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Malian adventures

2012-01-27T06:08:00.001-07:00

Good news everyone! My project got funded! Woot! Now I just have to wait for the money to arrive and keep my fingers crossed that my school will hold up their end of the bargain and then everyone will enjoy the hot season so much more with air conditioning. Huzzah!

Happy 2012 everyone! I've been looking forward to this year for a while because I feel 2012 is far easier to say than 2011. Also 2012 is when I make my grand return to America. Don't ask me when (September probably?) or what I'll be doing (...) but I'll be coming back. So get ready for me to eat all your food and make weird observations and be overwhelmed by the cleanliness of everything and so many television channels. I really look forward to the television channels.

I've spent all morning uploading a ton of photos from my Mali vacation. It was really great, look at all the pictures. We went to Mopti, which people there like to call the Venice of Mali, becuase there are two rivers that run through it. And then we took a sunset canoe ride on said rivers, explored the city a bit, spent two days sitting around a pool and reading at our hotel. Then for four days we hiking around in Dogon Country. The countryside was pretty reminiscent of the American southwest, and a very nice change from the bland, flat world that I live in. Our daily schedule was to hike all morning stop in a village around noon, wander about while they cooked us food, ate and then hiked on until we reached another village where we'd spend the night. It went like that almost everyday. We stopped in Ende and watched a mask festival dance. They do it mostly for tourists now but it started as an animist tradition during funerals to guide the spirits.

It's real interesting actually. Look it up, learn about the Dogon people and animism. I could tell you all the things I learned, but I don't want to. I'm also real bad at blogging now, for which I apologize. There's going to be real trouble during that writing section of the GRE I'm taking in two weeks. Yikes.

Stay sweet. Get ready for hot season and mangoes everyday!

Don't poke out any eyes with your new BB guns

2011-12-24T08:15:00.000-07:00

Merry Christmas! I'm definately feeling the December/Holiday spirit. The other day I ate a watermelon and then drank raspberry lemonade. Then I got a package from my mom and I gave candy canes to all my neighbors- they were very confused about what they were. I explained it was candy in the shape of a cane and that you suck on it or bite it- as you choose. And my neighbors all said 'eh! Those white people are forte, making candy look like things...' And then I gave out some holiday stickers and colored some Christmas themed tableaus with little kids and they loved me forever for it, I'm sure.

Then I abruptly left for my Christmas vacation, really only telling one family where I was going and when I'd be back. But now I"m on vacation! I went to visit my friend Dani at her site and we went on bike rides and star gazed and I got to see what life would be like without electricity (basically the same but I'd go to bed around 8 pm). I also learned how to make a delicious cabbage and peanut sauce dish. Now we are in Bobo, another big city waiting to eat a lot of food tomorrow and then going to Mali on Monday.

Very exciting stuff. There was a slight hitch in the plans, in that I forgot my passport at my house. After briefly contemplating passport fraud and smuggling, I felt it was safer if I just had my neighbors break into my house and get my passport for me. So after the help of several wonderful people who will each be rewarded accordingly for their bravery and hassle, my passport will arrive in my hands tomorrow like a lil' Christmas miracle!

I hope you all have lovely Christmases and New Years. I will. In exoitic places. See you all in 2012, the year when I'll return to America. Look forward to neat pictures.

Also, don't forget about my project! We only need $600 more dollars! It's so close and I'll be incredibly sad if I doesn't go through. Do it for Christmas or New Years. Don't wait till next year. Donate and feel warm and gooey inside.

It's so cold

2011-12-08T06:39:00.000-07:00

Last night I slept in pants, with two shirts, a jacket, socks and a sheet over my head. 75 degrees is so cold!

Don't forget to DONATE to my school's project. I knew you forgot or were putting it off. Well, quit it and donate.

Thanks! And more exciting/interesting/not-asking-you-for-money blog posts to follow.

My Christmas Wish

2011-12-01T04:53:00.001-07:00

As you all know I am currently a Peace Corps Volunteer in Burkina Faso working as an IT teacher. I work at an all girls boarding school in Koubri and teach 350 students ranging in age from 12-20 all about how to use a mouse, neat vocabulary words like icon, file and the internet, and I also teach them how to sound cool and impress their friends by knowing what the enter button does, how to install programs and win at angry birds.

Now you may be wondering how a school in Burkina Faso, which from what wikipedia tells you, is an incredibly poor country, got computers. The answer, my friends, is magic! Not really, they got them as a partial donation from an NGO, and raised the rest of the money themselves after scrimping and saving for several years. It's a huge deal that they have computers in their school, the vast majority of schools in this country do not and the vast majority of students have no idea what a computer is, much less what one could do with it. The fact that these kids have the opportunity to learn these things gives them head start in life and could drastically change their standard of living.

So that's great. What isn't great is the conditions these poor computers live in everyday. Burkina is super hot. How hot is it? Generally these computers are run for several hours in temperatures from 85-115ish degrees. This causes overheating, and I'd like to imagine sweaty monitors and melting cords. True story outlet cords have melted before in my lab. Twice (granted that did have something to do with the non-regulated current). In addition, it is incredibly dusty. People walk around with lung infections from all the dust they are inhaling everyday. Dust = not infections but death to computers.

Problems. There are many problems here, but this problem has a very easy solution -- glass windows and air conditioners. I have worked with my school administration to save all last year to pay for 25% of this project, which is about $840. Leaving 75% or $2,522 up to the great and generous people of america to fund-raise and donate.

DONATE HERE! Talk to your friends, colleagues, church groups, teachers, students, strangers, Santa Claus and tell them to help hundreds of Africans have a better life. It's not a lot of money. If 50 people donate $50, then I, 350 young girls and 20 computers will be SUPER happy. Think of it as your Christmas present to me. Think of the keyboards covered in dust. Think of the mice whose little roller balls are orange instead of a healthy grey. Think of the monitors, oh! the monitors. But most of all, think of the children.

People are always telling me how proud they are of me, how jealous they are that I live here or brag about me to people they want to impress because they know someone in Africa. Well, now is your chance prove just how much you mean it! It's super easy. You are all employed, with real salaries and homes with healthy computers and air conditioning. Save a little bit of you Christmas budget, use that money you were going to spend on matching pajamas and donate to this very useful, clean, cool project. Save some computers and a lot of people's incredibly hard earned money.

Thank you. Tell your friends. Tweet about it, put it on facebook, do whatever the fancy new thing is in America these days. Thanks!

Week 1 down the drain

2011-10-07T03:47:00.000-06:00

I was able to upload some more photos. The first couple are just adorable ones of some kids I love and the others are of our summer camp- kids in class, kids goofing off, things of that nature. Also right after the picture of our pinata are photos of my students from a long time ago. None have captions, for which I apologize, but that just takes way too long and I have no interest in doing that. Make up your own captions.

Week one of school is done! It was very stressful at first, but then it all worked out. I teach only 12 hours this year, which seems disgustingly small compared to my 20 of last year, but half of them are all in one day and that day is Monday. What a great way to start a week, a mix of classes/ages saying essentially the same thing over and over again for 6 hours! But then my work week ends Thursday at 10, which I think is pretty darn great.

It was surprising and gratifying to see how much more easily I could walk into a class and start teaching. Not a lot of anxiety, just walked in and molded young minds. Like a champion. But seriously though, much more comfortable in French and I've said all these things before so it was easy to just pick up where I left off. THe one who where here last year remembered a surprising amount of things that I told them, that made me feel good about myself. I've been having a bit of trouble organizing everything what figuring out what I'm going to teach everyone, because some are new and some are old and some classes are too large and some are just right. But, such is life! You can't have it all, so I'll make it work and those kids will hate me soon enough when I make them practice typing for hours.

A couple of adorable things that happened. On Wednesday I noticed that all the teachers at my school looked like they got the crap beat out of them, they were so haggard and tired from working for three days. It was pretty funny. Second, I went over to my neighbors to pass the time per usual, and Christian was teaching Carla how to write. I sat there for a good 45 minutes just watching her write and then get distracted and chat, and him pretend to get annoyed, and her getting back to work, gripping that chalk so hard in her little hands and blowing excess chalk off after each letter and looking up for approval and making a joke and him getting a little exacerbated and threatening to get his belt, and her writing and then telling a story and etc. It was the most adorable thing I've ever seen and I wanted that.

Also, as it was the first week of school and I haven't seen these students in 4 months I was all prepared to face the blunt, sometimes hurtful remarks I was to receive. They are never meant to hurt or offend, but they are unpleasant nonetheless. However I think I only heard "Madame you got fat" like 6 times, 10 times less than expected (I'm not any fatter btw, but they don't know/care), I heard a lot of "Madame your hair grew" to which I replied, yup it does that. And then they would tell me not to cut it again, and I would say, I'm going to cut it right now. And then they would say 'NO!' or 'well if you do, keep it and then give it me so I can wear it.' And then two times girls told me that with my hair I looked 'as pretty as a doll,' and I said if you ever say that to me again I'll slap your face.

So, there we go. The 2011-2012 school year is off and running! Huzzah!

