Weekend Plans

*Written November 5, 2011

This morning I woke up at 5:15 am, not to the sound of a rooster crowing or the usual sounds of the morning. Nope, this was to a nine year old boy I call my little brother, Malachie. For some reason, he decided that that was the perfect time to start playing the drums using a wooden bench and metal chair…right outside my bedroom window. Oh these children…At least it gave me time to write this blog before I head to Leo.

            I hadn’t planned to come to Leo again for another 3 weeks, but I’m happy I did. Tabaski is a big Muslim holiday, kind of like what Christmas is to Christians. I was very much wanting to celebrate, but everyone I know in village is Protestant. I hinted to my friend Yago, the director of my school, that I really wanted to celebrate it. He is Muslim and he was more than excited to invite me to Leo to celebrate the holiday with him and his family. I even had a great outfit that I bought just in the hopes of being invited haha. My friend Leah (niece of the family I share the courtyard with) has been staying here for 2 weeks to help the women of my village make shea butter. We have become great friends. She lives in Leo with her husband and 2 children. When I told her that I was heading to Leo on Sunday for the holiday she told me that she was leaving on Saturday and that I should go with her to meet her family and she would take me to get my hair braided. I love Leah so I really didn’t need much convincing. I told her that I was going to be very sad to come back to site without her and hugged me (a complete rarity in this country!) and told me that I could come visit her any time I am in Leo. She’s great. You know what else makes her even better?! We have the same birthday!!! I knew there was a reason that I loved her so much, her birthday is November 24^th, just like me! Except that she is 10 years older than I am haha. According to Malachie, she also has puppies at her house. Maybe she’ll give me one! So those are my plans for the weekend. Today I am hanging with Leah and her family, getting my hair braided, tomorrow I am going to Mosque and to celebrate with Yago’s family, and I will head back on Monday afternoon. It’s going to be a great weekend!

            Yesterday I was kind of sad because one of my really good friends, Levis, left village today. He was a teacher at the school, a great teacher at that. I would drink tea every Thursday, Saturday and Sunday afternoon at his house with the other teachers. I took my iPod over there on Thursday and we listened to music for like 3 hours. He loves Miranda Lambert, haha! (It is my secret plan to make all of Burkina love country music before I come back haha; surprisingly they actually knew country music and really liked it before I got here). But anyway, he left because he got moved to a different place to teach. Here in Burkina, teachers don’t often teach in the village they come from. They are assigned really to teach anywhere in the country. So Levis left yesterday and I was sad. He did however give me his slingshot and promised to keep in touch. I found, that people don’t stay in this village very long. I guess that’s something I need to get used to sooner rather than later, the fact that throughout the next two years there will be lots of people coming and going.

            I had an interesting conversation yesterday afternoon, with Ada, another teacher friend at my school. It was my day to sit in on the CE1 class (3^rd grade) that she teaches. It was quickly apparent that the children in her class cannot read, like at all. We were sitting outside with the kids were doing group work under the trees and we talked about it. She told me that there are so many children in this village that will never learn to read or write for multiple reasons. I told her that one of the biggest problems is the fact that there are just too many children (she has a little over 50) in each classroom. Statistically there’s just no way that with that many kids, the majority of them will be able to learn well, over 20 of the students in that class are in it for the second time. The kids sit sometimes 5 to a bench, which leaves no room on the tiny table for them to be able to write properly, let alone even sit. There also aren’t enough books for each child to have there own book to read and take home. They are 3, sometimes 4 and 5 to every one book. Ada said that with a system like that, what can you do? She also told me that it’s really discouraging for her because she tries so hard with the kids all day, but when left alone all they do is play and their parents don’t help them and make them learn their lessons. Theres no electricity here so that means that really they have about 2 hours of sunlight left after school before it gets too dark to see. In that 2 hours do you think they are encouraged to study? Of course not, the boys go home to play and the girls go home to work. Last night, before dinner I asked the boys that live in my courtyard, Mathias and Malachie, if I could see their notebooks from last year. Mathias is 11 years old, but he is still in the 3^rd (CE1) grade, age wise he should be in at least the 6^th (CM2) grade. It turns out that Mathias is ranked 56^th out of 56 students. I was shocked because in class earlier that day he had participated really well. The problem is that he can’t read or write. I told him that I know he is too smart for these grades and that every afternoon he is going to practice reading and writing with me. Malachie is 9 years old and he’s in the 5^th (CM1) grade, which means that he has done very well in his school work. He too wants me to work with him after school, so I gave him writing and math problems to work on while Mathias and I learn to read. Mathias wants math problems too, but as far as I can tell he has no problems with those. Once he can read and write his own name I told him that we could see about math problems. I was really glad that he didn’t object, he happily agreed to study with me after school. I hope that by the time summer vacation comes he will not be the lowest in his class. It feels a little wrong to be helping these kids because they live in my courtyard, but I will work with them until I come up with a better solution to help a majority of the kids at school. I’m open to any and all suggestions.

