, I play school with the kids, I have random dance parties with my little brothers, I let the kids take me on adventures, and I play with the baby that lives in my courtyard. I go to the school Monday-Wednesday and Friday-Saturday. I read to the CE1 kids and ask them questions about the stories. I've attended 2 teachers' training's at my school. I taught my friend Mathias to write his name. I attempted to teach CE1 "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" (that actually didn't work out at all because twinkle is a very hard word to pronounce). I go to the CSPS and help with consultations, mostly I just watch for now. I finished my "Etude de Milieu" which is a 9 page study of my village. I learned pretty good French. I was asked a question a Scissala and I responded without even thinking about it. We've talked about starting a baby weighting program when I get back. I was invited to do vaccinations but I wouldn't be back from IST yet. I made shea butter with the women of my village. I celebrated holidays. I said goodbye when my neighbor passed away, I said hello to my other neighbor's new baby. I have become part of my community in ways that I hadn't even realized.

The funny part about it is that all these things have become my normal day to day life that I didn't even notice that I was working. In these last 3 months I've accomplished more than I had realized. It's quite an amazing feeling.

I got a new puppy. His name is Simba! I got him from my best friend in village Leah (my birthday twin). He's wonderful. I met him when his little baby eyes weren't even open and now I am taking him home when I head back from IST. I'll definately take a million pictures of him. He would totally love to get some presents in packages come....just saying :)

Things have been utterly amazing lately. Yesterday I got on the bus to Ouaga that broke down 2 times. I spent the entire day at the Rec center with Nate and Brandon swimming and watching football. I got to skype with my baby brother and my parents. I also got to talk to Andy, whom I miss terribly. I talked with Su-dawg all night, until early this morning. Tonight I went out to dinner with Su-dawg, Eric, Alynn and Lindsay. I haven't laughed that hard in so long. We went to eat pizza in Centerville and it was delicious. We all caught up on our last 3 months apart (except that I already know EVERYTHING about Lindsay's last 3 months). Lindsay told this ridiculous story that I've heard like 3 times but I love it so much.We all laughed so hard. The taxi ride was hilarious. It's moments like that I hope that I never forget. It's funny how my best friends here are the most amazing people that I probably would have never had gotten the chance to meet in America. Lucky for me we were all crazy enough to move to Burkina. :)

Time in Ouaga

So I just got back from a few days in Ouaga...here's a little recap...
I was in Ouaga for the Food Security meeting, on my way back from Nate's (he was supposed to come to but unfortunately couldn't make it). Getting there Saturday was pretty easy riding. When I got there I was greeted by Tim and Edward. Then later Tarek and Nina and Jose. It was so great to see them. The only one out of them that I had seen since going to site was Edward. It was nice to catch up with them, and find out how things are going in village. We caught up for a bit and Tim and I went and had lunch.I was particularly excited about going to Ouaga because I was going to see Su-dawg and her dad (Bapi). I was really excited to meet him because Sue always has great things to say about him, and my parents had sent a package with him for me. Sue called me and told me to be ready at 6:30p.m. to go out for birthday dinner.
Birthday dinner was absolutely amazing. We had a driver(sure beats taking a taxi) and we went to go eat Chinese food in Centreville. Dinner was delicious as always. I had a great time catching up with Sue and hearing all of her and Bapi's adventures. After we finished eating Sue and the waiters brought in cake with candles. Sue and Bapi sang Happy birthday and the restaurant even played the happy birthday song in French. I blew out the candles and made a wish. It was absolutely amazing. I was really happy. I even opened my presents that my family had sent. It included a new IPOD Touch! Also a itunes gift card, a hard drive, sandals and a few other small things. My mom sent me a card that was beautiful. After Chinese we went to this new restaurant Cappuccino's for a drink, then the driver picked us up and took us back to the transit house.
Sunday I had food security meeting all day. It started bright and early, harvesting moringa seeds from the trees around the transit house. After we picked the seeds we headed over to the bureau to have the meetings. I really learned a lot at the meetings and I am really excited to start working on tree planting stuff. I was a little bummed when I realized that there really is no space to have a garden in my courtyard. However, there is a space in front of my house that the family just uses to dump trash so when I get home I'm going to ask Gabriel if I can clean that space up and use it to plant things. It is a pretty good size but I feel like it might be a little hard to keep animals out. I'll have to work on that. There was a "grilling festival" downtown so we all went there for lunch. It was really amazing. This was also the day that Bapi was leaving Burkina. I rode over to the airport with him and Sue. We said our goodbyes and Bapi hugged me. Sue started to cry and then I started to cry. It was really sad to see him go. He said that he would come back though, so that's good.
There is a new project underway called "Operation Green Burkina" where volunteers can sign up their communities to plant 50(or really just as many as possible)and to take care of them and in the end the village will win a prize. I am working on tree planting promotion at the moment with them. It's a great cause and I will send out some more information about it. All in all food security was great and I can't wait to really get the ball moving on planting some trees and a garden!
I left Ouaga this morning at 7am after biking to the Gare. The ride went by really quickly because I slept practically the entire way ha ha. I got to Leo and headed over to visit Hugo at the cyber. I also went over to Leah's house to visit my puppy Simba and she helped me take the braids out of my hair. After that I went back to the cyber and did some work. Dinner with the boys was great as usual. 
All in all it was a great trip to Ouaga and Leo. I'm heading home tomorrow where I will stay until its til to go to in-service training. So I shall be back to Internet and Ouaga the 10th-21st of December. It will be great. Until next time...

Birthday Adventure!

My birthday celebration was amazing! Wednesday I started my day bright and early to catch the first bus out of Leo, headed to Ouaga. I got to Ouaga a little after 8am. I still had some time before I was set to catch the bus to Nate’s so I biked by the bureau to see if he had any mail that I could bring him. After the bureau I biked over to Gare de l’est. I really had no idea where I was supposed to find the bus to Boulsa. Luckily someone helped me out. I met a really nice lady who let me sit with her and her kids while waiting for the bus. When the bus finally got to the station it was around 10:30am. 

The ride to Boulsa was a rough one, to say the least. I had been feeling a little sick in the morning when I woke up, but by the time I was heading to Nate I was feeling pretty terrible. I must have been sick at least 10 times that day. I finaly met up with Nate around 2pm. He should be around his great house and we chatted for a bit. Nate had a class to teach so I went with him. It was cool to watch him teach because his students really like him, and teaching here is not easy. Then we went to a little restaurant. After the restaurant we came back to Chez Nate to watch a movie and drink Sangria juice box.

My birthday/Thanksgiving was really great. We got up and went to go have Café au lait and bread at a little boutique near Nate’s. Then my sister called me to wish me a happy birthday and that was really sweet. A friend of ours ,Alaina, was coming in for the day and we went and got yogurt and headed back to the house. Nate and I commenced with the juice box while Alaina cooked for us. It was great. My mom called me and sang me happy birthday. She’s so cute, she cried while singing. I miss her a lot. I also got to talk to Frankie and my dad. Nate and I  litened to music sang like a bunch of silly fools. Andrew called me to wish me happy birthday as well and I was really happy to hear from him. Our thanksgiving dinner consisted of Mexican food. We had benga with salsa, lettuce and queso. It was quite the little feast. The night ended with more juice box and a movie. All of my Peace Corps friends texted and called to wish me happy birthday. Mark texted me and I was so happy! Leah texted to wish me happy birthday and I called her back to tell her happy birthday as well. It’s fun sharing my birthday with her. So the big 23 was bien pass’e in Boulsa. It was probably the best it could have been and I was very happy for it. It was truly a great day.