Crazy stories

2011-10-05T04:22:00.000-06:00

Two of my neighbors and fellow professors at my school are awesome and say reallyhilarious things to me, which I always try to write down or text to someone sothat I’ll remember it. Here now for you amusement is a list of random thingsthey have said completely taken out of context (sorry for the French mixed inthere, it’s just funnier that way). Enjoy.
En Afrique la violence et forte, deh!
Girls just give birth randomly here.
Marriage is not easy. You’re always blocked in bed and you can’t fart whenever you want.
La tradition en Afrique est l’infidélité. African tradition is infidelity
Women are like fire. You like being near them because they warm you. Mais si t u rentes la bas- ça va tu brûler.
Women are like roads. When you are on them you never stop to think about who’s been there before you, you just want to be on it.
(Anecdote) one time a student threatened to commit suicide so the administration called the parents and they came down. In the meeting between the administration/parents/suicidal youth, the parents were just confused as to why they were called. “We just don’t understand why you called us. There are a lot (of kids) at the house. Who cares? Ca ne fait rien. There’s plenty more.”
(the language on this is toned down for sensitive audiences) When you screw your wife, you’re really just screwing yourself. (because she’ll probably get pregnant and then you have to dispense so much money)
One time he talked for a good 45 minutes about women spies and how dangerous they are. Because they are beautiful, and the pillow talk, and you just never expect. Women spies, ce n’est pas facile, deh.
(Anecdote) There were once three thieves. One stole a lime, another an orange and the last stole a watermelon. They were all caught and the police were all gathered around trying to think of a good punishment. They finally decided that whatever they had stolen they had to keep…in their butt. Naturally the one with the lime wasn’t too put out and the orange man was slightly uncomfortable but made it through alright. You can bet that no one ever stole a watermelon again.
(For a while, Serge was really adamant that I eat sheep testicles, and I would have but I wasn’t real eager to do it. Apparently one time he prepared it for me, but I didn’t know and also it was raining and the next time I saw him this is what he said) “What are you afraid you’ll get pregnant or something? It’s good!”
There is never money for sucerie but you can always find some for beer.
(one time they were talking about the ‘night market,’ which apparently is on market days at night all the people hang around and do shady sexy business) “I’m serious! If you go to the night market there are women who just go out behind the house and have sex with like 6 different men. They don’t even charge for it.” Me: Where did you hear this because I feel like it’s false. “It’s not, this really happens. Go and see for yourself…wait, don’t do that. You’d probably get pregnant.”
You go out with a girl and you have a good time. Once. And then tomorrow- baby! On ne comprend rien.
People here love slow dancing but they have to do it in the dark because it’s better that way. But there is a problem because it’s so exciting that when they turn on the lights, it’s a problem…people see… (at which point he points to something, which I feel I don’t need to say. Put two and two together people)
This one you may not find funny, but I loved it. They started playing scrabble after getting drunk at a wedding. Serge put down the word goûter. And Christian says on va tu goûter tu vas voir
In the dark everything is more exciting. One kiss in the dark is like 4 during the day.

Welcome back

2011-10-02T04:09:00.002-06:00

I knew that I was coming into the capital today toget some work done and so I made a concerted effort to write some blog postsahead of time! Isn’t that so great of me? You’ll have things to read for a weekmaybe.

Summer vacation isofficially over. My lab is finally all set up and all computers except one areworking like a champ (meaning I fixed two that had broke last year, kudos tome), I’ve organized my life, created lesson plans, syllabuses and am preparedto be so much meaner to these kids this year so they will listen to me when Italk. I took all my “fancy” clothes to the tailors to get zippers repaired anda few new things made, my neighbors and I had our final party and all thestudents arrive on Sunday. It’s really happening folks, Monday 10am, going toteach some 12 year olds how to use a mouse. Boom.

And since that is thecase I feel I should give a recap of my summer. I mentioned before what I wasplanning on doing and that all happened. I went to Ghana and it was so wonderful, Idreamed about it for weeks afterwards and still think about that fried ricew/chicken, fresh lobster and the ocean. I worked stage, met a bunch of the nownew volunteers. It was pretty exciting, the worst part of it though was that Ihad to speak English and I found that my English speaking abilities areterrible. I may seem alright writing this, but when I speak I sound like Inever finished elementary school and was kicked in the head as a child. Icannot picture myself this time next year without cringing at how awkward I’mgoing to be. Several of the newbies said that they thought the volunteers werepossibly mentally deficient because they were so bad at speaking English. Hah!

Then I was at site fora month, which was actually incredibly boring. Because it was only August,naturally I didn’t do any work that was easily procrastinated until now, so Imostly just read a lot (anything by Nabokov and Hemmingway’s To Have and Have Not, are highlyrecommended), slept and watched my neighbors play scrabble and drink tea. Theyare so good at that game, it’s ridiculous.

And then we had ourmid-service conference. That was a great time, seeing all the kids from mytraining, we’re all really comfortable here now and I greatly enjoyed those fewdays seeing everyone and catching up.

Then I did that summercamp with my neighbors. It was really fun and super tiring. I think in the nextpost there will be some pictures. We made a piñata for the closing ceremonies.Those kids went bat shit crazy over it. Blew their little minds.

And now here we are,ready for school again. I can’t believe how fast the summer went by, whichmeans that before I know it, it will be Christmas and then I’m essentiallydone. You like that? By Christmas I’m essentially done. I just skip right overthose other 5 months of school and summer. They aren’t important.

Changing lives one uncomfortable topic at a time

2011-09-11T07:42:00.000-06:00

First and foremost, my neighbor got back from her month vacation visiting her family in Bobo. Since she's been gone, my life has been incredibly boring. The men have been all morose and bored, playing scrabble, I kid you not all day long, from 10 till 9, all day everyday for 3 weeks. 3 weeks! I've been so bored with them, but with her return on Friday they put scrabble away and we started chatting agin. Yesterday was her birthday and on a bien chauffe le coin. It was fantastic.

Last week and this week I'm doing a kids summer camp with my nearest neighbors. We're teaching 60 kids aging from 10 to 20 all about communication skills, HIV/AIDS, family planning, relationships, assertiveness, doing some condom demonstrations as well as playing soccer/volleyball/baseball and of course eating a lot of rice for lunch.

I was real nervous about this camp at first, I think because I've been around adults and a lot of Americans all summer, but after spending five minutes with those kids all my anxieties were gone. Kids are a hell of a lot of fun. I look forward to school starting again. So let see, last week I taught them how to set goals and the importance of planning to reach those goals. Talked about hand washing and hygiene. Taught them how to make liquid soap so they can do it themselves, sell it and make a little money so their families can eat. I talked to the big kids about early pregnancy and strategies to delay sex (they said some hilarious things about that- but madame, once you start you can't stop. Sure you can. But madame, what if you can't sleep without having sex. Come on now, you can sleep. If not, go run around for a while, release some of that tension and then you'll sleep like a baby). Talked about managing emotions and strategies to handle anger and jealousy and what to do when you're horny (best responses being "drink some strawberry juice").

Tomorrow I get to talk about HIV prevention and then we get to do a little puberty lesson complete with diagrams and pictures. Naturally I know almost no french words about the reproductive system so I'm spending this hot Sunday afternoon brushing up on ways to explain this fun topic to a bunch of awkward and equally uncomfortable children. Jealous?

So that's what's happening in my world right now. School starts next week, I am not at all prepared.

rolling in the shallows

2011-07-05T02:39:00.000-06:00

Here are some things I want to share about Ghana:

One night we met some Hollanders and shared stereotypes that we know about each others cultures. Turns out we know very few stereotypes about those kids from the Netherlands.
There are no motos in the entire country of Ghana. I checked and it's super weird.
Kids in that country are rowdy little monsters. One came straight up to me and hugged me, others kept grabbing my hand with their left/poop hands and other kept touching my bag. None of these things I liked.
It's watermelon season right now, that was also very weird.
It's not fun to be in a country where English is the national language and English is my first language, but it is nearly impossible to be understood by anyone.
One night we met some South African MEN. That men is all caps because they were the best most stereotypical MEN ever, they all had shaved heads and tattoos and the remains of what was once muscle from their younger years and they drank and smoke and told inappropriate jokes and then laughed really loudly afterwards. It was awesome. They are in Ghana as engineers and making a ton of money at a gold mine and they are led by a 52 year old man with a huge white beard who laughs really loudly and rolls his R's in the best possible manner. I talked with him for several hours. He told me I looked like Lady Di (...yeah, I don't know how he got that either) and that I was cheeky (I think because I referred to children only as "those little basterds") and that sharks are racist (search your feelings, you know it to be true).
Transport in Ghana sucks just as much/possibly more than in Burkina. Never take the company STC. STC actually stands for Sucky Terrible Company (that's the nicest worst thing I could say about it)
I ate so much bread in Ghana. I'd forgotten how glorious bread is.
People in Ghana wear western clothes and it's super weird. In Burkina it's only the rich kids who wear pants or shirts you'd buy in a store but in Ghana everyone wears already sewn clothing and shorts! Shorts all the time. What a weird country that is.
I met two Rastas who wanted to marry me. To one I gave a fake phone number because he kept coming up to me and giving me sneak attack hugs that I couldn't defend against and when I left he told me to come back because he would "treat me right," and he just wanted me to "love the life you live and live the life you love." The second one I met ran after me down the street because for some reason he doesn't understand what it looks like when people are ignoring you. He told me he was an acrobat and I said, ' I don't believe you, do something right now.' And then he did a really impressive backhandstand/pushup/flip back. I was so impressed that I even took the time to write down a fake email address to give him. I know right?! I'm super nice.
The difference between Ghana and Burkina is like night and day, it's incredible how large the difference is in development between those countries. The people we met in Ghana were incredulous that we had lived a year in Burkina and could only ask 'why?' why would you ever go there and what is there to do. The answers are 'I don't know' and 'nothing'

God loves Ghana

2011-07-04T02:59:00.001-06:00

So remember that last post where I put up pictures of things I said I was going to do? Well, I really did all those things except all the hammocks were terribly uncomfortable. Here is a quick breakdown of my trip, or if you are a terrible friend who can't be bothered to read about my activities you can look at the few pictures that would upload with this terrible internet connection.