            Well, I’ll end with that. Time to begin my awesome weekend! I’ll try and write again before I head back to site.

One Year ago Today...

Today marks the one year anniversary of my relationship with Andrew. I thought I would write about the night he asked me to be his girlfriend.

Andrew and I had gone to a Halloween party at Jamie Baker’s house. I was dressed as a cowgirl, and Andrew was dressed…well, like Andrew haha. We had a discussion as to why I thought it would be really cute for him to dress up as grapes for Halloween. Why grapes? I have no idea, I just thought it would be adorable. He wasn’t as down for the grapes idea as I was haha. We had a great time at Jamie’s and ended up leaving well after midnight (this is crucial because Andrew seems to think that our anniversary should be on Halloween because it was Halloween night, but I argue that it was after midnight so it’s the first lol). At the party it had been kind of the first time he was meeting a lot of my friends. Many of them asked me if Andrew was my boyfriend. I wasn’t terribly sure how to respond because we had been hanging out for months and were very close but we had yet to “define” what it was that was going on, so the subject came up with him. Well actually it was more me trying to figure it out without actually having a conversation about it (I’m just shy like that lol). So Andrew said something and I replied with “well I’m not your girlfriend really because technically you never asked me to be.” I said that in my most joking way, mostly to not feel like such a dork about things J So, after the party we head to Andrew’s house and we lay around talking. He said something along then lines of “Well what would you say if I did ask you to officially be my girlfriend?” I replied with a silly answer like “I don’t know I’d have to think about it,” but we both knew what the answer would be. So he asked and of course I said yes. So here we are a year later, in different parts of the world, but still very much in love.

A week or so ago I was having a conversation with Lauren and I told her that my anniversary was coming up. I said that I couldn’t believe it was already a year. I can’t remember the exact words she said but it was something along the lines of “I can. You guys are so close it feels like it’s been longer…It’s just the first of many.” We talked about it some more and had some of those “Remember when..?” moments. It was great.

Andrew and I may not get to talk as much as we would like because of work, time distance, and cost but when we do get to talk its more than enough. I miss him so much and not a day goes by that I don’t think about him. He’s so wonderful for supporting my decision of the Peace Corps, and is always so comforting whenever I call him sobbing into the phone or really excited for me whenever have something really great to tell him. It’s the best.

I’m sure Andrew will read this at some point today so…

Happy Anniversary Andrew! I miss you so much. You’re my best friend and the love of my life. I love you more than all the fishes in the sea and higher than the moon. I can’t wait to see you again.

Heading back to site today. It was a nice break. And no I will totally not be biking,haha, I’m totally taking a bush taxi.

23 days til my birthday!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! Oh how I miss the fall. I miss the weather cooling down and carving pumpkins. I came to Leo to have a pretend Halloween with Sam, Hugo, Lindsay and our new friend Bill.