Yesterday we woke up and decided that it was best to start the day with coffee, bread, yogurt, juice (actual juice, not juice box) and a movie. After the movie I washed my clothes and then we headed out to get something to eat and drink. After “lunch” we went by the marche. I tasted fried peanut butter, which apparently is a big thing in these parts. I wasn’t really a fan, but at least I’ve tried it. After the marche we came back to the house and Nate’s friend John was here. We talked to him for a while and he told me that he was going to give me 2 little trees to take back to site with me. Oddly enough I was really happy for the trees. He left and then Nate left because he had to do some work at the school, I stayed at the house reading and just hanging out.  When Nate got back we watched movies, drank juice box and made dinner.

Today I woke up and had breakfast with Nate before heading out. I wasn’t much looking forward to the bus ride. I slept a lot of the way to Ouaga. I got to the station around 12 and biked to the transit house. Now I’m waiting for Su-dawg so that we can go to birthday dinner!

These days...

Time for another entry haha. So let’s see, what have I been up to? Honestly, not a whole lot besides getting to know the people in my village. As far as work goes I’m still going to the school everyday. I’ve been spending some time at the CSPS which is the hospital here. My friend is the doctor there and he let me interview him, and also sit in in some consultations. It was really cool. I hope to be able to work with him in the near future, he seems really happy at the thought of working together, which seems like a good start to me.

            Last Thursday a woman passed away in my village. Apparantly she had been sick with a heart condition for the better part of the last year. She was told that she needed to go to Europe to have a surgery. Hello! This is a woman who comes from a village with no electricity and running water. Where on earth was the money for that supposed to come from? It was sad to hear that dying at home or spending more money than she has ever seen in her life to live were her only options. Sadly she passed. People came over all day to my courtyard to eat and give money. The family literally fed me 3 different meals. I didn’t know the lady that much, except when I would pass her house and wave to her, I know her husband a lot better because he is often over talking with Gabriel. Even though I didn’t know her, I couldn’t help but shed some tears and say a prayer for her and her family. A new baby was also born in my village this week. I feel like I have witnessed life go full circle here in Yoro. The kids were really excited to tell me about the new baby. I went over to go congratulate the family. Unfortunately the parents weren’t there at the time, but grandma was. She was so happy to take me in to see the new little baby, and was even more excited when she asked me told hold him and I said that I would love to. The baby was so beautiful and tiny. I told them that I was happy for them and to make sure that the baby sleeps under the mosquito net, which I was happy to see, was hanging in the room.

            Sunday was Lauren’s baptism! I am her god-mother haha. So cool. I got to talk to my family and Lauren and her brother. It was so great but it made me a little homesick because I would have loved to be there. Her brother said something to me that I have been thinking about a lot. He told me not to worry, that he’s been there. I told him that he could not compare spending years in the military to what I am doing. What he did took a lot more bravery and courage and was a lot more dangerous. He said that the only difference was that he had to worry about incoming stuff. I still don’t think that there is a comparison, but it was nice to hear. He knows what its like to wish to be home to be with the people that you care about and be with them for important events. I’m so happy for Lauren and really happy that I got to talk to her and my family. It was great J

Yesterday I was sitting at home enjoying my mid-day repose when there was a knock on my door. I got up grumbling because usually when a child knocks on my door they are just wanting me to come out so they can stare at me. She told me that there was a guy who was looking for Madeline (the mom of the family that lives in the same courtyard as me). I told her that all the family had gone to the fields for the day, so I went out to see what was up. The guy came over and explained to me that the Red Cross is actually the organization that built the pump there. They are going to come at the end of the month to officially give the pump to the village and he wanted to make sure that the women clean the pump and the area around the pump. We chatted for a bit and then he asked me where I am from (his first guess was that I come from Spain). I told him no, that I am indeed American. He said “Wow America, and you speak French very well.” I pondered that statement for a minute and I thought to myself, “dude I do speak French! I’m living in Yoro speaking French.” I couldn’t help but laugh to myself about it. Even after almost 6 months I still have these moments where I am amazed at where I am, and I can’t believe that I’m actually here. I wouldn’t trade these days for anything.

Today I am working on some things at Bill’s house using the internet, and I'm going to head to the bank and then to visit my friend Leah. Tomorrow I’m heading over to spend my birthday and thanksgiving with my friend Nate. It should be pretty fun. Then I’m heading to Ouaga for my first food security meeting. I’m going to see Su-dawg and her dad! We are going to birthday dinner on Saturday! I can’t wait. I can’t believe my birthday is in 2 days. Turning 23 in Burkina Faso…who ever would have thunk it?

Tabaski

This has been an amazing weekend. It started off rather rocky, when the car that I was taking into Leo got a flat tire and we were waiting on the side of the road for 2.5 hours. Finally Leah’s husband called and he came to pick us up in his work truck. They took me over to their house, I met her 2 boys and we had a great lunch. Leah took me to get my hair braided after lunch but there were a lot of people so we went back to her house and took a little nap. I got to meet my puppy! He’s just a tiny guy, his little eyes haven’t opened yet. I get to pick him up in a few weeks on my way back from Ouaga. After the nap we went back to the salon. We got there at around 3 p.m. and I didn’t leave there until around 9p.m. and my hair still wasn’t done, everyone was just tired. I met Sam and Hugo for a bit before calling it a night and heading to Sam’s house to sleep.

Yesterday was Tabaski. Tabaski is a Muslim holiday that feels like a cross between Halloween and Christmas. Tasbaski is celebrated after Ramadan and is known at the “mutton” holiday. God told Abraham to go up to the mountain and sacrifice his beloved son. Abraham loved his son very much, but he trusted in God, so he went up to the mountain with his son. Just as Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, God said that because Abraham had trusted in him and was going to go what he was told God sent a mutton and told Abraham that he could sacrifice it instead of his son. So Muslims celebrate that by killing a mutton and sharing it with their friends and family. It’s the biggest holiday of the year for them, the festival of sacrifice. A little bit of history on the holiday haha. Children get new clothes and toys and everyone dresses their best. There is lots of eating and each family makes food to share with their neighbors. Children of your courtyard take pots of food over to the neighbors, and the neighbor’s kids bring food to your house. After the meal is done, kids wash up and put their best clothes on and go to their neighbor’s house to greet them. It’s tradition for the parents of the house to give each of the kids who comes 25F or 50F depending on the age of the kid. It’s all so much fun. I was invited to spend Tabaski with my counterpart Yago and his family. I put on my Muslim outfit, and Sam and I met up with Yago. We went over to his house and met his wife, twin daughters and son. He has such a beautiful family. Then we ate. We literally ate for like 4 hours haha. We had chicken, gateaux, and shrimp chips when we got there. Then about an hour or so later we were fed the actual meal which was chicken, fried plantains, fries, vegetable salad, and pasta. Needless to say, we ate really well. We spent about 5 hours at Yago’s house. I cannot thank him enough for inviting us to his home and for allowing us to celebrate with him.