1) After 36 horrible hours of transport, we all arrived very smelly and sleepy and grumpy without a place to stay for the night. I was hoping against hope that the place I had planned for us to stay at (planned but didn't make reservations at) would have one room, otherwise I knew that everyone would hate me for being the worst trip planner ever. We arrived and miracle upon miracle they had a room! And we took it! And after we had showered they gave us lobster with french fries and there was a bonfire on the beach and I loved everyone.

2) We went hiking and walking on the beach and did a lot of body boarding. My first couple days I missed speaking French and so when I found a Nigerian it was really delightful speaking french to him. We ate more food (burritos, french toast and shark (not at all delicious, but I can say I've eaten it)).

3) Then we went to The Green Turtle, which Volunteers here rave about. I don't think it is that awesome. The waves are way to strong so you can't play in the ocean and everything is really far away. But we did eat delicious food and went on a bike ride with terrible bikes. Mine kept seizing up whenever we would go uphill and after the 5th time of almost being thrown I decided as much as I wanted to see South Africa, I'd rather not risk the head trauma and walked my bike up the hills. We biked to a lighthouse and stood at the closest land mass to the center of the world. It was pretty neat. On the way back I got a flat tire and we had to walk the rest of the way because the tire fixing man was at the beach (what kind of village has only one man who can repair tires? What kind of country is this?) but on the way back three of us- two ladies and one gentleman- spent the next two hours talking about engagements and weddings. It was hilarious.

4)We met some people from Holland. One of them talked a ton and had a little baby boys face. Then one night we met some South African men and had a high-larious time talking and sitting on the beach next to a bonfire. That was easily my favorite thing about the trip.

5)We went to Cape Coast and saw an old slave castle, it was less then exciting but there was a plaque from when Barack and Michelle visited in 2009. There was also a book in the gift shop entitled Obama: Africa's gift to the world. Bold claim Africa, bold claim. It was also their independence day when we were there so we saw a ton of people, school children in uniform, and adults in fancy clothes with nice watches getting in the ocean fully clothed (I still don't understand that one, don't they know that jeans are terribly uncomfortable after they are wet?).

6) We had a terrible trip back, but we made it. We moved from beautiful green rain forests of Ghana to the dead, hot, flat desert that is Burkina.

Overall, it was a really great trip. Nice to get away and do something not in Burkina. I really had missed the beach and the ocean. I didn't miss speaking English as much as I had thought, but that probably had a lot to do with the fact that Ghanians are very hard to understand/bad at speaking English. I really had missed wearing shorts. But now I'm back, everything is familiar and comfortable, I know how much cab rides cost and how long I will wait until a bush taxi takes me back to site later today. It's kinda nice.

Also, Happy 4th of July.

Ghanian vacation

2011-06-23T03:24:00.001-06:00

Tomorrow I'm going here.

Where I will eat this at least twice, freshly caught that day from the ocean.

And when I'm not swimming in the ocean I will be sitting here, reading a book and/or napping

I will listen to a lot of this:

And where I will speak only English. It's going to be glorious.

Happy Anniversary!

2011-06-09T15:12:00.036-06:00

As of an hour ago, I celebrated my one year anniversary of my arrival in Burkina Faso! Huzzah!

It is incredibly weird to think that I have been here for a year, because that leads me to think about the summer, which is looking pretty full and then soon it'll be October and school will start again and then it'll be Christmas and then it'll be 2012 and then it'll be hot season again and school will be almost over and once school is over I leave. That's insane. I feel rather panicky and incredulous when I follow that thought process all the way through.

In honor of our anniversary, we ate some Starbursts that a kind parent sent to someone (not me) and went to eat normal food, because now all Burkinabe food is delicious and I've had terrible digestion/bowel troubles all day long, which while being very uncomfortable, seems rather fitting for the occasion.

What a year it has been. I've learned a lot about diarrhea, I saw some elephants, had a first crack at molding young minds, got good enough at French to where I can no longer speak English to people without mixing French phrases in, read a ton of books and watched many bad movies and television shows, watched children play with rocks for hours, fell in love with magoes (I could write odes and sonnets about that fruit, its so delicious), fell in love with manioc and grilled fish, made a new family, got proposed to at least one hundred times, got used to being hissed at by men and ignoring them completely, threw up twice, taught African teens 'Old McDonald Had A Farm', bought food that I'd never eaten or knew the name of before and cooked it, ate more cabbage and eggplant than I ever have in my whole life, fell in love with green beans and potatoes for the few weeks a year when I can eat them, climbed a largish hill, watched people go on strikes and saw/heard about several accidental deaths and military uprisings, been to a ton of funerals and seen one dead body, taught a little kid how to wink and say 'high five,' made a lot of friends and listened to a lot of Akon and Rhianna, etc, etc, and many more things I can't think of right now. It's been a pretty fantastic year, and while I have a bunch of things I will do different this time around, I'm so grateful and happy to be here. My neighbor just called to check up on me, since I haven't been at site for a few days, which reminds me of a story I wanted to tell.

After being on consolidation, removed from site and being worried that we'd never go back, I returned to site and went over to my neighbors where they made me a dish that at one point several months ago I said I liked, thus it was my favorite and grilled up a chicken, thus making it a party. And then while we were eating my neighbor turned to me, pointed to the chickens nearby and said 'those guys will be nice and fat for July 23.' At which point I almost teared up, but since that's not appropriate I just looked at him and smiled and my heart was filled with warm fuzzies. That was easily the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me, remembering food that I like and my birthday and I maybe mentioned once like 8 months ago! I never remember those things and then I realized it meant they care that I am there and that I came back and now when I am away from site for more than three days they will call and check up on me. I love it. Thanks Burkina, I'm more than happy to live here for another year (and possibly longer, who can say?)

En plein forme

2011-06-06T11:51:00.000-06:00

Hey team. Great news, I am not dead or even slightly wounded, I have, however, been very busy and without a computer thus the lack of blog posts. Sorry, I live in a third world country.

So, great news is that as of 3 o'clock on Saturday I officially finished with my first year of teaching. Hallelujah! Man oh man, I was so ready for school to be over. It was so hot and people kept giving me random tasks to do and asking me to help them with things and telling me grades were due a week earlier than I was expecting and it was incredibly busy, possibly the busiest I've been at site ever or at least before the craziness happened so I just forgot. But it ended, we had a sweet closing ceremony and ate a lot of food and then all the students went home to their families and I celebrated in a typically hilarious fashion with my neighbors. And then Sunday I came into the capital and here I am for a whole week able to check my email daily (hint hint).

I'm here for a training of all the trainers/people who will be working with the next stage/group of trainees who will one day become volunteers. Today we had a fun filled day talking about the changes in the program, the philosophy of development and sexual harassment. Neat huh? But now I'm sitting under a fan, freshly showered and writing you all, I would be perfectly happy if my google chat was working but the internet isn't cooperating, but since we can't have it all I suppose I'll just have to get by.

Yesterday I played utlimate frisbee and today I'm real sore, a sure sign my body wants me to start working out again, and I think I just might now that it's not crippilingly hot. Also, someone downloaded a new HBO show called Game of Thrones and it's quite good, so feel encouraged to check that out if you don't hate HBO.

Quick word about summer plans. School is over, I'll be in Ouaga all week and then Sunday I'll be back at site for about two weeks, helping kids prepare for their big test which if they pass it, will allow them to go to high school. Then on the 24th I will be going to Ghana for a week and I will lounge in a hammock and swim in the ocean and read and not talk to anyone unless I want to and then in English and right now I couldn't be more excited about it. A break couldn't be more needed. And then when I return I will work stage for a couple of weeks, help out the new would-be Volunteers, and then go back to site and help my neighbors in the next town over do a girls club. I'm looking forward to my summer, good mix of being at site and being away from site, visiting friends and seeing a bit of countryside. It should be a nice little mix and I know that before I'm ready, it'll be October and school will start again. And so it goes...

Good times English

2011-04-21T04:18:00.001-06:00

I recently started helping out with 3eme English, because they have to take a test this year and if they pass they can continue on to high school, and since they suck at English and I'm really good at it/have a lot of time on my hands I offered to help them an hour each week. On this test they have to take, half of it is oral and they read a text in English and are asked questions about it. So, that's what we are going to do, just some extra practice speaking English.

I realized as I was preparing for the first class, how much I missed talking to people in English about random and interesting things. I was ridiculously excited and poured over every book I had in my house to find a suitable paragraph quote or two to share and have a conversation with them. Keep in mind that these girls are in the equivalent of 9th grade but ages range from 16-20ish. I started off with one of my favorite quotes from Slyvia Plath's The Bell Jar, I changed it a little for the sake of background of the students :

I saw my life branching out before me like a green mango tree. From the tip of every branch, like a fat orange mango, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One mango was a husband and a happy home and children, and another mango was a famous poet and another mango was a brilliant professor, and another mango was an amazing editor and another mango was Europe and Asia and America, and another mango was a doctor and a lawyer, and beyond and above these mangoes were many more I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this mango tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of these mangoes I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the mangoes began to wrinkly and go black, and one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

We read the text, several times and then I ask the first question- What is this story about? Several hands raised- yes, you? Mangoes. Well yeah, sort of..... So we work through it line by line, once they realize it's not a real tree but that the tree represents her life they are following. We get to the crux of the story and I ask Why is she starving? Because she can't pick a mango. Why? Because choosing one means not doing any of the others. Do you think that's true? What? That you can only be one thing in your life? And it gets going, there are yes and no answers and then I ask Okay, can you be really good at two things, for example can you be an excellent doctor and a good mother? It was a good conversation, they were pretty much split down the middle, some saying you could only do one thing and some saying you could two more than one. I explained this was a common problem people had when deciding what they wanted to be and I asked if any of them had felt this way and they just looked at me with blank expressions on their faces...guess not.