Today I am very proud of myself. I am smiling with a HUGE sense of accomplishment. This morning I was up before the roosters and I BIKED to Leo. My house to Leo is approximately 35km, or 22 MILES. Last night I finished reading a very inspiring book that was written in rememberance of a Peace Corps Volunteer. So I dedicate my bike ride this morning to her. I strapped up my backpack and water bottle, said a little prayer and pedaled. It was nice to watch the sunrise, but I’d be lying if I said that the ride was easy by any means. Lately I have decided to set little daily goals for myself, I do this so that on days that I don’t really know what I’m doing I can strive to meet a small goal. Today my goal was to make it to Leo is 2 hours….guess what? ONE hour and 54 minutes later I was sitting at a table with Lindsay and Bill. I was exhausted but couldn’t stop smiling. I had done it. It was a great start to the day. Lindsay lent me the shower in her room so I could remove the layers of sand and clay from my face and legs. It was great!

I have to say that I have been in an incredible mood for the past week. My spirits have really been up. Last Thursday the boys at my house (that I now refer to as my little brothers because they all call me Tantie) took me to the fields with them. We picked sweet potatoes, corn, peanuts, onions, hot peppers. We ate vegetables straight out of the ground! It was something I’ve never done before and it was awesome. We ended up spending like 4 hours walking around in the fields. It was really fun. I made bissap for the kids (juice made out of hisbiscus flowers). They we really happy and it was great. I’ve read a lot of books lately and things have really been going well.

Time to drink sangria and go to the pool J

Until next time….. J   

Camp Glow

So today I spent the day in meetings discussing something called Camp Glow. It’s a 2 week long sleepover camp for girls and boys, the first week for girls and the second for boys. Camp Glow stands for “Guys and Gals Leading Our World”. It’s basically a camp for the kids to learn about hygiene, life skills, and stuff like that. I went to visit the first Burkina Camp Glow when I was in training, and I was hooked. I was really interested in helping out with next year’s camp. So when given the opportunity to attend a meeting to discuss future plans for the camp of course I wanted to attend. This past August the camp was held in 2 locations and for next year they were looking to expand to 4. Luckily Leo was chosen as one of the 4 sites! I am not the “secretary and supplies coordinator.” So I hopefully have a lot of work ahead of me to get ready to put on an awesome camp next year. I’m really excited about it. So far, Ouaga has been great. I went shopping for groceries to take back to site since a lot of options at home, I picked up some mail. I totally know that some of my mail is missing because Andrew numbers his letters to my and like 8 are missing haha. It’s sad. I love mail. Tomorrow I have meetings in the morning and then I am going to enjoy Ouaga for one more afternoon. I’ll write again soon.    

Electricity!

Oh electricity how I have missed you. Actually not really, more so when I want to charge my ipod. So, I’m about a month into site now, and let me just say it hasn’t been easy. Let me start from the beginning…

So when it was time to head to site Brandon, Sam, Lindsay and I headed to Leo on September 27^th. We had the day and we were spending the night there so I did some shopping for my house and we went to the pool. It was a great time, but the nervousness of heading to site was really intense. The driver came to pick Lindsay and me up the next day. I was super nervous, we asked the driver to take Lindsay first so that we could hang out together longer. We had a hard time figuring out where Lindsay’s house was, but then we got her all moved in and we had a tearful goodbye, even though we are only 15km away from each other. Then I was off to my site. When we got there, nobody had even known that I was coming. I just happened to run in to the director of the school on the road. There was no lock on my door so the poor driver had to drive over to Leo (30 km away) to get the door fixed, there also was so screen on my door to stop the mosquitos and other critters from coming in. I share a courtyard with a family, and they were gone to Ouaga because the dad had had a moto accident. So needless to say, it wasn’t quite the welcoming I had invisioned.

I would love to say that that was the one bad day that I had, and that everything was magical and wonderful after that, but I would be lying. Literally for the entire first week at site I cried more times than I really care to admit. I was having such a hard time with everything. My biggest struggles were not being able to communicate and the isolation of being alone in village. Sudakshina is like 9 hrs away from me, and Nate is like 6, it’s unfair!  Lindsay came to my village that first weekend and it was great, but when she left I was super lonely. That first Sunday at site I was dangerously close to quitting and coming back home. My first week of site was as lonely as depressing as I have ever been in my life.  A couple days later was a marche so I  went to Lindsay’s village and spent the night there. When I was back at my house I was really set on making it work here. There still was not a screen on my door, so after a bat came out of nowhere in the middle of the day in my house I called and demanded that one get there. It was up by the next day. At least one thing was starting to come together. I still really had nothing to do with my time, so I just started hanging out at the school. I met the teachers at the school and they invited me to drink tea with them! Things were starting to look up.