After the fete, I had to leave to meet up with Leah to finish my hair. Apparently 6 hours wasn’t enough time to finish the day before. I met up with her and spent another 4 hours there, but alas it’s finished. Sam and I went back to his house for a bit because I had washed some clothes and he was worried about them getting stolen of f the line after dark. We went to visit his neighbor Mr. Karim. He gave us a coke and some popcorn and gateaux. We sat down and talked with him for a while to wish him a “bon fete” We got into a wonderful discussion on religion and life. We talked about religious tolerance and how any person could go to any place of worship in this country without any problems. He said “we are all just human. If you see a man on the side of the road because his moto broke down are you going to say ‘oh that’s a Muslim and I’m Catholic’ and just move on? No, you will stay and help because that is your brother and you one day might find yourself broken on the side of the road needing someone’s help.” It was really wonderful to hear him say those things because he is 100% correct. Every person that I have met so far in this country has had the same response. I wish that everywhere in the world could live as tolerantly as the people of Burkina. Sam and I talked about celebrating Tabaski when we go back to America, but just a little bit different. Seeing as though neither of us is actually Muslim, we decided that we should get together on the same day as Tabaski and just invite people over to eat and be together. The holiday will be for no other purpose but to celebrate being with each other. I think that’s a great idea.

Then Sam, Hugo, Bill and I went to Cosmo’s to have a beer and hang out for a while. That was a lot of fun, just sitting and talking with them for a couple hours. Finally we were so tired that we headed back to Sam’s house and I fell asleep in no time. It was such a wonderful day. I am already looking forward to Tabaski next year!

Today, I’m just hanging on the internet for a while, uploading pictures, facebooking, and emailing. I’m going to buy some paint so that I can work on my house this week. Leah wants me and Sam to come over before I go, so I will do that before I catch the afternoon car to head home. My birthday is coming up! Since Leah and I have the same birthday we are going to celebrate together on the 22^nd, so that will probably be the next time I come in to Leo. Then I’ll head in to Ouaga for the food security meeting and on the way back pick up my puppy!

Weekend Plans

*Written November 5, 2011

This morning I woke up at 5:15 am, not to the sound of a rooster crowing or the usual sounds of the morning. Nope, this was to a nine year old boy I call my little brother, Malachie. For some reason, he decided that that was the perfect time to start playing the drums using a wooden bench and metal chair…right outside my bedroom window. Oh these children…At least it gave me time to write this blog before I head to Leo.

            I hadn’t planned to come to Leo again for another 3 weeks, but I’m happy I did. Tabaski is a big Muslim holiday, kind of like what Christmas is to Christians. I was very much wanting to celebrate, but everyone I know in village is Protestant. I hinted to my friend Yago, the director of my school, that I really wanted to celebrate it. He is Muslim and he was more than excited to invite me to Leo to celebrate the holiday with him and his family. I even had a great outfit that I bought just in the hopes of being invited haha. My friend Leah (niece of the family I share the courtyard with) has been staying here for 2 weeks to help the women of my village make shea butter. We have become great friends. She lives in Leo with her husband and 2 children. When I told her that I was heading to Leo on Sunday for the holiday she told me that she was leaving on Saturday and that I should go with her to meet her family and she would take me to get my hair braided. I love Leah so I really didn’t need much convincing. I told her that I was going to be very sad to come back to site without her and hugged me (a complete rarity in this country!) and told me that I could come visit her any time I am in Leo. She’s great. You know what else makes her even better?! We have the same birthday!!! I knew there was a reason that I loved her so much, her birthday is November 24^th, just like me! Except that she is 10 years older than I am haha. According to Malachie, she also has puppies at her house. Maybe she’ll give me one! So those are my plans for the weekend. Today I am hanging with Leah and her family, getting my hair braided, tomorrow I am going to Mosque and to celebrate with Yago’s family, and I will head back on Monday afternoon. It’s going to be a great weekend!

            Yesterday I was kind of sad because one of my really good friends, Levis, left village today. He was a teacher at the school, a great teacher at that. I would drink tea every Thursday, Saturday and Sunday afternoon at his house with the other teachers. I took my iPod over there on Thursday and we listened to music for like 3 hours. He loves Miranda Lambert, haha! (It is my secret plan to make all of Burkina love country music before I come back haha; surprisingly they actually knew country music and really liked it before I got here). But anyway, he left because he got moved to a different place to teach. Here in Burkina, teachers don’t often teach in the village they come from. They are assigned really to teach anywhere in the country. So Levis left yesterday and I was sad. He did however give me his slingshot and promised to keep in touch. I found, that people don’t stay in this village very long. I guess that’s something I need to get used to sooner rather than later, the fact that throughout the next two years there will be lots of people coming and going.

            I had an interesting conversation yesterday afternoon, with Ada, another teacher friend at my school. It was my day to sit in on the CE1 class (3^rd grade) that she teaches. It was quickly apparent that the children in her class cannot read, like at all. We were sitting outside with the kids were doing group work under the trees and we talked about it. She told me that there are so many children in this village that will never learn to read or write for multiple reasons. I told her that one of the biggest problems is the fact that there are just too many children (she has a little over 50) in each classroom. Statistically there’s just no way that with that many kids, the majority of them will be able to learn well, over 20 of the students in that class are in it for the second time. The kids sit sometimes 5 to a bench, which leaves no room on the tiny table for them to be able to write properly, let alone even sit. There also aren’t enough books for each child to have there own book to read and take home. They are 3, sometimes 4 and 5 to every one book. Ada said that with a system like that, what can you do? She also told me that it’s really discouraging for her because she tries so hard with the kids all day, but when left alone all they do is play and their parents don’t help them and make them learn their lessons. Theres no electricity here so that means that really they have about 2 hours of sunlight left after school before it gets too dark to see. In that 2 hours do you think they are encouraged to study? Of course not, the boys go home to play and the girls go home to work. Last night, before dinner I asked the boys that live in my courtyard, Mathias and Malachie, if I could see their notebooks from last year. Mathias is 11 years old, but he is still in the 3^rd (CE1) grade, age wise he should be in at least the 6^th (CM2) grade. It turns out that Mathias is ranked 56^th out of 56 students. I was shocked because in class earlier that day he had participated really well. The problem is that he can’t read or write. I told him that I know he is too smart for these grades and that every afternoon he is going to practice reading and writing with me. Malachie is 9 years old and he’s in the 5^th (CM1) grade, which means that he has done very well in his school work. He too wants me to work with him after school, so I gave him writing and math problems to work on while Mathias and I learn to read. Mathias wants math problems too, but as far as I can tell he has no problems with those. Once he can read and write his own name I told him that we could see about math problems. I was really glad that he didn’t object, he happily agreed to study with me after school. I hope that by the time summer vacation comes he will not be the lowest in his class. It feels a little wrong to be helping these kids because they live in my courtyard, but I will work with them until I come up with a better solution to help a majority of the kids at school. I’m open to any and all suggestions.

            Well, I’ll end with that. Time to begin my awesome weekend! I’ll try and write again before I head back to site.

One Year ago Today...

Today marks the one year anniversary of my relationship with Andrew. I thought I would write about the night he asked me to be his girlfriend.