Next text I felt really nerdy about and felt bad I couldn't share it with anyone which is part of the reason I'm blogging about it. I combined a concept from the movie Starship Troopers slightly with that wonderful television show Battlestar Gallactica, here it is:

In a country called Caprica, there is a special law about citizenship. The founders of the country felt very strongly about service and civic responsibility. In this country in order to be a citizen you had to complete either 3 years of military service or 3 years working in a poorer, less developed part of the country teaching or doing community development. After that time you were a citizen and were able to vote, run for government and have greater access to government services. If you didn't do this you'd still be a member of the country, but not a citizen so you couldn't vote or be president.

K, so running on that idea of service is required for citizenship. I personally really like this idea, making people responsible for the betterment of their country. I asked if they understood and what it took to be a citizen in Burkina Faso- according to them citizenship and nationality are different things, if you are born in Burkina you are a citizen but you have to have Burkinabe nationality to be the president, so you're parents have to be Burkinabe as well. Whereas in America in order to be a citizen or president you have to be born in America, that's all, no one cares who your parents were. (They thought that was crazy by the way). And then I asked them what they thought about this, a land where service was required for citizenship. Some liked it and some hated it, they shouldn't make it mandatory for them to give service in order to be a citizen, that's not fair, what if people can't do it. It's not that they can't do it or aren't citizens, they still get to live in the country, they just can't vote- they don't get in say in the governing of a country they don't help build and maintain.

Now I'll admit this discussion didn't go was well as the first, they clearly almost never think about politics or at least no very little political vocabulary in English. However, the success of both of these discussions left me feeling like a million bucks and I am very excited to have more interesting, thought provoking discussions with these teens in the future if we ever go back to school. Topics of discussion from, you dear readers, are more than welcome.

Put your mental anguish in my mind vice

2011-04-21T03:43:00.000-06:00

And I will crush it for you. (Thank you 30 Rock, I don't know what I would do without your comic relief)

I am currently caught up in events which are too complicated/uninteresting/incrediblyboring/youdon'tcareorelseyou'dreadthenews so I've got some time on my hands and also I haven't blogged in a while so this is just going to be some random thoughts I'd like to share with you. Enjoy it.

First and foremost, everyone in the world should listen to Mumford & Sons, I just discovered them 4 days ago and have listened to the one album I have about a million times (yes, I am listening to them while I write this). So, get on it.

It's funny how the world works, I'm currently not teaching (again) and before my teaching interruption I was mostly apathetic and unmotivated to plan lessons and write tests and think of fun ways to teach the simple past in English to 6th graders, and then suddenly an interruption again and teaching is not possible and now all I want to do in the world is go back to site and teach class again. It's like when someone tells you not to do something or to not think about a three-headed monkey and then that's all you want to do or can think about. Why does that happen? Once I can't do something, I want to do it, even if I don't really want to but because I can't I'm less than pleased. Psychology majors, please, explain this to me.

What else, what else- oh let's talk about the incredibly uncomfortable things they call mattresses in this country. I'm currently sleeping in a new bed and can't tell you how much I hate it. First of all, sheets never fit, they are always too big and are weird floral patterns that make you feel like you are at your grandmother's house. Secondly, this bed is just all foam, so if you stay in one position for too long it leaves a huge dent and then even if you roll away from it, it always sucks you back in. Like a black hole. And because it's foam it is SO hot. There's no air flow, so it ends up being like you sitting in a plastic chair, any part of you that is touching the bed is soaked. It makes for incredibly uncomfortable sleeping. Oh good beds, cold pillows and clean sheets and lots of heavy blankets, how I miss you.

Speaking of missing things, I was talking with a fellow volunteer yesterday and we were discussing all the beautiful places in America and saying how in general the west coast is better than the east coast (re: no argument possible, it's a fact) because of all the gorgeous, nature-like things you can see. So many national parks, mountains, beaches, hiking, climbing, atv-ing. And then there was a lull in the conversation and we both groaned and hated ourselves for talking about that because now all we wanted to do was go to Utah and be hiking and camping. Curse you memory!

Good news is that we watched The Fifth Element (fantastic movie) yesterday and then I had a dream last night that we went to the market today and met Bruce Willis and he was awesome and spent the day hanging out with us. It was a pretty sweet dream. Also watch the movie and notice that every single woman, except for one noticeable exception is a super model. Truth.

2011-04-01T09:19:00.000-06:00

Here are some more interesting anecdotes and stories acquired during the student strikes.

I had a conversation with one neighbor who was talking about how that week at church they had several guest pastors who came and really opened her eyes to the workings of the devil and demons in our lives. To which, I said nothing, but left feeling a little ill.

Later that night I spoke with another neighbor who was telling me all about how people in America and Europe don't believe in God and how that was the plan of the Devil, to get people to not believe in God, but here in Africa it was very different, it was trying to get people to believe that because Europe is more developed everything they do is correct, thus turning people into weird sexual deviants who don't believe in God. He then proceeded to tell me all about the Illuminati and Satan and how the eye on the one dollar bill is the devil's eye. To which I replied....'so, what?' He thought that was an incredulous thought and laughed. Then he gave me a book all about Rock 'n Roll and subliminal messages, which I naturally read while laughing inside. Turns out among others ABBA is a terrible satanic group, as is The Who, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Queen, Pink Floyd and many others. After reading it I mostly just wanted to listen to those bands.

The next day I returned the book and told him that I've heard about subliminal messages in old records, that if you played them backwards they would say something different, and I knew all about the weird symbols that people use that could be satanic, and then I said, who cares? Even if the lead singers of these groups did make a pact with Satan, there's no harm to me in that, it's their soul that is lost and now I get to benefit from their fantastic musical abilities. While I told him this mostly jokingly, and that people knew about Illuminati and the dollar bill, but no one cares or really believes it, so what's the point?
I believe the point that he was making was that Satan had insinuated himself into all parts of our society and whether we were aware of it or not, he had a hand in controlling our lives.

Which led me to a an endless, intellectually unsolvable argument- Satan exists and has a physical hand in shaping lives, influencing how we make choices, stealing souls and using demons to control our lives and insinuating to Western cultures that that isn't possible, thus getting a deeper hold on our lives. How can you know who is right? You can't because if you say Satan can't steal people's souls, sorcerers don't exist then they will just come back with the argument that sure he can, but he's tricked your mind into thinking he can't. Infuriating.

Next he told me that I need to pay special attention when I go to the market because one time this women bought vegetables from a Nigerian, when she got home she was really tired and decided to put the veggies in the fridgeand make her sauce tomorrow. So she puts the veggies in the fridge and goes to bed. Very early the next morning she is awoken by a knocking on the door. Her kids get up and tell her there is a man at the door. She goes to the door and finds the man she bought veggies from the day before. She tells him that she paid him and doesn't understand why he is there. He said, well, you bought the veggies from me yesterday, go to where you stored them and look at it. So the woman goes and opens the fridge and finds instead of the veggies a human arm. There the story ends and he looks at me expectantly, and I say....I don't think that's true.

Then he tells me another story about an old man who had to go to Nigeria and he was really old and the people wanted to eat him because he shouldn't be alive, because he's too told...

Then he told me about a village in the Democratic Republic of Congo where there are exceptionally beautiful women, and this man lives with one for several years and they have kids and then one day she says to her man, you know, we've been together a long time and you've never met my family, isn't it about time we went to my village and met my family? And then my neighbor says and if he goes, it's finished. I ask him what he means, and he just takes his hand and brings it up to his mouth, as if to say they would eat him. And I start laughing. Weird cannibalistic stories.

Wanna hear some crazy stories?

2011-03-28T08:43:00.000-06:00

I've debated whether or not to post these stories, because they will probably weird all of you out and give many the wrong impression. But they are too incredible to not tell everyone, so I'll just give you this notice- These things don't really happen anymore, and if they do it's only vary rarely, please don't think people are going around doing these crazy things to babies. It's not true.

So with student strikes these past couple of weeks I've had more time on my hands then I've ever wanted, and not being able to go anywhere I've chatted a lot with my neighbors. This endless chatting has led to some very interesting stories. And so, I give you these stories in the order that I heard them and I just want you to know that my only reaction was horrified, incredulous laughter, and please don't think I'm a terrible person for that but honestly, how else are you supposed to react?

People here in Africa have a lot of weird superstitions about twins, I've mentioned some of them before, but these are new. First off, people used to think that when you had twins it was unnatural, that they were in fact genies and so people would take the newborn baby twins and toss them out into the brush where the other genies lived. Because they weren't people, they were genies, so they tossed them in the brush.

Next. If a baby was ever born with teeth (thankfully I'm sure this almost never happened), that also was unnatural and they would take the baby and hit it against a tree trunk until it died.

Finally, if a baby was born but in the birthing process the mother died, the people saw the baby as a murderer so they would take the living baby and bury it in a termite mound until it died.

At the end of this while my head reeling from these incredibly horrifying mental images, my neighbors says, 'truly religion has saved many men.' At first I found this to be very confusing, and not at all congruent with that we were talking about, but then I remembered a conversation I had had the day before where my neighbro was telling me that in her village her family was the only Christan family and because of that her father forced his daughters to go to school and threatened to kill anyone who tried to excise his daughters. She said it was only that way because do to his religion he knew that those things were wrong and he wasn't going to follow in those cultural customs. And I believe that same thinking goes for the twin baby killings. So thanks religion, while there can be negative things said for your influence in Africa, I will wholeheartedly thank you for saving tons of twin babies lives.

hot hot heat

2011-03-24T05:06:00.007-06:00

What's your name? Butch. What does it mean? I'm an american honey, our names don't mean shit.