My village is very tiny. It has one primary school, and one little boutique for my to buy things at. The marche is non exsistant. There is no electrcitiy or running water. The kids in my village are so sweet. We play soccer with a flat ball. I’m on the hunt for a decent ball for them. One of the kids said that he had a present for me…it was 2 baby birds! I named them Bert and Ernie. I biked with them over to Lindsay’s village and unfortunately they didn’t make it back. I suspect that her neighbor took them. Hopefully that doesn’t happen when I get my puppy. I’m getting a puppy that I am going to name Simba, my neighbor is giving him to me J

Last week Lindsay and I were invited to a party with all these important people. The inspector of our Commune was reassigned to a different village and a new one was coming in so we were invited to the going away/welcoming party. It was quite fun. We had music and lots of food and drinks. We ate huge plates of riz gras with our hands! It was so great I may never use a fork again! I was finally able to get a bit of furniture for my house. It’s really starting to come together. School finally started in my village. I was beginning to wonder if we were ever going to do anything besides watch the children cut the grass every day. Here grass is not liked because of the snakes so the kids dig up all the grass until all there is, is dirt at the school. I sit in the classes and observe. Pretty soon I hope to be doing other things but for now, observing and meeting people is good. The other day in my house was a huge scorpion and a bat! Gah! That same day when I headed to the school after killing the scorpion there was a snake!!!!! I always said that when I see a snake I’m going to e.t. Well, I’ve seen a snake and I’m still here, so there went that haha. Also to (toh) has grown on me. I find myself looking forward to eating it for dinner with the family, and the other night I even had seconds! Haha. Oh jeeze.

I got to spend the last 2 days in Leo. Leo is a magical place. I went swimming both days. It was great. I took the bus this morning at 6 am and now I’m at the Transit House in Ouaga. It was cool to bike in Ouaga. I went to the Bureau to check for mail. I had 3 letters. I think that a lot of my mail is missing because I received number 17 from Andrew but I’m not sure where 13-16 is haha. Ca va aller. Now that I have given everyone my Leo address hopefully they all get to me. I’m in Ouaga for a meeting about Camp Glow, and hopefully seeing what it takes to create one in the Leo region. That would be a good project.

Well, slowly but surely I'm getting accustomed to life in village. It’s wonderful, scary, boring, exciting, and lonely all at the same time. I’m lucky to have such great friends that are supportive and wonderful Andrew as well, who is always there to listen to me cry and laugh and act like a maniac all in the same phone conversation. Things are all going to be ok. Hopefully haha. I’ll write again before I leave Ouaga. I love and miss everyone.  

Goodbyes are always hard

Exactly 3 months after moving into my host family’s house it was time to say goodbye. It was a rough day, saying goodbye to them had the same feeling as saying goodbye at IAH. When I first moved in to my host parents house I couldn’t speak a word of French or Moore, I was forced to bathe 29 times a day against my will, I was served greasy eggs for breakfast, my little brother cried every time he saw me, and everything I did was laughed at. I will miss those days so much. Three months later I’ve hit my target French mark, I know all the greetings in Moore, I still had to bathe 29 times a day, I conveyed to my family that eggs can be cooked without 3 gallons of oil, and my little brother loves me. We’ve come a long way.

