So it’s a lot easier for me to just update my blog in giant updates than it is to do each day. Today feels like a good day to blog. So here’s the recap of the last 3 days.
June 9, 2011
This was the start of my trip to Burkina Faso. It was staging in Philadelphia. I left Houston at 0600 and let me just say that the goodbye was terrible. I didn’t want to let go. It was a pretty tough day. I arrived in Philly at 10:40 am(ish) and met Marlow at the airport. We ate some stale ass pretzels and took a cab to the Crowne Plaza Philadelphia West. This just so happened to be my first cab ride. Most people had already arrived and my room wasn’t ready yet, so we jumped right into the staging process. We turned in all of our paperwork and did all kinds of activities for the rest of the day. I went to check into my room and it turns out that Marlow was my roommate. We were fairly excited about this. A bunch of us went out to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner and got to know each other a bit. The day ended with my talking to Andrew and trying to sleep, but that did not come easy.
June 10, 2011
This was the day that we went to the Federal Clinic so that we could all get yellow fever shots. We hopped on a bus at around 7 in the morning and drove through downtown Philly, which I realized is actually a pretty ghetto place to be. We had a good breakfast, filled out MORE paperwork, and got our shots. The shot burned like no other when I got it, but after she pulled out the needle it was ok. We then got on a 2+ hours bus ride to New York because we were flying out of JFK airport. New York is AWESOME. Even though I didn’t get to actually do anything in New York it was cool to see how fast paced the city is. It took about 2 hours to get checked in and go through security. Then we sat at the airport for like 4 hours because our place was like forever delayed.
June 11, 2011
12+ hours of flying from JFK to Brussels, Belgium…From Belgium to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. We arrived around 15:30. We met our Country Director and got started on our Malaria pills. It rained when we got here which is a sign of good luck and welcome, so that was a good sign. Moved into a sort of hostel where we will be for “Week 0.” Lucky for me, I am in an apartment style room with a bathroom, shower, toilet, living room, 3 bedrooms, and it even has a kitchen with a freezer! So great lol. I found out that I get pretty good internet so that was a good thing, sent messages to some people. I have to admit that it took me a while to get used to the time difference.
June 12, 2011
On this day we went to our country director’s house and had a traditional African meal of Poulet Yassa which is chicken with olive and onion served over rice. It was delicious. We had eggs for breakfast, which from what I hear is pretty awesome to be able to have. We listened to real African drummers and had a dance party. It was really fun. We played some board games and pretty much just relaxed.
June 13, 2011
Today was a really exciting day. I did a lot of “firsts.” We woke up around 0540 and started our day. I’ve never been much of a morning person, but this isn’t so bad. Had another egg breakfast! Haha. Then we all gathered in the conference room to go over all kinds of technical stuff. I had a language interview (which was horrible), a meeting with the director of informal education, and a medical interview. I also got my African money and got my first cell phone here. It was busy. Then later we walked into the market place and had dinner. That was the first time that I walked outside of the compound. It was a little scary, but really fun. Dinner was amazing. It was fish in a peanut sauce served over rice (of course). It was sooo good; the only thing is that eating rice fills me up really quickly with just a little so I get hungry a lot faster than I normally would. Then I had an African beer called “Brakina” it’s actually not bad, but I don’t like beer too much. All in all I am in good spirits, even thought I am missing home they keep me so busy I don’t have time to realize it.
Well that’s all for now, but more updates and maybe some pictures soon!
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