That is a quote from Pulp Fiction, which I just recently rewatched and rediscovered it's awesomeness. Also that quote could not be more true. I cannot tell you how many times people have asked me the meaning of either my first or my last name. And when I say, I don't know or nothing, they think that's crazy or when I explain that my last name is also a verb and describe it to them, they are horrified that my last name is similar to french fry. Horrified.

Anyways, turns out I've been living a pretty cushy life. With the 'cold' season coming to an end I'm remembering all the things I had forgotten about the heat when I first arrived. So many things I had forgotten and so much I wish I had appreciated more about the 'cold' season.

Here are some uncomfortable, sticky things I forgot about the heat:

Neck sweat

Never being able to sleep well

Waking up in the middle of the night and drinking half a liter of water

Never going to the bathroom

Waking up in the morning and feeling like you wet the bed, you're so sweaty

Staying up super late until your really tired, showering and then sleeping before you dry off and get hot again

Always being thirsty

Leaving sweat stains on my pants when I rest my arms on them, or cross my legs

Watching my neighbors get wasted after drinking one beer becuase they are so dehydrated.

Feeling like spiders are crawling on my legs and then realizing it's just sweat dripping from my knee pits.

That's all I got at the moment. But I'm sure I'll think of many more things as April rolls around. Just an example of some heat, last night when I went to bed it was a respectable 100 degrees in my house when I went to bed. Pas mal.

Good news is however, that it's starting to be mango season, and I cannot describe to you how delicious mangoes are here. I plan on eating at least one every single day for the next three months. What's that? Yes I know that also means I'll have diarrhea for three months, but it's 100 percent worth it.

Oh, how can I remember

2011-03-21T04:57:00.001-06:00

Another Volunteer and I have a weird/sick game going where whenver we think of something that we particularly miss from that moment in time from America we will text the other person saying 'Remember....?' It is kind of a terrible game, and often I will read it and say 'Oh! Come on!' or cry a little bit inside. But we keep doing it, and while it hurts, it is nice remembering great things in America. So, here is a list of some things that I've remembered lately:

Remember cheddar cheese?
Remember campfires on the beach?
Remember orange juice?
Remember bookstores and chai tea?
Remember any and all Mexican food?
Remember hoodies?
Remember roast beef?
Remember horseradish with roast beef?
Remember comfortable couches?
Remember Chipotle?
Remember blue raspberry Icees?
Remember mountains? and hiking?
Remember pepperoni sticks?
Remember sushi?
Remember clothing stores?
Remember cookies and cream ice cream? (I was thinking of the one from BYU creamery)
Remember carpet?
Remember nachos?
Remember hugs? or seeing people in love? -Which led my friend to ask if I needed a hug, and maybe I do but there are never any physical displays of affection and it makes me feel bad for the women here.
Remember bbq chicken wings?
Remember Red Robin and quality hamburgers?
Remember the ocean? And sunsets on the ocean?
Remember cream soda?
And just as I was posting this I remembered strawberry milkshakes from In-n-Out burger. Yum.

And yes, I do realize that most of this is food. But when your diet consists of basically the same five things over and over again, you dream about the large variety of things to eat in America.

My neightbor loves Sudoku

2011-03-18T04:51:00.000-06:00

I was talking with some Volunteers the other day and we were discussing the main thing we missed from America. Naturally I said food. And can you blame me? When your diets consits of rice, to or couscous with sauce and you revel in the days you get beans or ragu, and all you ever see at the market is tomatoes, onions and a seemingly endless supply of cabbage, who wouldn't dream of the unncessary variety of foods you can eat whever you want in America?

But my collegues are smarter than me and said two things that I felt to be very true. One said that he missed the accessibility of things in America. Everything is easy to get a hold of. Whether it's looking something up on the internet, or picking up the phone and getting something delivered to your house, or buying things on the internet and having them at your house two days later or thinking about anything and getting it the same day or just a few hours later. Getting the answer to your question in seconds instead of waiting for days until you get the internet or find someon who knows the answer.
The other said she missed third spaces. This one really hit home with me. Here there are no third spaces, it's either work or home, there's no safe space in between where you can sit in peace and quiet and do whatever you want. No parks, no coffee shops, no bookstores, no nothing. And even if you do happen to find yourself alone at a restaurant, you only need to wait 5 minutes before some man comes over and asks you million questions, hits on you, and then won't leave. Or you just sit there but notice that every single person that passes stares at you until you say hello or smile at them, then they continue on their way. There are no free spaces here where you can be anonymous and yourself, here it's work or home or you are always 'working' and watching your behavoir, language and dress in order to be seen as respectable in the community you live. It is sometimes exhausting.

Still in college

2011-03-05T03:58:00.001-07:00

People here eat like they are still in college.

Meaning that any time they have the opportunity to eat a free meal, they will stuff their faces to the max and then stick some extra in their purse for later. They also will complain about fancy parties because they know that while the food may be good, you only get a little bit and can't gorge yourself for later. True story. They bring empty plastic bags and stuff them full of food, tie it off and bring it home for later.

In other news I just watched The Rock Horror Picture show for the first time ever. And I'm not really sure why it exists/what the point is, but I can honestly say that Tim Curry is amazing in that movie. Real fabulous.

Also I just got Inception and love of my life Darren Aronofsky just made a new movie with another love of my life Natalie Portman called Black Swan, so that's what I plan on spending my morning on. Watching those two movies and wearing shorts. I feel great about it.

Speaking of movies, last time I was in Ouaga we watched 127 hours, which is that movie based on the true story of the guy who had to cut his own arm off when he went hiking in Canyonlands and got stuck. Craziest movie ever, and haunted me for a week- I kept seeing him cut his own arm off. It was out of control.

Also it's FESPACO here, which is the bi-annual west african film festival here in Ouaga. Meaning that last night when we went out for dinner there were a ton of white people, I even saw teens and I was super weirded out. They were dressed so well like they were still in France or whereever it was they came from.

Secret bandits

2011-02-28T04:57:00.001-07:00

-Are you sniffing paint?

Of course I am Lemon I need alcohol, it's the first thing every civilization makes along with weapons... or shelters to enjoy prostitutes...

Oh 30 Rock, how I love you. Interesting fact, because I'm slowly working to grow my hair out, somedays I can get my hair to look almost exactly like Alec Baldwin's. Head suit. I am not, however, anywhere near as attractive as him. Oh well. Also that quote is 100 percent true, espeically here- people drink like nobody's buisness.

Random things that my neighbors talked about recently.

The General isn't married but she has a man, whom I haven't met yet but she calls him petit coeur. Which means, little heart. And I think that's the greatest pet name I have ever heard.
Serge was telling me that M. Mevi, while he's generally quiet and sort of reserved, is secretly a bandit cachee. A secret bandit. Love it, and the more I get to know him the more I feel that is true.
After his Christmas drinking binge, Serge got really sick and couldn't eat or do anything for a couple of days and he told us that during that time his wife would tease him with her body (I doubt it) and he would say 'non, garde ca. Je ne peus pas maintenant.' (No, save that for later, I can't right now). This may not sound funny to you but trust me, it's hilarious.
It's fun to be around my neighbors because they are usually so calm and polite but when they get a little tipsy and have been around each other a lot they start to get really annoyed and a little rude. Which is surprising and a little startling because they are alwats so nice and I'm no longer used to rudeness.
These men are really awesome and generally pretty good guys. They were talking the other day about how they would just give their wives a bunch of money and tell them to spend it all. On anything, food drinks or whatever, just spend it. Yeah we could save it, but it makes us feel good to give you these things and to see you happy. I'll spend money all day if it will keep a smile on your face.
In addition to that Serge was saying one day he wanted to be President, for a month and that's it, because for that month he'd just steal money, little by little and after a month go back to his life but with a ton of money. That's how it works here. Why do people need to stay in power for their whole life? They can't possibly do anything with all that money. Just do the job for a while, steal in the meantime and once your time is up, take your wife and go somewhere else and spend all the money you've stolen. Live you life, don't stay in power until everyone gets pissed and come to kill you.
I was killing time between classes and the kids came to talk to me and then I started looking up pictures of things on Encarta to show them. Things like volanos, anacondas, las vegas, hollywood, the beach, any and all movie stars- once the picture came up of say Brad Pitt they'd all go OOoooohh wow! He's so handsome. Or if they didn't think that they'd all go- ew no, change it, ugly. Really hilarious. Also they thought Titanic was a fake story, and I told them it was real, the movie wasn't 100 percent true but that ship did sink and a bunch of people died.
The old math teacher at my school calls me 'America.' I find it hilarious.
I got a little sunburn the other day and every single student that saw me was SO concerned about it, horrified that the sun did that, worried that it hurt me and then told me repeatedly that they didn't like that at all, very upset that the sun did that to me. Adorable.

Apparently garlic purifies your blood

2011-02-25T04:25:00.000-07:00

So the neighbors that I hang out with all the time, the Mevi's, his family is spread out all over the place, a fact that never ceases to intrigue me. This weekend his brother came to visit. I can't say whether he's older or younger, I never got a straight answer, but he's spent the last 15 years playing soccer in Belgium, just got back from a three month vacation to America where he visited NYC, Chicago, Twin Cities, Atlanta and LA and then came to Burkina for the first time in 6 years to visit his brother and sister here.

Well, I may or may not spy on them out of my back window, and when I say spy I mean peak out to see if anyone is home, because it would be horrible to walk all the way over there only to find they aren't home. And when I say may or may not I mean may. Anyways, Saturday I peaked back there to see if they were up and I saw the most cut, muscular rasta man playing with the kids and naturally, I made my way over there to see what in the world was going on. I almost never see rasta's here, because for some reason people don't like/respect them. (I'll clarify rasta man, it means any man with dreadlocks, or an artist or musician or someone who makes his living in a similarly unconventional fashion). I go over and find out he's the brother and he immediately says oh are you Canadian? Nope, American. Really? Pure? Yup pure, 100 percent American.

