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!