Andrew and I had gone to a Halloween party at Jamie Baker’s house. I was dressed as a cowgirl, and Andrew was dressed…well, like Andrew haha. We had a discussion as to why I thought it would be really cute for him to dress up as grapes for Halloween. Why grapes? I have no idea, I just thought it would be adorable. He wasn’t as down for the grapes idea as I was haha. We had a great time at Jamie’s and ended up leaving well after midnight (this is crucial because Andrew seems to think that our anniversary should be on Halloween because it was Halloween night, but I argue that it was after midnight so it’s the first lol). At the party it had been kind of the first time he was meeting a lot of my friends. Many of them asked me if Andrew was my boyfriend. I wasn’t terribly sure how to respond because we had been hanging out for months and were very close but we had yet to “define” what it was that was going on, so the subject came up with him. Well actually it was more me trying to figure it out without actually having a conversation about it (I’m just shy like that lol). So Andrew said something and I replied with “well I’m not your girlfriend really because technically you never asked me to be.” I said that in my most joking way, mostly to not feel like such a dork about things J So, after the party we head to Andrew’s house and we lay around talking. He said something along then lines of “Well what would you say if I did ask you to officially be my girlfriend?” I replied with a silly answer like “I don’t know I’d have to think about it,” but we both knew what the answer would be. So he asked and of course I said yes. So here we are a year later, in different parts of the world, but still very much in love.

A week or so ago I was having a conversation with Lauren and I told her that my anniversary was coming up. I said that I couldn’t believe it was already a year. I can’t remember the exact words she said but it was something along the lines of “I can. You guys are so close it feels like it’s been longer…It’s just the first of many.” We talked about it some more and had some of those “Remember when..?” moments. It was great.

Andrew and I may not get to talk as much as we would like because of work, time distance, and cost but when we do get to talk its more than enough. I miss him so much and not a day goes by that I don’t think about him. He’s so wonderful for supporting my decision of the Peace Corps, and is always so comforting whenever I call him sobbing into the phone or really excited for me whenever have something really great to tell him. It’s the best.

I’m sure Andrew will read this at some point today so…

Happy Anniversary Andrew! I miss you so much. You’re my best friend and the love of my life. I love you more than all the fishes in the sea and higher than the moon. I can’t wait to see you again.

Heading back to site today. It was a nice break. And no I will totally not be biking,haha, I’m totally taking a bush taxi.

23 days til my birthday!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! Oh how I miss the fall. I miss the weather cooling down and carving pumpkins. I came to Leo to have a pretend Halloween with Sam, Hugo, Lindsay and our new friend Bill.

Today I am very proud of myself. I am smiling with a HUGE sense of accomplishment. This morning I was up before the roosters and I BIKED to Leo. My house to Leo is approximately 35km, or 22 MILES. Last night I finished reading a very inspiring book that was written in rememberance of a Peace Corps Volunteer. So I dedicate my bike ride this morning to her. I strapped up my backpack and water bottle, said a little prayer and pedaled. It was nice to watch the sunrise, but I’d be lying if I said that the ride was easy by any means. Lately I have decided to set little daily goals for myself, I do this so that on days that I don’t really know what I’m doing I can strive to meet a small goal. Today my goal was to make it to Leo is 2 hours….guess what? ONE hour and 54 minutes later I was sitting at a table with Lindsay and Bill. I was exhausted but couldn’t stop smiling. I had done it. It was a great start to the day. Lindsay lent me the shower in her room so I could remove the layers of sand and clay from my face and legs. It was great!

I have to say that I have been in an incredible mood for the past week. My spirits have really been up. Last Thursday the boys at my house (that I now refer to as my little brothers because they all call me Tantie) took me to the fields with them. We picked sweet potatoes, corn, peanuts, onions, hot peppers. We ate vegetables straight out of the ground! It was something I’ve never done before and it was awesome. We ended up spending like 4 hours walking around in the fields. It was really fun. I made bissap for the kids (juice made out of hisbiscus flowers). They we really happy and it was great. I’ve read a lot of books lately and things have really been going well.

Time to drink sangria and go to the pool J

Until next time….. J   

Camp Glow

So today I spent the day in meetings discussing something called Camp Glow. It’s a 2 week long sleepover camp for girls and boys, the first week for girls and the second for boys. Camp Glow stands for “Guys and Gals Leading Our World”. It’s basically a camp for the kids to learn about hygiene, life skills, and stuff like that. I went to visit the first Burkina Camp Glow when I was in training, and I was hooked. I was really interested in helping out with next year’s camp. So when given the opportunity to attend a meeting to discuss future plans for the camp of course I wanted to attend. This past August the camp was held in 2 locations and for next year they were looking to expand to 4. Luckily Leo was chosen as one of the 4 sites! I am not the “secretary and supplies coordinator.” So I hopefully have a lot of work ahead of me to get ready to put on an awesome camp next year. I’m really excited about it. So far, Ouaga has been great. I went shopping for groceries to take back to site since a lot of options at home, I picked up some mail. I totally know that some of my mail is missing because Andrew numbers his letters to my and like 8 are missing haha. It’s sad. I love mail. Tomorrow I have meetings in the morning and then I am going to enjoy Ouaga for one more afternoon. I’ll write again soon.    

Electricity!

Oh electricity how I have missed you. Actually not really, more so when I want to charge my ipod. So, I’m about a month into site now, and let me just say it hasn’t been easy. Let me start from the beginning…

So when it was time to head to site Brandon, Sam, Lindsay and I headed to Leo on September 27^th. We had the day and we were spending the night there so I did some shopping for my house and we went to the pool. It was a great time, but the nervousness of heading to site was really intense. The driver came to pick Lindsay and me up the next day. I was super nervous, we asked the driver to take Lindsay first so that we could hang out together longer. We had a hard time figuring out where Lindsay’s house was, but then we got her all moved in and we had a tearful goodbye, even though we are only 15km away from each other. Then I was off to my site. When we got there, nobody had even known that I was coming. I just happened to run in to the director of the school on the road. There was no lock on my door so the poor driver had to drive over to Leo (30 km away) to get the door fixed, there also was so screen on my door to stop the mosquitos and other critters from coming in. I share a courtyard with a family, and they were gone to Ouaga because the dad had had a moto accident. So needless to say, it wasn’t quite the welcoming I had invisioned.

I would love to say that that was the one bad day that I had, and that everything was magical and wonderful after that, but I would be lying. Literally for the entire first week at site I cried more times than I really care to admit. I was having such a hard time with everything. My biggest struggles were not being able to communicate and the isolation of being alone in village. Sudakshina is like 9 hrs away from me, and Nate is like 6, it’s unfair!  Lindsay came to my village that first weekend and it was great, but when she left I was super lonely. That first Sunday at site I was dangerously close to quitting and coming back home. My first week of site was as lonely as depressing as I have ever been in my life.  A couple days later was a marche so I  went to Lindsay’s village and spent the night there. When I was back at my house I was really set on making it work here. There still was not a screen on my door, so after a bat came out of nowhere in the middle of the day in my house I called and demanded that one get there. It was up by the next day. At least one thing was starting to come together. I still really had nothing to do with my time, so I just started hanging out at the school. I met the teachers at the school and they invited me to drink tea with them! Things were starting to look up.