Host family closing ceremony was a day that I will never forget. I woke up and took my bath. I got dressed and told my family that it was MANDATORY for them to get there at 9:30 because the ceremony started at 10. Of course my family was the last ones to show up, but they were so well dressed it was funny. My baba and ma were in matching outfits. I presented them with a certificate and an invitation to swear in next week. After the ceremony there was a little reception and we all left. I went home and my baba was there waiting for me, he told me that he had a present for me. My gift was a traditional Sapone hat, an outfit that they had made for me, and a head scarf the same as the one my mom has. It was great. Not everyone was home at my house so I decided to wait on giving them their gifts. My baba told me and Sudak that we had to be at the house at 6:30 p.m. for dinner. Sue’s sister called us at told us to go meet her parents at the Belle Vie so we went there. We had food, beer, Sangria, and (drumrolll please………) CHAMPAGNE! Sue’s parents went all out for us. It was hard to say goodbye to them. So many trips to the marche to visit Sue’s mom and I would always yell “Ma” and she would say “Beega” (which means my child in Moore). They became like my second host family. So after hanging with Sue’s family we head to the marche to say goodbye to a few people, then I head home. My family was all there so I decided that it was a good time to give them gifts. I gave my parents 2 calabashes full of blow pops, laffy-taffys, gobstoppers, and nerds, my baba a Peace Corps sticker for his moto and made him a booklet with a picture of me and my Burkina Family next to a picture of me and my American Family, I gave my ma my pink cross necklace, a necklace for Isabel, playing cards for Michael and Immanuel, and stickers for Leopold and Landry. Everyone was so happy. Isabel put her necklace on right away. My little brothers had never had stickers before so they weren’t sure what to do so I put one on Landry to show him. According to little Landry stickers are best worn on your forehead so we all were wearing stickers on our foreheads. Michael asked me about the cards and I told him that they came from America and he told me at least 14893842432 times how much he loved them and how nice they are. Michael was so nice to me these past 3 months I ended up giving him my watch as well lol. It was so funny to watch them all eat blow pops and put stickers everywhere. At that moments, I think I was the happiest I’ve been since being in Africa. That moment alone made up for all the difficulties and frustrations of stage. Sue came over and we had dinner with my family and we ate a bunch and just hung out. After dinner my family went inside and I went into my room to finish packing (FYI if I thought it was hard packing for 2 years the first time, it was harder the second time with more stuff!!!) I woke up bright and early the next day because I knew that it would take my family a lot of pushing to get moving. My sister Isabel came up to me and sad “I'm sad that you are leaving” I told her that I was too, but that I would come visit all the time. Little Landry said something to her and I asked what he said and she said “Landry says that you and Sue can’t leave because you haven’t finished playing.” I just about started crying then, the little boy who was terrified of me actually didn’t want me to leave! I scooped him up and gave him a big hug. Then we loaded up the cart (literally a donkey pulling a cart) and headed over to the FDC for the last time. I didn’t realize that all my siblings were going to walk there, so I got off my bike and walked with them holding hands with Landry, proudly wearing my Sapone hat. Michael didn’t want Leopold to go because his pants were ripped and he was kind of dirty, but Leopold started bawling and I told him to come. When we got there my brother unloaded all my bags and we waited together until it was time for me to leave. I didn’t think it would be that hard to say goodbye, but when it came down to it, it really was. I said goodbye to baba first. We hugged and he a prayer for me in Moore, then I hugged everyone else (hugging is not something that Burkinabe do, but I wasn’t leaving without a hug lol). My mom ended up not showing up, Isabel said that she couldn’t say goodbye. I was sad but it’s not like I won’t see her again. Then my family got on their donkey cart and went back home. I started crying seeing them leave. I really have become part of their family, and them part of mine. It was tough. But alas, time to move on to the next phase of my service. Ouaga for the week, SWEAR-IN on thursday, 50th Anniversary of the Peace Corps Fair, shopping, and heading to site MONDAY!

O wero!

