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!

I throw my hands up in the air sometimes saying ayoooooo down in LEO!

This has been an amazing week! Site visit was absolutely wonderful! My village is indeed really tiny. There really is nothing there but a lot of farms, a school and people’s houses. I meet all the important people of the village, this includes the Chef de Village, the president and a bunch of members of the APE and AME (those are both the Equivalent of the PTA), the health people (which is great because I want to work with them a bunch) and just other families that my homologue thought I should meet. My village is really green and there are lots of trees everywhere. There is no electricity in the entire town. I don’t know what I’m going to do about my music though! Lol. The kids in my village are great. This one little girl who lives across the street from my kept poking me and asking why my skin color is different from hers. Another little boy asked me if I liked white people or black people better. One boy asked me if teachers hit students in America. I told him no, that hitting students is not good and he said “oh, they hit really hard here.” L They also asked me if I celebrate Christmas, and what the sky is like in America. To them, America is another world. I had to explain to them that the sky is the same everywhere, but that in America you can’t see the stars because there is too much light. Another kid asked me if my dad is Barak Obama’s friend Haha. It was really great. The family that I am living with is great, they are really nice people. I can’t wait for you guys to come visit me at my site. It took about 8 hours from the capital to get to my site. That part sucks. Lindsay and I were crowded on a bus with stinky people and a chicken. I guess that will make for a good story later, once I get over the trauma of it! HAHA. I spent 2 days there and it was so relaxing and awesome. My house is small and I love it. It has a living room, a nice sized bedroom and an indoor shower area. The family that I share a courtyard with is building me my own courtyard, so when it’s all done I know I will be very happy in it. After 2 days in Yoro it was time to head to Leo (pronounced Lay-o) to visit the regional capital and see what that is like. Leo is MAGNIFICANT! There is so much to do here. There is a safari and a huge market, internet, a place for dancing, and a SWIMMING POOL! The best part is that it’s only 30 K from my site which is totally bikable! So whenever I start to go crazy at site I can take a break and come to Leo and wear jeans and feel normal! The hotel that we are staying at is nice; we got our own rooms with indoor showers and actual toilets! It was so quiet here that I had a hard time sleeping haha, I’ve gotten so used to hearing roosters, donkeys, pigs, and goats all night that the quiet was weird (you know you’re in Africa when….haha)! All of us that are here is me, Lindsay, Brandon, Trevor, Samuel, Leigh, Marisol and then 2 PCV’s Emily and Katie. We went out dancing at this place that let us play our own music! It was so fun. They also have tofu brochettes here, which is apparently a big thing haha. They are actually quite tasty! We went swimming in the pool and it was magical! We went dancing and it was so fun. Sam is so lucky! I’m totally coming to visit every week! Haha. I'm really happy with my site. It’s wonderful. I can’t wait to move there after stage. I wish it would hurry up and be swear in time! Well more updates to come J

Update time!

Hey! Greetings from Burkina!

So it’s my first time with internet since I moved to my homestay, so I just had to update. Things are going great. My homestay family is wonderful. My parents are an old couple; my baba is Joseph and my ma is Justine. They have 14 CHILDREN!!! Only 5 of them live in Sapone. There’s my older sister Isabel who is 24 and her son Landry who is 4 (Landry is afraid of me because I’m white, but he’s so cute, and is starting to warm up to me because I give him food and candy lol), then there is Michael who is 19, Ulrich who is 17, Immanuel who is 15 and the baby Leopold who is 10. Michael is awesome, he’s very patient with my French and he teaches me to say things in Moore (the local lang). Immanuel and Ulrich think that they are too cool for school lol teenage boys will be teenage boys no matter where you are in the world. They are fun to hang out with. Leopold is so adorable. He is probably my favorite brother, my other brothers pick on him all the time, but he is such a sweet kid. My family cultivates, which is how they make a living. They have a donkey, a cow, 2 goats and a BILLION chickens(Leopold and I chase them around trying to catch the little chicks J). My family even has a cat!!! Its name is Moosh, he wears a little collar and I sometimes share my dinner with him J. Family life is good, VERY different, but otherwise amazing.

Training….training can be very difficult sometimes. Language is one thing that is hard. I do however have exciting news….! Drum roll please……I am now a NOVICE HIGH. When I came to Africa a month ago I spoke absolutely no French, I scored a novice low 3 weeks ago on my language test. 3 weeks later I’ve jumped 2 spots to novice high. It wasn’t the score I thought I would get but I’m sure that my French will only improve, and I’m very proud of my score. People tell me that they notice a great difference in my French skills so that is great. Other training classes can sometimes feel like they are FOREVER long, but at the end of the day it’s all good. I very much look forward to the day that I swear-in to the Peace Corps and become and official volunteer (not just a trainee lol)….P.S. That day is September 22, 2011!!!!!

Site Announcement! So we had site announcement this past week, where they told us where we will be living and working for the next 2 years! It was really exciting. I’m going to be living in a small village that only has one school. It is called Yoro. I am very excited to travel there tomorrow. I hear incredible things about that region, and hear that the people of Yoro are very hard workers and are eager to have a volunteer. I met my counterpart which is called my homologue (it’s the person that I am going to be working with most closely while I'm here). His name is Yago. He is the director of the primary school in my village. Hes married and has 3 kids. He is super nice and I cant wait to visit my village. He’s taking me to meet the Chef de Village! It should be really amazing. My village is very small. There are 340 children at the school which is 6 classes, so do the math on how many kids per class. There is no electricity or running water, so 2 years of no electricity and bucket baths! Yesssssss!  Yago told me that my house is very small just 1 bedroom and a living room, and I have a shared courtyard with a family next door. At least I am getting a brand new latrine that will be all mine! Lol. It’s the little things in life now haha. Oh and my site is super close to some amazing people! My Ginger friend Lindsay is my super close neighbor! I just wish that Sudakshina was closer! Lol. After I visit my site I’ll get to hang out at my regional capital for a few days which should be amazing. I’ll have internet again then so I’ll be able to write more about what my village is like. Hopefully even upload a few pics.

All in all things are amazing here. Sure there are times where I miss Andrew and home so much that I wonder if I made the right decision by coming here, but then I spend hours playing cards with my brothers, or grab a coke with my friends or ride bikes around and explore with my BFFL Sudakshina that make me think…wow, I’m really here and it’s all worth it. That’s all I got for now, will update as soon as I can. I miss and love everyone!