My village is very tiny. It has one primary school, and one little boutique for my to buy things at. The marche is non exsistant. There is no electrcitiy or running water. The kids in my village are so sweet. We play soccer with a flat ball. I’m on the hunt for a decent ball for them. One of the kids said that he had a present for me…it was 2 baby birds! I named them Bert and Ernie. I biked with them over to Lindsay’s village and unfortunately they didn’t make it back. I suspect that her neighbor took them. Hopefully that doesn’t happen when I get my puppy. I’m getting a puppy that I am going to name Simba, my neighbor is giving him to me J

Last week Lindsay and I were invited to a party with all these important people. The inspector of our Commune was reassigned to a different village and a new one was coming in so we were invited to the going away/welcoming party. It was quite fun. We had music and lots of food and drinks. We ate huge plates of riz gras with our hands! It was so great I may never use a fork again! I was finally able to get a bit of furniture for my house. It’s really starting to come together. School finally started in my village. I was beginning to wonder if we were ever going to do anything besides watch the children cut the grass every day. Here grass is not liked because of the snakes so the kids dig up all the grass until all there is, is dirt at the school. I sit in the classes and observe. Pretty soon I hope to be doing other things but for now, observing and meeting people is good. The other day in my house was a huge scorpion and a bat! Gah! That same day when I headed to the school after killing the scorpion there was a snake!!!!! I always said that when I see a snake I’m going to e.t. Well, I’ve seen a snake and I’m still here, so there went that haha. Also to (toh) has grown on me. I find myself looking forward to eating it for dinner with the family, and the other night I even had seconds! Haha. Oh jeeze.

I got to spend the last 2 days in Leo. Leo is a magical place. I went swimming both days. It was great. I took the bus this morning at 6 am and now I’m at the Transit House in Ouaga. It was cool to bike in Ouaga. I went to the Bureau to check for mail. I had 3 letters. I think that a lot of my mail is missing because I received number 17 from Andrew but I’m not sure where 13-16 is haha. Ca va aller. Now that I have given everyone my Leo address hopefully they all get to me. I’m in Ouaga for a meeting about Camp Glow, and hopefully seeing what it takes to create one in the Leo region. That would be a good project.

Well, slowly but surely I'm getting accustomed to life in village. It’s wonderful, scary, boring, exciting, and lonely all at the same time. I’m lucky to have such great friends that are supportive and wonderful Andrew as well, who is always there to listen to me cry and laugh and act like a maniac all in the same phone conversation. Things are all going to be ok. Hopefully haha. I’ll write again before I leave Ouaga. I love and miss everyone.  

Goodbyes are always hard

Exactly 3 months after moving into my host family’s house it was time to say goodbye. It was a rough day, saying goodbye to them had the same feeling as saying goodbye at IAH. When I first moved in to my host parents house I couldn’t speak a word of French or Moore, I was forced to bathe 29 times a day against my will, I was served greasy eggs for breakfast, my little brother cried every time he saw me, and everything I did was laughed at. I will miss those days so much. Three months later I’ve hit my target French mark, I know all the greetings in Moore, I still had to bathe 29 times a day, I conveyed to my family that eggs can be cooked without 3 gallons of oil, and my little brother loves me. We’ve come a long way.

Host family closing ceremony was a day that I will never forget. I woke up and took my bath. I got dressed and told my family that it was MANDATORY for them to get there at 9:30 because the ceremony started at 10. Of course my family was the last ones to show up, but they were so well dressed it was funny. My baba and ma were in matching outfits. I presented them with a certificate and an invitation to swear in next week. After the ceremony there was a little reception and we all left. I went home and my baba was there waiting for me, he told me that he had a present for me. My gift was a traditional Sapone hat, an outfit that they had made for me, and a head scarf the same as the one my mom has. It was great. Not everyone was home at my house so I decided to wait on giving them their gifts. My baba told me and Sudak that we had to be at the house at 6:30 p.m. for dinner. Sue’s sister called us at told us to go meet her parents at the Belle Vie so we went there. We had food, beer, Sangria, and (drumrolll please………) CHAMPAGNE! Sue’s parents went all out for us. It was hard to say goodbye to them. So many trips to the marche to visit Sue’s mom and I would always yell “Ma” and she would say “Beega” (which means my child in Moore). They became like my second host family. So after hanging with Sue’s family we head to the marche to say goodbye to a few people, then I head home. My family was all there so I decided that it was a good time to give them gifts. I gave my parents 2 calabashes full of blow pops, laffy-taffys, gobstoppers, and nerds, my baba a Peace Corps sticker for his moto and made him a booklet with a picture of me and my Burkina Family next to a picture of me and my American Family, I gave my ma my pink cross necklace, a necklace for Isabel, playing cards for Michael and Immanuel, and stickers for Leopold and Landry. Everyone was so happy. Isabel put her necklace on right away. My little brothers had never had stickers before so they weren’t sure what to do so I put one on Landry to show him. According to little Landry stickers are best worn on your forehead so we all were wearing stickers on our foreheads. Michael asked me about the cards and I told him that they came from America and he told me at least 14893842432 times how much he loved them and how nice they are. Michael was so nice to me these past 3 months I ended up giving him my watch as well lol. It was so funny to watch them all eat blow pops and put stickers everywhere. At that moments, I think I was the happiest I’ve been since being in Africa. That moment alone made up for all the difficulties and frustrations of stage. Sue came over and we had dinner with my family and we ate a bunch and just hung out. After dinner my family went inside and I went into my room to finish packing (FYI if I thought it was hard packing for 2 years the first time, it was harder the second time with more stuff!!!) I woke up bright and early the next day because I knew that it would take my family a lot of pushing to get moving. My sister Isabel came up to me and sad “I'm sad that you are leaving” I told her that I was too, but that I would come visit all the time. Little Landry said something to her and I asked what he said and she said “Landry says that you and Sue can’t leave because you haven’t finished playing.” I just about started crying then, the little boy who was terrified of me actually didn’t want me to leave! I scooped him up and gave him a big hug. Then we loaded up the cart (literally a donkey pulling a cart) and headed over to the FDC for the last time. I didn’t realize that all my siblings were going to walk there, so I got off my bike and walked with them holding hands with Landry, proudly wearing my Sapone hat. Michael didn’t want Leopold to go because his pants were ripped and he was kind of dirty, but Leopold started bawling and I told him to come. When we got there my brother unloaded all my bags and we waited together until it was time for me to leave. I didn’t think it would be that hard to say goodbye, but when it came down to it, it really was. I said goodbye to baba first. We hugged and he a prayer for me in Moore, then I hugged everyone else (hugging is not something that Burkinabe do, but I wasn’t leaving without a hug lol). My mom ended up not showing up, Isabel said that she couldn’t say goodbye. I was sad but it’s not like I won’t see her again. Then my family got on their donkey cart and went back home. I started crying seeing them leave. I really have become part of their family, and them part of mine. It was tough. But alas, time to move on to the next phase of my service. Ouaga for the week, SWEAR-IN on thursday, 50th Anniversary of the Peace Corps Fair, shopping, and heading to site MONDAY!

O wero!

