Saturday, November 17, 2012

Oh Burkina...


It’s always hard to think of what to say in this blog considering the fact that I haven’t written a blog in months. How do you describe the emotional roller coaster that is being a volunteer???  I guess I’ll just recap the highlights of the last few months…

Highlights
  1. ·         All the teachers and back in village and school has started in full force…FINALLY. There were only 3 of the same teachers from last year; Ada, Issaka, and Colette. We had added now Sawadogo, Kabore, and Yameogo. There’s one on materity leave how will be back later in the year and another guy who never actually showed up so who knows what happened to him. I’ve started my rotations there, going from CM2 to CP1. This year we really have a good group of teacher, especially Kabore, Issaka and Yameogo. Kabore is the CP1 teacher and by far the best teacher I’ve seen in this country. There is so much motivation and support in his class. He dances and acts silly, we sing “Mary had a little lamb,” and he never hits or raises his voice. He teaches the kids to work with each other and help each other. Inshallah he will keep this up all year. This year Issaka is in the second part of his exam. He passed the written part over the vacation so now this year he is the practice phase. He’s always working which is good for him and the school, kinda lame for me haha.
  2. ·         Saiba and Yago both left me this year. Saiba as you may or may not know is my best African friend. He was literally my lifeline in village. I spent soooooo much time with him talking, laughing, drinking tea (sometimes beers), cooking, and just having a great time. He’s the guy I went to for all kinds of advice and we even had a heart-to-heart about our love lives. He got affectated to Koudougou and I miss him every day. We still talk all the time but it’s not the same, I can’t just head over to see him whenever I’m bored. I’m hopefully going to visit him next Sunday. Yago (my homologue) also got affectated this year to a school in Leo. I miss him a lot too.

  • ·         I have so many new friends in village. My new village best friend is Omar. He’s my age and HILARIOUS. Our meeting was just super random too. One night I headed over to see Amos and buy some bread. Amos told me to sit down and hang out for a while, so I did. Omar and Kourka showed up and we literally sat there laughing like hyenas until 1 a.m. Now that has sort of become a rtual for us. I get out of school and 5p.m., chat with people on my way home,  chat with my family once I get home, bathe, eat dinner and head to the boutique to see Omar(usually not coming back home until way too late). Sometimes we stay and talk with Amos, other times we head over to Jonas’ house and hang out with him. Jonas is amazing. His wife and kid are awesome. I spend a lot of time there. I even learned to make To with Jonas’ wife. She was very patient with me and it came out really good! Jonas’ little boy is the love of my life. His name is Roman and he likes to listen to my IPod and hop on the back of my bike to ride around with me, he’s 2 haha. I don’t leave village much thses days because I just hate to be away from the people that I love there J (hence the lack of blog updates)
  • Omar and Me!
    Baby Roman, my <3
    Tabaski!
  • ·         I’ve started going to Mosque on a regular basis now. I went yesterday here in Ouaga for the first time. In village I’m there every Friday. At first I was really nervous to walk in by myself but I was silly to be. They were all really happy to see me, and we all pray together and chat after. I was amazed at how welcomed I felt. I’m trying to get Omar to go with me sometime. I’m praying 5 times a day for the most part, and have finished memorizing the opening Sura of the Koran, Al-Fatihah. That was a big day for me. It wasn’t easy lol. I made it my goal to finish it by Tabaski and I DID IT! Speaking of tabaski that was so much fun. I celebrated with Issaka at his house. In the morning Issaka, his little brother, little sister, and I all went to the prayer. When we got there Issaka went off with Yameogo and the men and I stay with the kids and Madame Yameogo. It was great. Everyone was really happy to see me, and greeted me so much. An old lady even gave me an Islamic rosary. I have no idea how to use it but it was still pretty special. After the prayer we went back home and started to cook. We made spaghetti and rice and sheep. People came over and ate and kids came over to get candy. Once that died down a bit I went out to greet my friends and went over to so many people’s houses. Fatimata even did my henna for me. It was pretty awesome. I ran into Ismael and we drank wine with the guys and Gabriel. Ismael came over and I served him a plate and we told Issaka that were were going dancing that night. Ismael and I went dancing until 2 a.m. Then he walked me home and it was the end of a really fantastic day.

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Upcoming events/ projects

·         MY BIRTHDAY! Exactly one week until I turn 24! I’m currently in Ouaga for the food security meeting and then Monday I’m heading to Boulsa with Nate to spend the week there with him. On Friday we are heading to Fada to celebrate Thanksgiving and my birthday! I'm hoping to get my sand read while I’m there. We’ll see what he says.
·         Tomorrow Su-dawg is coming to Ouaga and we are going to celebrate my birthday/ go shopping for shoes and matching fabric to be matching on Christmas. She says that she wants to spend Christmas in Yoro so we are going to do that I think. Not sure what’s up for New Year’s Eve yet. I’ll probably go to Ouaga with Issaka.
·          Omar, the guys, and I are starting a community garden. I’m working on the grant so that we can start ASAP
·         Gabriel’s brother talked to me about wanting to start a garden at the school for the kids so when I get back to site we are going to sit down and find out if it will be possible.
·         Yameogo and I have been talking a lot about getting funding to finish the school. That’s definitely going to be finished before I leave this country.
·         Got a lot of big projects that I’m trying to do in my last 10 months here.
·         Hopefully going to figure out if I can stat a 3rd year pretty soon. Will update that as soon as I figure it out
I think that for the most part that’s all that’s been going on here. 

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