This past week I have witnessed the simplest acts of kindness and tolerance that I have never even dreamed possible. August 30, 2011 was the celebration of Ramadan. Now, Ramadan is a Muslim holiday, but it is celebrated throughout the entire village, hence, no work for us and a lot of things were closed because people were celebrating. My family is not Muslim, so we sat around for most of the morning. We drank a little dolo and I made a paper airplane with Landry and we played for a while. Eppy came over and played with us for a while. Sue came over and we went over to Marlow’s house. Since her family has always been very kind to us we saw fit to go over and say “Happy Ramadan” to them. We drank some wonderful homemade bissap and Marlow’s family fed us a bunch. Since Marlow’s dad is an important Muslim man, lots of people were in and out of their courtyard.  I looked up and saw a nun, and 3 other religious men with her. Then I realized that it was the Priest from my church here in Sapone. We all couldn’t help but wonder why a Catholic priest and a nun were coming over on a day that is celebrated by Muslims. Imagine our surprise to find that they had come over to eat and celebrate Ramadan! It was truly an amazing sight. They laughed and ate and talked and then they left. So cool. The rest of the world could really take a lesson from the Burkinabe. It’s sad to think that so many people die every day over conflict of religion, when everyone could be as tolerate as the people here. The rest of the day was a lot of fun! We ate coconut gatos, popcorn, pasta, and had lots of bissap. I went home, and they fed me again lol. I had tried to nap but it was just too hot so I went over to Sudakshina’s house and hung out. I put my nephew Landry in a ponya and carried him around like that. It was quite funny. I walked over to my house to show my sister and my other sister complemented me on my ponya tying skills! We went back to Marlow’s house and they fed us again (did I mention that there is a lot of eating on holidays?) It started to rain so I went home, and they made me eat dinner! Haha!

Andrew and I hit the 10 month mark! Almost a year of being together. Yay J

The rest of the week was spent doing boring sessions on “Teaching English as a Foreign Language.” I did get like over 1,000 books for my Kindle from my friend Evan, which was pretty awesome. I cooked dinner for my family this past week as well. I made them pasta with tomato sauce. It was nothing fancy, just some fresh vegetables that I bought at the Marché made into a sauce and served over pasta. I was worried that my family wouldn’t like it, and at first they were skeptical of it but all turned out well. My brothers all had seconds, and there was not a noodle to be found at the end of the meal. I was really happy to sit and eat with them. If I have the time I might try and cook for them again. I took a trip to the U.S. Embassy. That was really awesome. I’ve been thinking about a potential career path since then. We met the ambassador, he will also be at our swear in. It will be quite the event.

My host family is still amazing. We have yet another new member. This one is a tiny little puppy! I was so happy when I saw her. My host family got her for my baba. Sue and I totally think she looks like a Sammy, so we named her. The best part is that my family liked the name, so now little Sammy is a permanent addition to my family. She cries all night and sleeps in my lap during the day. I wish I could take her to site with me! Sunday I spent in my usual manner. I went to church, and then hung around all day. I realized that I hadn’t taken many pictures of the town of Sapone so Sue and I went on a picture walk. We went to the Marché and everyone was super nice about letting us take their pictures. It was a lot of fun.  

I passed my final LPI! I will be swearing in as an ITERMEDIATE-HIGH French speaker! It was A LOT of hard work, but I did it! My host family is always telling me how proud they are because when I first got here I couldn’t speak a word of French. I even started talking some local language classes, so that I can learn “Sissala” I learned basic salutations and phrases, I will learn a lot more once I go to site.

Yesterday I went to a birthday party for Lindsay’s host brother! I’m so glad that she invited us. We (me, Nate, Brandon, Sudakshina, Lyndia, and Marlow) had such a fun time hanging out, eating popcorn and dancing. Later Vida and Kelsey showed up and we all ate a delicious meal with Lindsay’s family. We sang “Happy Birthday” (in French of course) to her brother and he blew out candles. It was so much fun! Lindsay’s family was wonderful to us J I hope that her little brother had an amazing birthday!

TODAY WAS AN AMAZING DAY! I BECAME FAMOUS! Ok, maybe not famous, but I am going to appear on a television show here in Burkina! Its pretty awesome. We went to the Bureau to take a tour this morning, then we got to hang out at the American Rec Center. We ate great food, and had milkshakes. It was delicious! Then we went to tape an episode of this show. It was like a French talk show, and I got to be on camera! It was amazing. Then we went back to the Bureau and had cake and soda haha. It was an amazing day.

Well, that’s all for now. I’m spending this weekend in Ouaga at the transit house! That means more internet! Yay! Only 2 weeks to go until swear-in!