This past week I have witnessed the simplest acts of kindness and tolerance that I have never even dreamed possible. August 30, 2011 was the celebration of Ramadan. Now, Ramadan is a Muslim holiday, but it is celebrated throughout the entire village, hence, no work for us and a lot of things were closed because people were celebrating. My family is not Muslim, so we sat around for most of the morning. We drank a little dolo and I made a paper airplane with Landry and we played for a while. Eppy came over and played with us for a while. Sue came over and we went over to Marlow’s house. Since her family has always been very kind to us we saw fit to go over and say “Happy Ramadan” to them. We drank some wonderful homemade bissap and Marlow’s family fed us a bunch. Since Marlow’s dad is an important Muslim man, lots of people were in and out of their courtyard.  I looked up and saw a nun, and 3 other religious men with her. Then I realized that it was the Priest from my church here in Sapone. We all couldn’t help but wonder why a Catholic priest and a nun were coming over on a day that is celebrated by Muslims. Imagine our surprise to find that they had come over to eat and celebrate Ramadan! It was truly an amazing sight. They laughed and ate and talked and then they left. So cool. The rest of the world could really take a lesson from the Burkinabe. It’s sad to think that so many people die every day over conflict of religion, when everyone could be as tolerate as the people here. The rest of the day was a lot of fun! We ate coconut gatos, popcorn, pasta, and had lots of bissap. I went home, and they fed me again lol. I had tried to nap but it was just too hot so I went over to Sudakshina’s house and hung out. I put my nephew Landry in a ponya and carried him around like that. It was quite funny. I walked over to my house to show my sister and my other sister complemented me on my ponya tying skills! We went back to Marlow’s house and they fed us again (did I mention that there is a lot of eating on holidays?) It started to rain so I went home, and they made me eat dinner! Haha!

Andrew and I hit the 10 month mark! Almost a year of being together. Yay J

The rest of the week was spent doing boring sessions on “Teaching English as a Foreign Language.” I did get like over 1,000 books for my Kindle from my friend Evan, which was pretty awesome. I cooked dinner for my family this past week as well. I made them pasta with tomato sauce. It was nothing fancy, just some fresh vegetables that I bought at the Marché made into a sauce and served over pasta. I was worried that my family wouldn’t like it, and at first they were skeptical of it but all turned out well. My brothers all had seconds, and there was not a noodle to be found at the end of the meal. I was really happy to sit and eat with them. If I have the time I might try and cook for them again. I took a trip to the U.S. Embassy. That was really awesome. I’ve been thinking about a potential career path since then. We met the ambassador, he will also be at our swear in. It will be quite the event.

My host family is still amazing. We have yet another new member. This one is a tiny little puppy! I was so happy when I saw her. My host family got her for my baba. Sue and I totally think she looks like a Sammy, so we named her. The best part is that my family liked the name, so now little Sammy is a permanent addition to my family. She cries all night and sleeps in my lap during the day. I wish I could take her to site with me! Sunday I spent in my usual manner. I went to church, and then hung around all day. I realized that I hadn’t taken many pictures of the town of Sapone so Sue and I went on a picture walk. We went to the Marché and everyone was super nice about letting us take their pictures. It was a lot of fun.  

I passed my final LPI! I will be swearing in as an ITERMEDIATE-HIGH French speaker! It was A LOT of hard work, but I did it! My host family is always telling me how proud they are because when I first got here I couldn’t speak a word of French. I even started talking some local language classes, so that I can learn “Sissala” I learned basic salutations and phrases, I will learn a lot more once I go to site.

Yesterday I went to a birthday party for Lindsay’s host brother! I’m so glad that she invited us. We (me, Nate, Brandon, Sudakshina, Lyndia, and Marlow) had such a fun time hanging out, eating popcorn and dancing. Later Vida and Kelsey showed up and we all ate a delicious meal with Lindsay’s family. We sang “Happy Birthday” (in French of course) to her brother and he blew out candles. It was so much fun! Lindsay’s family was wonderful to us J I hope that her little brother had an amazing birthday!

TODAY WAS AN AMAZING DAY! I BECAME FAMOUS! Ok, maybe not famous, but I am going to appear on a television show here in Burkina! Its pretty awesome. We went to the Bureau to take a tour this morning, then we got to hang out at the American Rec Center. We ate great food, and had milkshakes. It was delicious! Then we went to tape an episode of this show. It was like a French talk show, and I got to be on camera! It was amazing. Then we went back to the Bureau and had cake and soda haha. It was an amazing day.

Well, that’s all for now. I’m spending this weekend in Ouaga at the transit house! That means more internet! Yay! Only 2 weeks to go until swear-in!

Have you ever seen the rain coming down on a sunny day?

I have, almost every time it rains here in Burkina lol. Rainy season seems to be moving slowly this year from what I hear, but I haven’t noticed it. It rains every time I try and do laundry! Haha. Crops seems to be growing pretty well. Some have really huge crops right now, but others seem to be growing more slowly. I hope that the harvest goes well for my family, as well as the rest of Burkina, so that they will have enough to eat until next year.

My baby nephew was born on August 22, 2011. I was very much hoping that my sister-in-law would have the baby while I was here, and I was lucky enough to be. He is so handsome J. My ma says that I am his “tantie” which means that I am his official aunt J My family is getting bigger. I love them so much. Little Doris (my niece) and I have become the best of friends. I tell her stories all the time and bought her a little pink outfit that she looks absolutely adorable in. She falls asleep in my arms when I hold her. The other day I was hanging out, holding her, and she PEED on me! That was very much NOT appreciated lol. When I gave her back to her Ma, my sister, she was so happy. She said to me “Ca est bonne chance! Tu va avoir les bebes!” This translates to “That’s good luck! You will have children!” All I could respond with was Yay haha. Sudakshina was laughing at me so hard. At least now I know that I’m going to have children now that a baby peed on me lol. We asked Sue’s sister if it really is good luck and she said yea! It means that my first child will be a girl. I guess the story is that the first child that pees on you, the sex of that child will be the sex of your firstborn. It’s really interesting. Burkina is full of little superstitions like that. I love my host family. I’ve mentioned before that my parents have 14 children; I’ve met a few more. Noelie, my sister, is baby Doris’ mom and I also met my brother Dennis. Noelie is so beautiful and very nice, she lives in Ouaga. I wish that she was here all the time, but she has been here for the last 2 weeks. My brother Dennis came to visit about a week ago. He goes to university. He is very cool. We still and have these long talks, he wants to practice English with me but he says that I talk too fast. I tell him that I feel the same way about French, so we have bilingual conversations. He speaks to me in English and I respond in French haha. So far my siblings that I know are Noelie, Isabelle, Dennis, Michael, Ulrich, Immanuel, and Leopold. Then there is my nephew Landry, my niece Doris, and the new baby Fabrice. Also, my sister in law Elizabeth. I have met my sister, who is a nun, but it was only for a second, and I never actually got her name. My most favorite person, possibly in the entire world, is this boy named Epiphany, or Eppy for short. He is this boy that hangs out with my brothers. He has some sort of developmental problem so he can’t speak. He makes noises to get your attention or talk to you. He is the happiest, sweetest person in the world. We play all the time. Eppy, Sue and I will chase chickens all over the yard. One time we got in the animal pen and Sue and I started making animal noises. I meowed like a cat and I guess Eppy either recognized the sound or just really liked it but he started meowing along, so we all pretended to be kitties. It was pretty much the best day ever. I taught Eppy how to hug. At first when I hugged him he thought it was super weird (hugging is not a common practice in Burkina for anyone) but he still puts out his dirty little hand to shake mine, and I just hug him instead, I don’t even mind that usually he’s covered in food and dirt and whatever else he has gotten into that day. Landry has actually warmed up to me a lot! The other day he was sitting outside of Sue’s house waiting for me, and Sue and I were heading to the marche. I picked him up and asked him if he wanted to come. Well, he’s 4, he doesn’t speak French, he only speaks Moore, so I just carried him to the marche with us. He got kind of heavy so then we just walked all over the marche holding hands. It was the best. We bought him a yogurt, and he was really happy. That was a really great day.