So we're chatting and I start to get very intrigued because a lot of things don't make sense to me, and I feel this way aobut most Burkinabe who have left Burkina to live/work somewhere else. I cannot for the life of me figure out how they do it, and I don't know these people well enough to really delve into the dirty details about how they live, plus they'd just think that's weird.Anyways, he's been playing in Belgium for 15 years, he married a white woman, they have two kids and are now divorced, spent three months in American and now will spend a month and a half in this region and then he's retiring from professional soccer. So in my head, he must be pretty well off. Those are expensive things he's done, he dresses pretty well, not as well as could be expected but definately middle class. And then I found out his cell phone is probably 20 years old, the basic telephone calls only variety, and that he's never used a computer before. It's that last part that really threw me for a loop. How can you have lived in Belgium for 15 years and have never used a computer before? I do not understand that at all, and brings up a lot of questions aobut how he was living. And then I asked him what he was planning on doing since he's going to retire and he just sort of shrugs his shoulders and says he doesn't know. Once again, so confused. How can you not know what you are going to do for work? I don't think you are rich enough to not do anything, but he doesn't seem very concerned by it, in fact he was like yeah you know that's why I"m really friendly with people becuase you never know when someone could help you out or hook you up, like you- you could teach me computers... (I always love that. Thank you for opening my eyes to the fact that our entire relationship is in fact just you, using me for something)

Man, it was a very interesting weekend chatting with this guy. It's funny talking with people who have left because you can still clearly see certain parts of the culture still ingrained in them, like the way they talk to children, or about women/relationships (surprisingly) and health/herbal remedies. He's in Ghana this week but will be stopping through here again on his way back so hopefully some more interesting things will be found out or maybe I'll just be puzzled further.

Great news is that I found out an amazing piece of information about my neighbor that I almost couldn't handle when I found out. We were playing with the kids and here no one farts- ever, but little kids will sometimes eek them out and then laugh about it (yup that's the same everywhere). And he starts to tell me that when M. Mevi was younger he used to fart into his hand and then throw it in your face! Writing that I laughed so hard I started crying a little bit. M. Mevi, 45 years old, father of two, teacher of physics and chemistry as a child would fart into his hand then throw the stinky, farty-air into your face. Love it. Boys will be boys anywhere.

Currently listening to a 15 minute long rap song

2011-02-21T05:00:00.035-07:00

Hilarious thing that people say here is when babies whine or cry they say- your going to do baby gater? Which literally translates to ruined baby. Which makes me laugh every single time I hear it. You're acting like a ruined baby right now child, quit it.

Also, I've become someone who shushes, and I do not feel good about it. Everybody hates someone who shushes, but I find myself doing it more and more because sometimes they just make a lot of noise and I shush them and the moment I do it, I feel gross inside. Thursday I tried doing the thing that conductors do at the end of a song, you know what I'm talking about? But the moment I did it I realized there are no such thing as orchestras, much like conductors so they have no idea what that hand motion I just did meant. Then today I told them if they kept talking I'd take points off their test and that worked like a charm. Looks like my shushing days are over. (fingers crossed, if not I will hate myself every single time I shushe someone)

In my 6eme English class they did pretty terribly on the test and I was rather annoyed/felt bad for them. Knowing that the next day when I returned the tests several of them would burst into tears at their scores, but almost half the points were vocabulary and not grammar or hard english stuff. It doesn't have anything to do with my teaching, but the fact that they didn't study as they should have. Also tonight I was talking with the Directrice and it turns out a few of the girls in the back where cheating by trading a paper with answers on it, so now I don't feel bad at all but discouraged which is silly because them cheating has nothing to do with me expect that I didn't catch them.

So in class the next day I put on my disappointed, sad face and told them I was very upset with how they worked on the test. I handed back all the tests, luckily no one cried or at least I didn't see anyone crying, but they all complained and asked to have another test at the end so they could drop that test score. Not a chance my friends, not a chance. Then the girl who cheated, I called her up and talked to her after class and I asked her if she had anything she wanted to say about the test yesterday. She looked at me and was like...I don't understand. And I was like well, I heard from several professors and other students that like and idiot you were bragging about how you cheated on my test yesterday. Which was followed with her saying no that wasn't me, it was another girl and I said no I wouldn't do it. To which I responded, no, you are lying to me right now. Unfortunately I didn't catch you in the act so I can't do anything, but I just want you to know that I am not happy, I am very disappointed in you and now I think you are a liar and this is a problem. What are we going to do about this? No response... What are we going to do about this? To which I get the classic response Madame, je demande pardon.
Really? I demand forgiveness. That just about put me over the edge. I'm so sick of that phrase and hate that everyone here thinks that will fix everything. Newsflash! It doesn't. You can't just ask forgiveness! Don't you understand that you have lost any faith and trust I had in you? It doesn't get automatically replaced my asking forgiveness. Nope. Very annoying.

Anyways, I made them right 60 sentences in english that night for homework. They hated me for it, but at least next test they probably won't suck as bad.

ca fait peur

2011-02-19T03:43:00.001-07:00

A couple of hilarious things that I've found out lately.

One, I was chatting with some students the other day and they were discussing my eyes and how weird they were. And then they said something about how there was black in the middle, and I had to interrupt them and make sure I understood. They were weirded out by my eyes not because they were bluish but because there was black in the middle. aka my pupil. And I had to break it to them that everyone in the world has that black part in the middle of their eye, even them, but they can't tell because their eyes are so dark they don't notice. I don't think they believed me.
Also they hate it when you widen your eyes when you are looking at them, like you would do if you were surprised or scared. A fact that I find hilarious and do all the time now, because they'll be talking, notice that I'm doing it and then say Ouaiii madam, ca fait peur. Don't, that's scary.

Two, last weekend was the sortie and all the students who passed last trimester got to leave and spend the weekend with their family. Well before the car came to get them all, I was chatting with one student and I don't remember what we were talking about exactly or how we even got on this subject but she was telling me that when I leave to go back to America, she will follow me and then and I quote nous allons vomir anglais comme ce n'est pas interdit. Which literally translated means, we are going to vomit english like it's not forbidden. Naturally, I found that phrasing hilarious and started laughing really hard and she just looked at me weird.

Also when the kids insult each other they make a really annoying sound that I hate, so one day I told them that in America when you insult someone you say either- ooOOOOOOoooo or Zing! As in your mama's so fat she can't leave her house -- Zing! So now instead of making the annoying noise they make after insults they say either ooOOOOOoooo or Zing! Meaning I'll be walking to or from class and suddenly amidst all the french and moore I will here 5 students all say Zing! at the same time. It's so funny that I almost can't stand it, I lol every single time. I'm working on other things to tell them that people say a lot in america, even though almost no one besides myself says Zing!

In computer class we are doing typing exercises which, let's be honest- no one likes, even as a kid you hated doing them but it's necessary and typing is probably the main skill they will actually use here. Anyways, after ten minutes they start complaining like nobodies buisness and I get really annoyed so last week I told them that if they did it the whole hour and were good and quiet and didn't complain I would play music for them. And like magic they all sat like little angels at their computers typing away for an hour. The only catch was it was american rap music and so with almost every song someone would ask me what they were saying and almost always I didn't feel it was necessary to tell them what they were really singing about so I'd say things like 'He's saying he loves her and wants to get married' or 'she's saying she just wants to dance' or 'they really like talking to each other on the phone' or 'he really likes smart ladies.' Hahaha, also that song Halo by Beyonce I just told them was about angels, so now I'm pretty sure they think it's a churchy song. (re: I'm a terrible person)

I don't understand

2011-02-17T04:57:00.000-07:00

So I told my 6th grade English class we were going to do a correspondence with a class in America, the 6th grade English class of Ms. Sarah Crane no less and I am super excited about it and naturally expected them to be the same. However when I explained it to them i only got a lukewarm excitement level, which made me feel sure they just didn't understand what I was telling them. Turns out they thought each one of them was going to get a correspondent so when I told them there was only 25 people in her class and we would be writing letters as a group they were less excited about it. Also they thought the class was going to come visit them, and I was like...no, not at all, nope. They were not excited about that either, so we'll monitor the situation but I think after getting their first letter they will be much more excited about this.

Anyways, in their horrible english text book there are a few word searches to help them recognize english vocabulary lessons, one day a student came up to me and told me we should do one. So a few days later I roll into class with a word search I had made with a bunch of vocabuarly they would need to know for the test and tried to explain it to them and they could not have been more confused. It's a word search, english words are hidden in there and you have to find them. Like you just find letters and then make words? No, like the the letters follow one another, they are connected you can't pick and chose. So we find these words and make sentences with them? No, but that's a fantastic idea for next time. So, is this what the test is going to be? No, it's just for funm sort of like a game, you have to find the english words. But....I don't get it. Really? So I had to find a few and show them, horizontal or vertical words in english. And then they asked if they should color them or circle them or put a line through them or do a different color for each word and I was like whatever you want! It doesn't matter! color them in or circle them. And then mistakenly put in other randome english words that I hadn't taught them but they knew somehow and then asked if that counted and then there weren' enough copies for everyone and it just turned into such a complicated problem. I was trying to do something fun, a fun little word search and they just could not for the life of them understand it's purpose or why on earth it would be fun.

In other news, I played a Jeopardy style review game in computer class and it was a smashig success, those kids have never loved me more. They really love games and they didn't do as terribly as I thought they would, which is good becuase they remembered somethings I told them like the task bar and that it's called a monitor. They still cannot remember the difference between the butons on the mouse, they think left is right and right is left. I don't understand it. This week I taught them the home row and how to place their hands when typing and had them practice and they complained about how hard it was and then I did a few for them and blew every single one of their minds with the speed and agility I could type. One time they called the other girls over by saying 'come over here and see something you've never seen before in your life.' haha! I'm so cool.

