What an interesting week this has been. I’ve been spending lots of time with the people of my village. It felt good to be home after spending a week at the “doorways” conference (a conference on alternative methods to violence in schools). It was nice to be back in the calm that is my tiny village with my family and my puppy. I went back to visiting with everyone and going to the school every day. This past Tuesday there was a meeting for the CP1 and 2 teachers as well as the CE1 teacher. Since I usually spend most of my time working with CE1 because those kids really have a hard time with reading, the teacher thought it would be a good idea for me to just take over her class while she was gone so that the kids weren’t just missing school. I didn’t think this was a very good idea considering that I am not qualified to teach 60+ 3^rd graders for 8 hours. Yago however thought this was a great idea and he agreed that I would do it. The next day I show up to this classroom of sweet faced children. Yago gave them a talk on how to behave and that I was in charge and we were going to read. Etc. Etc. He left the class confident that it was go over well…Truth be told, the class started off well. The kids took turns reading out loud and I would correct them and help them when they struggled. I let my guard down a little which turned out to be a huge mistake. I literally had control of the class for a grand total of an hour before things got a little out of hand. In essence, the kids realized that I was not going to hit them and decided that they weren’t scared and could act the way they wanted to. I managed to hold down the fort until lunch time. I didn’t actually want to come back in the afternoon and just take turns reading out loud again. Yago looked sad when I told him, so I gave in and came back. The kids behaved even worse after lunch. One kid even threw a bench. Lets just say that they day was exhausting and that is why I prefer to do things on a small scale outside of the classroom. On a brighter note the kids were happy (for what reason I don’t know, maybe they were just happy to spend the day with me). That night I had dinner with the guys. Yago cooked dinner for me, Issaka and Mr. Ouedraogo. It was fun, but his cooking made me horrifically sick afterwards haha.

Sometimes a random turn of events will lead you to have a very weird but awesome day. I went into Leo yesterday to celebrate Hugo’s birthday and get a little work done. While I was sitting around having lunch with Hugo, Sam, Bill and Lindsay  I get received a phone call from Andrew on the food security committee. He asked me to come in to Ouaga to work on a project proposal for a grant that USAID is giving to the Food Security Committee. This was going to be very tricky. I told him that I could make it the next day but he was really wanting it to be the same day. It seemed pretty impossible considering that I didn’t have any clothes with me and that transport goes to and from my site once a day only. It turns out that nothing is impossible with Yago as your homologue. I called Yago on the phone and told him that I had a “petite proleme” He gets really happy when I come to him with problems because he is always telling me how he is here to help. I explain the situation and he said “oh my God what can we do?!” I told him that I didn’t know, and after a few minutes of thoughtful silence he tells me that he is going to call his brother in Leo (who is a police officer) to give me a ride back home and then drive me back to Leo so that I could get on a bus to Ouaga. He really made it happen, so I was able to go all the way back to my house and back in time to catch the bus at 1700 and head out to Ouaga. The bus ride was pretty enjoyable and uneventful like I hope every bus ride could be. I made it in to Ouaga and biked to the Transit House. Yago called me to make sure that I made it safely and I told him that seriously I could not thank him enough for his help, he told me that he was really really happy that he could help. I <3 him. I was pleasantly surprised that Maren was here too! Andrew and I went out for a beer and talked about the project proposal and it was really awesome. Although very last minute and unplanned I’m actually pretty glad to be in Ouaga for a few days.

New Year!

The days are long but the years are short. I can’t believe that its another new year already. It seems funny the way that time is just flying by. Sometimes the days seem like they are never ending, but then I realize that the week is over, and that another month has gone by.  This year had so many great memories for me, if I was to sit here and list them all this blog post would be like 98 pages long.

I spent this New Year’s Eve in Leo with William, Lindsay, Sam and Hugo. We all spent pretty much the entire day together, having lunch and shopping for things that we would need for that night. Bill and I went into the marche and tried to buy firecrackers but they were all sold out of them. We were planning to have a party at Bill’s house that night. We went out to dinner at Cosmo’s and had a great time. There was live music there so everyone was dancing and Lindsay, Sam and I could definitely not pass up the opportunity to dance haha. The meal was great, we had a few beers, we all talked about our best and worst moments of 2011. I talked about how my worst moment was my first week at site when I was like really sad and homesick that I wanted to come home. My best moment however could not come down to just one. There were so many amazing moments that I had before and after arriving in Africa, it was impossible to pick just one. After dinner we went back to Bill’s for our party. We had a lot of alcohol and Lindsay made some great champagne punch. We played drinking games and listened to music, it was awesome. Here in Burkina there is no New Year’s special on TV. so we just had to use our phones to figure out was time it was. When midnight hit we listened to Auld Lang Syne and hugged and drank some more.  My family called me at midnight my time (6 p.m. in Texas). It was really great to hear from them but also I was really sad not to be with them, so I couldn’t help but to cry. I miss my mom all the time but at the holidays it was particularly painful. I talked to them for a while and went back in to the party. It was hard to be cheerful after that, but some more champagne did the trick haha. I ended up falling asleep on Bill’s couch somewhere are 2 a.m.