Model school finished now. It’s weird how much I am going to miss those kids. One of my students, Eric, was chosen to give a speech. One of the activities that I did with my kids was get giant sheets of flip paper, and traced them on it. Then they got to draw on themselves the thing they most want to be when they grow up. Once they were finished drawing, they had to write a short paragraph on what they want to be, why they want to be that, and what they need to do to achieve that. Armel wants to be the President, Fabiola wants to be a doctor, Michael wants to be a militare, and Eric wants to be a police officer. Eric wrote the most amazing speech. He wrote that he wants to be a police because he wants to help people; he wants to catch bad guys. He wrote that to achieve that he was going to study hard in school and finish university. He said that he also needs to respect his parents, and have respect for his teachers, the community, and the people that he wants to help. It was such a great answer, that we just had to have him read it at the Model School/Tutoring closing ceremony. Also we sang a song on hand washing. They gave out prizes to those students who did well in their classes. It was really a great ceremony. It was really amazing to meet some of the parents of my students, and have them tell me that they hope that I keep in touch and that their child loves me. It is the most amazing feeling. I may not have taught those kids to be brilliant readers, and mathematicians, but they did something that is essentially even more important, and that was that they are allowed to have dreams. It seems like the concept of having dreams is very much something that is not very encouraged here. Here, people stick to what their families have been doing for hundreds of years. By the time that model tutoring was over, the kids in mine and Lindsay’s class all have dreams, and have discovered what it takes to make those dreams come true.  It was truly a blessing to able to be a part of that. I hope that even after we leave, the kids will continue to have confidence in themselves and in what they are capable of doing. Model Tutoring was good practice, but I wont be teaching in a formal setting like that. If I go to site and they want me to help out in the school its going to be with stuff like sensiblizations, girls camps (to teach girls on sex education, STDs, HIV/AIDS, family planning, goal setting, etc.), maybe an English club. I’m really looking forward to hopefully working with the CSPS (the local hospital). I want to work on infant care as well as HIV/AIDS.. I’m fortunate to have my site just off the Ouaga/Leo rode. There are so many great people in that area. I have a good feeling about me, Brandon, Sam, Lindsay and the other volunteers in that area working on some great projects together in that area. Soon after we get to site I will be going to a training on making school a safe place for students, essentially a training on stopping violence in schools. I’m really excited about that. Also from what I have been told there is an amazing agriculture guy in Yoro/Boura so I want to work with him on gardening and tree planting. Speaking of agriculture…

I was elected to be on the Food Security Committee! That was a cool day. The Food Security Committee promotes better food security awareness and local solutions to food security issues. Also, I will be helping to develop materials, coordinate trainings, manage a Peace Corp volunteer seed bank and support PCV gardening and tree planting. Essentially lack of food security was what causes a person to run out of food/ not have enough of the correct foods which leads to famine and malnutrition. I’m really excited about going to meetings because malnutrition is something that I’m really interested in. Also, ever since being in Burkina I’ve been really excited on agriculture and planting trees, so I can’t wait to get started on that!

I’ve become quite the bug killer. Whenever I see a bug in my room I am now able to kill it, instead of having to call someone to get it, losing sleep over it haha. It’s the simple things in life. I just PRAY that I don’t see a snake while I'm here. Speaking of, I'm glad to know (insert sarcasm here) that Burkinabe men are just as afraid of snakes as I am. I was walking with my homologue one evening, and there was a branch on the ground. He thought it was a snake and jumped and screamed. Oh course this caused me to scream and jump as well! Then at the same time we both realize that it’s not a snake. We just kind of look at each other and carry on as though nothing happened. It was pretty embarrassing. If I see a snake I might seriously consider E.T.ing! The other day I actually tried some “to” (pronounced toh) that I actually liked. If you don’t know what “to” is a traditional food that is really mushy and you eat it with sauce. The sauces are usually different. I can’t remember the name of the one that I liked, but it wasn’t bad at all. Google “to” and maybe it will have a better explanation haha. Michael was eating “to” and he wanted me to try it, so of course I did, and I actually kind of enjoyed it. I’m becoming such a good Burkinabe. J

Yesterday was such a great day. I woke up in the morning at 7am (which is actually sleeping in). I got up, took a bath and ate breakfast. After breakfast I began the grueling task of finishing my laundry. That took forever. Around 10 I went to the training center to pick up a book that I had forgotten, and then I went over to Sue’s house. Sue, her sister and I went to the marche to buy stuff to make lunch. I ate lunch at Sue’s and then her sister wanted to go back to the marche. We went dolo hopping. We went to a bunch of different dolo places and had dolo at each one. Landry and Leopold were at the marche and when they saw me they didn’t leave my side for the rest of the day. We went all around the marche and had a great time. After the marche we went to my house, and gave my family a gift. Sue and I tried to shoot buzzards out of a tree with a slingshot. It was a pretty amazing day. I cant believe that there are only 3 more weeks of stage. That means that there is only 3 more weeks with my host family. L I’m going to miss them so much.

I hope that things are going well back home in the U.S. It’s crazy how much being in Sapone and being with my host family has become like home. Most days I prefer to hang out at home and play ball with Leopold and Landry, then I do to hang out with other Peace Corps people lol. Burkina is absolutely amazing. I hope to continue to receive a bunch of letters from home! I miss everyone!

My wonderful life continues

Let’s see, what new and exciting things have happened since I last updated my blog…

I am now INTERMEDIATE MID in French! Yessssssssssssss. I was super excited to the get the results of my last LPI! I went from speaking nothing to being able to have real conversations (for the most part anyway) with people. It’s pretty cool.

I visited Camp Glow this past week. Camp Glow stands for Girls/Guys Leading Our World. It is a camp that was put in play to help empower girls. They have fun sessions like making tye-dye shirts, but also sessions on emotions and goal setting and family planning. The girls come from all over Burkina and they stay there for a week. This year that have it for boys as well, because eventually boys grow up to be men and they should know that both men and women are important. So after the girls have their week the boys get to come and learn some of the same things. It was really a great experience visiting the camp. Mad props to the volunteers that put that together! It was great. Oh and we got to stay at a convent! A Nunnery! With real live nuns! It was so cute. Also we ate homemade banana bread and that was pretty fantastic. Mmmmm.

Model tutoring is going well. I taught a math class all on my own this past week. It was so terrifying! It’s funny because working in a prison was less terrifying than a group of 4 ten-year-olds. It went really well. We learned addition and subtraction. I got a lot of great feedback. Hearing about all of these projects makes me really excited to get to site and start working on stuff. I can’t wait to get there and finish stage already!