I'm thinking about going to law school

2011-02-12T04:56:00.001-07:00

Christmas comes and goes, vacation continues but doesn't feel very vacationy since I'm staying at my site seein people I always see and speaking French. So I make plans with Emma and Andrew and we take a trip down to Po. Po is a lovely little town about 30k north of Ghana, where there are huge trees that line the roads. A fact that blew my mind every single time we went outside. It was so weird and I just want to know who did that, what genius made that happen because it's awesome. Trees lining a road, beautiful. One day we rented a car and a driver and went out to the nature park in Nazinga, where we saw the African equivalent of deer, a crocodile and then several elephants. Elephants were the whole reason we went out there and after a lot of bumping around in the car we saw two herds and then near the watering hole an elephant somehow got stuck in between water and people and didn't know what to do. Naturally, we took advantage of the opportunity to take many pictures close to a giant elephant who could run and trample us at any time. Very exciting.

Then we went over to a delightful village called Tiebele, which is famous for the architecture of the cheif village. The chief has a compound where he and all the members of his family live, today it holds like 300 people or something ridiculous because it's a very small space. The huts they build are small and circular. They build them the same way they did in the olden days, so the doors are really low you have to crouch down to get in, they wre built that way to block arrows and also if an enemy did manage to enter your house you could eaily chop his head off. Inside usually there are two or maybe three short circular rooms, one for sleeping, one for holding food and preparing food and then another room with two holes in the ceiling for cooking food. Additionally they carve steps into the side of the cut so that you can climb up onto the roof and thy store food up there and in the hot season cook and sleep up there. Very interesting and cool little huts, that people still live in today. And then they paint the outsides, they smooth down the walls and then paint them in geometrical patterns in black, red or yellow colors. I uploaded a bunch of pictures of this on my picasso page.

Quite an interesting and incredibly tiring day, but since it was also the 31st we also made a delicious meal and watched an American movie on a latptop. Fantastic. The next day was the 1st so we were obliged to go visit several people that the volunteer down there knows, eating a bunch of food again, same basical meal as Christmas, then we wandered around Po, visited the market and gazed in wonder at the large trees.

Next day we took a bike ride down to a "mountain" that is right in between Po and Ghana, in fact our cellphone thought we were in Ghana, neat. It's not really a mountain by my standards but compared to everything else here it's totally a mountain. It was really fantastic to do a little hiking and see boulders and climb something. It felt great, there are also a bunch of pictures of that that the view from the top.

Next day left to come back to site and welcome back all the students and prepare lessons for class the next day. All in all a great vacation and let me know that I should always leaved site for the breaks between trimesters, right now we are tentativelly thinking about going to Ghana for the break between 2nd and 3rd trimester. We'll see.

Typical Day

2011-02-12T04:23:00.000-07:00

Thursday, February 10th.

Last night I was giving the written portion of my computer test and it ended around 8:30. I got home and was tired with a headache from all those children yelling in my ears about how they didn't understand and yet they wouldn't shut up and listen while I explained the questions, and then complaining about how it was so hard and I should just not grade it but forget about it. Ugh, so annoyed with them, I wanted to punch them all in the face. I get home, it's 9 o'clock and I haven't planned my English lesson for tomorrow, I was thinking about doing something different but now I'm so tired, no part of me wants to do that.

Thursday morning bright and early 7 am- continue with computer testing, typing tests nonetheless and once again after 15 minutes they start whining and complaining about how it's hard or my keyboard doesn't work or the computer is lying I didn't do that many errors. Once again after two hours I want to yell or punch them in the face or just ignore them all day. Head out to English class, I've decided that I would talk about body parts, becuase I can make that fun. I get there, check their homework and amazingly almost all of them did it right, which never happens and I was happy and I told them they were awesome. Then I asked what they wanted to learn about that day and then we talked about food. And I gave them tons of english food vocabulary and things were going along swimmingly and then we were talking about phrases and here in Africa you say Bon appetit or while you are eating you invite anyone you see to eat with you, and I told them that those phrases don't really exist in America because no one really says those things. And that blew their minds.
So if you are eating and I come up to you, you wouldn't invite me to eat with you? No.
And if I asked? I would look at you like you were weird, say no, this is mine go over there and get your own.

This led to a good half hour discussion about that and also how you treat strangers in America and their little minds were blown. I kept trying to explain that not everyone was like that, but generally if you don't know someone you don't just give them information and you certainly don't invite them to eat with you- that's weird, you dont know this person, they could be crazy.

So, madam, if you were eating and this poor person was sitting next to you and you finished your food and then what? you give it to him? Well, you could give it to him, but that's sort of an insult, its like saying here are the bad parts of the food that I don't want to eat but you're poor so you can have it. You don't really do that. Once your done eating you put it in the fridge for later or if you don't have a fridge you throw it out. Once I said throw it out, they were in an uproar. It was a very amusing class.

And now class is done, it's 12:30 and I'm tired, but I remember that we were supposed to go visit some important person in the village and wish them a happy new year. So we go and at the prefects house there are three big trees and the group is divided into three groups of people sitting beneath the trees. We can't hear a thing and instead I listen to Mme Mevi, The General, school nurse and M. Zare chatting it up like high schoolers at the back of the class. Hilarious. The husbands are apart, drinking their beer and we whine about how long it is and then it ends. We drink and complain about how the wine isn't getting passed around here and we're thristy and hungry and everyone else is served first and they just keep complaining like little babies. And then Serge shows up like a knight in shining armour and says -hey these ladies want some wine and he goes and gets it for us. He literally followed the drink man around and made him come over and serve us beverages. It finally ends after we've eaten- not well they keep saying, and start to head out but as we are getting up the General flashes her money around and they all see and go crazy. Oh! general! okay, c'est le fete mainentent, on n'a pas bien mange, donc il faut continuer, il rest une heure avant les cours. (Now it's a party, we didn't eat well and there's still an hour until class starts again so to the bar we go!)

So we go to the bar and get drinks and work on convincing the general to buy us chicken. She doesn't want to because we have class again in a little bit and she's full, but then we discuss the fact that the directrice went to ouaga, and our group consists of the surveillant general, four teacher and the nurse- so school's done for the day and then i throw in there that there is always room for chicken. Which makes everyone laugh, because I said it very somberly and seriously and it's settled. But wait, they don't have any there. So we drink up and then head out to the other bar and get more drinks and chickens.

And we have a ball. They are so much fun and as usual when people are drinking, I learned so many interesting things. We talked about how if they weren't there at the school that I'd really hate it here, I"d be sitting alone, looking at nature, bored, anxious to go back to America, but with them it's a family, it's fun, and interesting. And I said that was true, I'm very lucky. And then we start talking about Valentine's day because that is coming up and the general and myself don't have anyone and so Serge was telling us to just hug the wall. And I said, who wants to do that? That's not interesting.
Well just close your eyes.
And then general says- no, the wall has no hands or feet or anything- that's not a solution. And we laugh and they joke about being married and all the tail they are getting. And then we leave to get some tea (? I have no idea why). But Mevi notices that someone is playing checkers and since he's drunk, he goes crazy and plays a round of checkers very poorly, and yelling at everyone in Moore. And then we leave to go to another bar at the other end of town, but everyone is pretty much done, and we finish up our conversations and head out.
As we are leaving a frenchman by the door starts talking the general and me and when we finally break away she goes' did we ask to know any of that stuff?' which just made me laugh, becuase we sure didn't and that was a very american thing to say and I loved it.

And then it was 6:30 and we are back at school. So yeah, we left to wish a big wig happy new year and then that evolved into 5 solid hours of chatting, drinking and eating. And we're so important we can just cancel school like it ain't no thing have have a fantastic time.

Just a typical day.

Last Christmas you gave me your heart...

2011-02-07T04:53:00.000-07:00

Let's talk about Christmas. Interesting story. in America there was nothing I hated more than Christmas music, especially when children sing Christmas songs on the radio, so I was more than happy to be here where that horrible tradition of playing grating Christmas music nonstop for a month doesn't exist. However, the closer we got to Christmas and the less it felt like Christmas the more I nostaglically listened to the Love Actually soundtrack (only Christmas music I have on my ipod and also just a great movie) and the more I liked Christmas music. So maybe Christmas music isn't so terrible when it isn't constantly blasting in your ears for a month.

When we were in Ouaga for our meetings I had the pleasure to go over to our CD's house and decorate sugar cookies. I'm still really terrible at the job but I am thankfully still talented in eating them. However, with a stomach that is now used to never eating sugar I felt like I was going to die after eating 5 jolly, frosted sugar cookies.
Anyways, on a scale of one to ten of how much Christmas day felt like Christmas was about a 1.5. In Ouaga it sort of feels like Christmas because people are trying to sell fake little Christmas trees or blow up santa claus', but once you get back to village and everything looks exactly the same dusty brown, you would have no idea it was Christmas, much less December. In face two days before Christmas I ate a watermelon...so, yeah. But it not feeling like Christmas wasn't bad because I didn't get sad or feel like I was missing anything, so that was a plus.