Yesterday I woke up feeling like absolute crap. I was tired and had the worst headache. Sam came over to Bill’s and we watched “Zach and Miri make a Porno” until Yago called me to come over. We celebrated the 1^st at Yago’s house with his family. I love his family so much. We ate delicious food and watched “The Simpsons” in French. We took a lot of pictures and had bissap and it was a great time. We ended up staying at Yago’s for like 6 hours. He was happy, we were happy; it started the New Year off on a great foot. After we came back to Bill’s house and Sam and I finished watching the movie. It had been a really long couple of days so Lindsay and I just sat around and watched movies on my laptop.

Grant that I may bring no tear to any eye, when this New Year in time shall end, let it be said I've played the friend, have lived and loved and labored here, and made of it a happy year. Goodbye 2011 it's been great. Looking forward to what the New Year will bring. Hopefully as many (if not more!) amazing memories as 2011 did.

The Past Week

With school not in session because of the Christmas holidays I’ve sort of been at a loss as to what to do with myself in village. A lot of the people have left to visit family in other parts of the country. My days were mostly spent taking walks with Simba, playing soccer with the boys, and reading. A few days ago I had been in my house reading when I hear a commotion in my courtyard. Every year after they have finished the harvest, the corn sits and dries until it is time to take it off the cob. Usually this is done by laying all the dried corn on the floor and having guys come over and hit it with sticks. This year at Gabriel’s house they had a machine that does it for you. However, this still requires quite a bit of man power. I was in my house reading one day when I came out and it seemed like all the village was in my courtyard. I came out to see what was up and Gabriel said that it was time to do the corn. I pull up a chair and watched them get started. About 10 minutes or so into the process I saw my friend working hard with everyone else. I thought to myself “she’s literally like 8 months pregnant! She should not be working like this!” I really wanted to take pictures of the whole process, but then it just seemed like instead of just watching I should be doing. So I went over and began to help them. My friend was very concerned that I was getting corn dust in my hair but I told her that I didn’t mind. Then, my ma Madeline comes out with a wrap for my hair and even ties it on for me. Then she tells me that I am ready to go. It was hard work, my job was to take the corn cobs and pile them up to get it out of the way from the pieces of corn. I never realized how rough it would be. When I was working my fingers kept getting all cut up. It was so much fun. My whole family was working together, my whole village actually was working together. They all laughed with me and had a great time when I was putting buckets on my head to carry them out so that the old women and my pregnant friend wouldn’t have to. It was a great time. By the end of the afternoon I was dog tired. My fingers were bleeding, my hair was a mess, and my arms and back felt like they were on fire, but I wouldn’t have chaged that for the world. I think its moments like that where my village sees me not as a stranger, but as part of their community.

Christmas was spent in my village. I felt like this was the best choice for me. I wanted to do something that wasn’t going to make me miss home terribly. It turned out to be a great decision. On Christmas Eve I made shrimp chips, popcorn and gateaux with Gabriel’s daughter. Then at night Mattieu said that it was time to go to church and dance. I headed over to the church and was literally the only person over the age of 16! Then my neighbor showed up with her kids. The children of my village were all playing music and dancing. Everyone was so happy it was impossible for me to be sad. We stayed at the church so late that I actually fell asleep sitting up in church. My friends all told me that it was ok for me to go home to bed so Nathaniel walked me home. I woke up randomly at 3:30 a.m. Christmas morning and could hear everyone still playing music and dancing. It must have been a real wild night for my village. The next morning we all just kind of hung around in the morning. I watched a goat be slaughtered. That was intense because when goats make noise it sounds like a child is crying, so you can only imagine what it was like while it was dying. Then the whole family/village went off to church. I carried Kristian in her new pink Christmas dress to church. There was so much music and dancing during church. Even my Yaba got up there are danced while the music was playing. The joy that everyone had is something that I could never really describe and hope that I never forget. After church we went home to eat! People came in and out all day visiting and eating with Gabriel’s family. It was fun. I gave everyone their gifts and they are really loved them. Kristian has yet to put her stuffed dog down. She likes the wear it on her back like a baby. Unfortunately, the kids popped the soccer ball the morning after Christmas, but whatever. All in all Christmas was pretty good. I got to talk to my parents, and got tons of messages from my friends. Even one from Nate in South Korea and Mark!

I biked the 15km over to Lindsay’s village last Thursday, just because I was bored. I took Simba with me. I strapped my straw basket to my bike and put Simba in it. He did jump out one time, but then I put him back in and he was fine. Gabriel and well, pretty much everyone who saw me biking thought that it was so hilarious having a puppy in a basket. I thought it worked out pretty well. When I got to Lindsay’s I visited with her sweet neighbor. It was nice that she was so happy to see me. We hung out for a bit at her house and then went and had Café Au Lait at a little kiosk by her house. After coffee we went to visit Mufasa(that’s the nickname we gave to the Chef of her village). We had a nice time chatting with him and then we went off to greet more people around town. The Inspector of Boura had given Lindsay a chicken for Christmas so we went into town to try and find someone who would kill and cook it for us. It took forever but man was the chicken good. We shared it with Lindsay’s neighbor and Simba got to eat all the bones. Everyone was happy I think. Then we just sat around talking until the evening when I had to leave to bike back before it got dark. When I got back I played with the kids in my village and went to pump water so by the end of the day I was super exhausted. Now I’ve just been hanging out in Leo to celebrate the New Year with my friends.