Today was really great. I went to church. I love going to church here. It’s really nice to know that church is the same everywhere, just in a different language lol. It’s great. My family likes the fact that I go and I just like going. It’s comfortable. When I got home from church my Baba was like go get Sudakshina and tell that she is invited to lunch. We had such a huge lunch because one of my sisters was visiting, my sister that is a nun. It was good. I met my other sister and her baby yesterday. It was wonderful, the baby and I are bffs. We ate crudetae (cucumber salad), ragu pomme de tere (potato stew), and riz sauce arrachide (rice with peanut sauce). It was soooooo good. Oh, and I had frozen Fanta. It was magical. After lunch I hung out with some friends and my family. Then Sudak and I went to go work on our trees. I was hard work. We finished with 53 tree preps so in 3 days we will put seeds in them and watch them grow. Only 600 trees to go haha. Then I came home and hung out with Sue and ate dinner at home.

 It’s terribly hot right now. Been missing home lately. I still love it here, but I do miss home. It’s hard to be apart from the ones that you love. I love Andrew and miss him so much, and everyone. But, I still love Africa and am very glad to be here. I just need to make it swear in. 5ish more weeks to go. I love and miss everyone!

Nasara Waka

So I have some impromptu internet time so what would be better than a blog post and uploading some pictures? Let’s see, Africa is still amazing. I’m still having a great time. We started model school/tutoring (that’s when we get some village kids and go over lessons and stuff with them, pretty much a couple of weeks of summer school). Lindsay and I were partners and we worked really well together. We were given 5 children and we had to administer a sort of reading placement test. It was really sad to see that most kids could barely read single letters. It was kind of a discouraging way to begin actuallyL. All the kids were then split into groups and we were given 5 children that are in CM1 class that are mid-level readers. Our kids are named Fabiola, Alexi, Armel, Michael and Eric. They are a great group of kids. Our first lesson however was kind of a bust. We pretty much got blank stares from everyone and it was really frustrating. The lesson was supposed to be about adding decimals, and they had no clue what to do. Determined to do better the next day I decided to start from the very beginning, our next lesson was basic addition. This went so well! Everyone was participating and they were actually getting was I was saying. It was really great. Our lessons since then have been really awesome as well. I was really proud of those kids, so far we’ve done a few math lessons, reading lessons, and a lesson on malaria (known here as paludisme). I’m really excited about the way things are going.

My hose family is still doing really well. I love to have random dance parties with my siblings. It is so much fun. They love Akon haha. I usually try to bring them vegetables or fruit or candy or something, just to let them know that I appreciate what they do for me. I gave my brother Leopold and my nephew Landry Sprite last weekend and they loved it lol. Landry even let me pick him up! Today I had another LPI (language placement test). When I go home Leopold screams “Nasara!” and starts waving like crazy and running to me, and Landry followed him. I gave them a ball to play with and they were really happy. It was the best! My brother Ulrich apparently went back to Ouagadougou to spend the rest of his vacation there and go back to school there in the fall. I miss that little hoodlum; we played a lot of cards. My sister Isabel is currently in Ouaga as well. She is taking an exam for a class she is taking to become a nurse I think. I pray that she does really well. She and I have grown so close. We go to church together on Sundays and she braids my hair and we talk about boyfriends. She showed me a picture of her boyfriend. It’s really fun. My parents are good too.

 Funny story, last night I had a really bad stomachache and went to the latrine. I absolutely detest going to the latrine at night, but it was an emergency. I grab my flashlight and go and when I’m done I get scared by a noise and drop my flashlight…where does it land? Oh yea, DOWN THE LATRINE. So I had to explain to my baba this morning that I lost the flashlight that they gave me because I dropped it down the latrine, where it will remain in poop for the rest of time. He gave me a look, and I thought he would be mad, but then he busts out laughing, and now everyone knows that I did that. I’m glad that they thought it was so funny and he said that he would get me a new one. I love my baba. I love being part of their family.

Tonight was stage prom! It was so much fun (refer to facebook for pics). There was lots of dancing and other such activities. Of course Sudakshina was my date. We even had matching shirts made for the occasion. It was so much fun.

Well I suppose that’s all for now. J More to come J

Last blog post for a few weeks!

So I forgot that today was my day with the internet key so I get to have one more afternoon of internet! There's really not a whole lot for me to blog about seeing as though I wrote yesterday haha. Today was just a typical day for me. I'll recap it for you

0600- I wake up and realize that I dont have to be up for another 45 min so I go back to sleep
0630- My alarm goes off which makes me sad because I thought I had set it for 0645 lol
0700- I finally get out of bed and go outside to take a bath. Once outside I realize that it is windy and my water is cold so in a effort to appease my host family I go into the shower area and just wash my face and splash around the rest of the water to make it look like I took a bath. FOR THE RECORD I take a lot of bucket baths here, I was just too sleepy and cold this morning.
0720-I get dressed for the day and drink my tea and pretend to eat my eggs. Then I get my school stuff together and get my bike ready to go.
0740-Marlow comes over and we bike over to Sudakshina's house and then to the FDC (which is the training center)
0800-Our first session of the day starts and it happens to be a class on what our site visits were like
10:00- We have a break where I eat a banana and share some bread with Sudakshina
1030-Our second session of the day is Tech. This is where we learn how to use a protactor and all sorts of other math things. I spent this hour writing a letter to Andrew and drawing cubes on a paper. We played a game where they call out a geometric shape and we have to race against 2 other people to draw it perfectly. Since I have no clue how to draw anything because I wasnt paying attention, when it is my turn I go up to the board and draw a cube. Haha. I think I was supposed to draw parallel lines or something like that haha.
1215-Lunch Time. Sudakshina and I head to the corner kiosk and chat with the lady that owns it. She makes excellent riz gras and benga, so that is what we have for lunch. When I got back from lunch I got 2 letters! One from Lauren and the other from Kelby. They were both amazing. I spent the rest of the 2 hr lunch break goofing around with Sue, and chatting with my friend Texas Nate, reading letters that his mom sent him. It was fun.
1400-I head over to the school where we have another session on non-formal education. We mostly spend this time talking about different activities we can do once we get to site. I spent this time cracking shea butter seeds, watching donkeys eat grass and throwing rocks into a hole lol.
1530-Another break. I spent this time watching my friend Timmy try and pole vault with a tree trunk. It was pretty funny
1600- Lang class. Lang class was awesome. We got into new language groups so now Im in novice high with Tarek and other Nate. Our LCF is Konfe. He is a badass, and the class was amazing. I answered all his questions almost perfectly. It was great.
1715-School is done for the day and some people in my stage want to have a community meeting, so we head back to the FDC for that. The community meeting was good, not really much to say on that.
1800-The sky turns an alarming shade of grey and there is sand headed straight into my eyes...you know what that means! RAIN! I hurry up to try and bike home before the rain (I make it with only seconds to spare.)
1830-I eat dinner. Dinner was my favorite meal that I eat here. Its call Ragu de pomme de terre. Really its just like a potato stew but man that stuff is amazing. And I eat a banana.
1900-I pop in the internet key and get online where I proceed to talk to everyone on facebook and post a blog about my day haha.
1950- Thats what time it is now. Its still raining and I love it. I think that I am going to get off the computer soon and crawl into bed with my kindle (THANKS ANDREW, I keep forgetting to tell you how much I love Wilbur the Kindle). Wilbur is the perfect rainy day companion.

Yesterday when I got home after being away for the week my family was so happy to see me. It was great. I missed them.

Thats pretty much a typical day for me. Tomorrow I have language first, followed by other classes, until I go home at 1730. Life is good :)

I have internet again on August 14th so I will update again then. I am missing everyone lots!