Despite it never feeling like Christmas I still had a fantastic time. All the students left on Thursday and I went out for drinks with a couple professeurs to get the vacation started off right. As usual, it was really hilarious and I got to eat some delicious flame broiled chicken, plus we planned out the next three days, which houses would cook which day so that we could better enjoy our partying. Friday rolls around and after enjoying a quiet morning, sleeping in without the ringing of the school bell every hour, I headed over to the Mevi's to get things rolling. Mme. Mevi's family came over and they spent almost the entire day preparing the party that we were going to have that night, it was a little incredible. I helped a little bit and then excused myself to take another nap because, why not? Came back all spiffed up and things got started at about 8, we ate some good food and then everyone started drinking and dancing like there was no tomorrow. And we danced until 4 in the morning. It was really hilarious, seeing all my coworkers tipsy and dancing. The great thing about Burkinabe dancing is that it's difficult to dance to their music, becuase it is terrible, but that means their dancing is so spasdic and weird and hilarious to watch. They get so into it, like they just sort of bob around and maybe do a little hip shaking but they are all about it and so proud of themselves it really hilarious. So, it was great.

4 hours later, up and at 'em, Merry Christmas, headed back over to the Mevi's to have some breakfast and watch everyone stumble out into the sunshine. Still hilarious. Then we sat around all day long, had lunch and then it was time to make the rounds to the neighbors, saying hi eating food -chicken, cake balls, popcorn, and shrimp cakes with a soda. At each house we had to eat those things. So I wanted to die, from only getting four hours of sleep and then eating so much food, I thought I would explode. Finally it's 4 o'clock and I feel late enough for me to excuse myself and I got home cursing whoever invented chicken (never thought I'd see the day) and slept for a good 13 hours that night. All in all it was a great Christmas, really hilarious and happy and they were really happy that I stayed their with them, loved it when I danced and just think I'm so nice. So win win.

Learning for adults

2011-02-02T10:21:00.000-07:00

I started teaching a professors IT class every Monday and while I've only done three classes they are hilarious enough to be discussed at length. I was very nervous to start teaching because by now I know all the professors really well and it's weird to change dynamics and be a teacher instead of someone they laugh at. Our first class went really well, I introduced the parts of the computer and explained what they all did, how to turn a computer on, and the mouse and then I had them draw the flag of Burkina Faso in Paint. An activity probably every single IT volunteer has done at least once and one that I did with all my little middle schoolers. Getting them used to the mouse, moving it around, clicking and dragging and all the good stuff. So, they spent a good hour the first time, maybe a little more than an hour trying to draw the map and it was like someone flipped a switch and suddenly they were all in high school again. They were joking and making fun of each other's drawings and just being generally hilarous and adorable, enjoying playing on a computer. At the end of class they all thanked me and said it was really fun but that star is hard and they are going to go home and practice drawing it by hand. Seriously.

Also, turns out they are very serious about this class, they all brought notebooks and took notes, and then apologized for being late or missing it. It's fantastic, they are all very interested in exploiting me while I am here and I'm all for that.

First class, smashing success. Second class rolls around and they all get in there and immediately turn the computers on, open up Paint and start drawing the map again. I'm so surprised they remembered how to find Paint much less turn the comptuers on that I'm all for them practicing again. I settle in and help them a little waiting for them to get bored with it so we can move on. They continue agonizing over that star, and then two hours later I say, 'alright....we good?' I'm so bored right now... I've been watching you try and perfect this flag and that star for two hours and I could kill you all. Maybe next time we could move on to the keyboard or something? Because while you are all still adorable, I"m bored out of my mind. But they loved it, so can't complain right?

Monday. they all got there and sat down at the computers and a few started up Paint again and I was like 'oh god, please no...Hey guys can we do something else today? Like maybe the keyboard?'
They were on board with that so I taught the keyboard and the home row, which they all love because 'you always come back home' and then I had them do a typing game to practice typing with their fingers on the home row.
Holy cow was that the funniest thing that I have ever seen. They were so concentrated on that keyboard and doing it right and then they would celebrate if they passed and made me go by to see or they would complain if they failed and then try again. It's normal in middle schoolers but to see 30 year old teachers act like middle schoolers when they learn how to type was so adorable, I didn't mind watching them type jfjfjfkdkdkdkslsl for an hour and a half. They complained about it to, they were like oh man last week we were just drawing the flag and now this! My hands hurt, this is the real class huh? What we were doing before was just for babies. And I said, yup, you're big kids now, no more baby stuff for you.

I also told them to do finger exercises at home to warm up their fingers and then today when I saw them all I asked them how their fingers were doing and they all said they had being doing exercises and that they were sore.

Still Alive

2011-01-21T10:31:00.001-07:00

First of all I just watched Alien for the first time ever and I am mad at every single one of you who've seen it and didn't forced me to watch it. It's so fantastic, I almost couldn't handle it I had to call several people and make sure others agreed with me. Good one Ridley Scott, good one.

Sorry, I haven't written in a while. I hadn't had any posts written and got sucked into the internet/television vortex that happens when a bunch of us Americans get together, but this time I came prepared and there will be some things for you to read the next couple of weeks. Also, I'm currently uploading pictures from my New Years adventures in Po. Interestingly enough the blog post that accompanies that won't be posted for a few days, but you can enjoy them sans description in the meantime.

Also for the past hour and half while I"ve been waiting for these pictures to upload I've been listening to Foreigner (awesome) and enjoying this high-larious website. Also, I just remembered this, in a care package I got some altoids and little kids always want stuff from me so one day I gave them one and told them it was piment candy, which basically means spicy candy because to them anything minty is spicy. And they were like yeah, I want it, give it to me. So I did and I really should have filmed it, it was probably the funniest thing I have ever seen. They hated it so much, two seconds after it was in their mouth they, looked at me with a horrified expression, spit it out and then drank water for 5 minutes afterwards and then left my house angry. That's what you get little kids for demanding things from me and me being bored.

I speak Engrish vry grood

2011-01-20T10:16:00.001-07:00

This post is about my inability to speak English to anyone that isn't a native english speaker. One example a while ago, we went to the arts festival and they had artists from other African countries like Ghana where they speak english. I tried to talk to this ghanaian man who I knew spoke english, but I could not do it. I kept mixing it with French and then just staring at him and feeling uncomfortable and then he brought his translator over to speak french to me, even though he knew I was american and spoke english. But I couldn't for the life of me speak English to an African, that's just too weird.

Flashforward to last week. My school was apparently built by some Swedes. I don't really know, I thought it was french canadians, but I guess not? Anyways a group of Swedes and a few from the Netherlands came to visit the school on Friday. The students were made to clean the crap out of the school, to make it look good for them and then we were all supposed to be in the main room at 4 to welcome them. Well 4 comes and goes, the professors start complaining about how they could be having class right now and white people are always on time right Valerie? What? just becuase they come to Africa they can be on African time? No, that's not cool. So, I snicker and say, yeah the nerve of those white people, and watch all the little 6th graders show off to me their long jumping skills. Adorable. They were doing PE and saw me coming and then I told them I wanted to see how well they could jump they go so excited and made me watch every single 61 of them do the long jump and then give me a high five afterwards. A few thought I missed theirs and got really mad at me, until I told them I saw it and it was soooo good!

Eventually at 5 o clock the whiteys roll in and we all go into the main room and the students sing some songs for them/stare at all the old white people. The directrice of the school gets up, welcomes them and makes a list of demands. Hi, thanks for coming, now with all your money please give us all these things. Thanks. Then one guy came up and spoke to the students and turns out almost none of the Swedes who came could speak French, which I found weird, so he translated for them (several students came up to me later and asked if I understood it and I was like no...it was not English. Yes it was. Not it wasn't, not even a little bit. Really? Yeah, not English, Sweedish actually). Then we all left and the Swedes shook all the professors hands and when they came it me I was once again very uncomfortable becuase what do I do? They don't speak french, I have no idea if they speak english, I certainly don't speak Sweedish. So i mostly just smiled and nodded and then one guy was like oh, I know you are American and I said 'yes.' And then he tried to ask me something and I didn't really hear and then he was looking at me expectantly and then I answered him in French and then he just continued to look at me and then i said 'what?' and then we had a incredibly awkward conversation that made me feel super uncomfortable because I couldn't speak English to this man, because I had no idea if he understood anything that I said becuase he just kept looking at me with this blank, expectant expression and then luckily the group had wandered off and I had to tell him they were waiting for him. Phew.

So uncomfortable. Aside from saying random greetings to Burkinabe in English or speaking English to the other American volunteers who I know understand me when I speak English, it would appear I am incapable of speaking English to anyone else that doesn't have English as their native language. Interesting, we'll continue to monitor this situation.

We will also monitor the situation where I can apparently only write in run on sentences. This is significantly more worrisome to me.

Genius

2010-12-19T12:04:00.002-07:00

So my brother got married yesterday. Today I talked to my family and it made my heart hurt. So to make it even worse/better I got you all this genius poem that I cannot stop rereading.

Since feeling is first by E.E. Cummings

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

African fables

2010-12-13T14:33:00.001-07:00

I went out with a Burkinabe the other night and near the end of our conversation he told me several african fables that I will now share with you because I can.

First one I didn't really understand so we'll skip it. Next one was about a beautiful woman who was great but never spoke. Her father was the chief of the village and he said that the person who could get her to speak would get to marry her. Well all the men from all over came and tried to get her to speak. They told jokes, sad stories and gave her gifts but nothing worked. Then all the animals came. The lion- nothing, zebra- nope, all the animals came and none succeeded. Finally the hare came to try it out. Now the woman had a little puppy that she loved more than anything, she took it with her everywhere and she loved that little dog. Well the hare came around and brought a plate of yogurt and a plate of to. He ate the yogurt and offered some to the dog. The dog took it. Then he raised his arm, the dog raised its little paw, then he took some of the to and stuck it up his butt.The little puppy pawed at the to and got ready to stick it up his butt also but the woman yelled 'No! stop it! Why would you do that? Why would you make my dog do that? Basically she went off the handle on this hare (and can you blame her?). The woman was pissed but the cheif was super happy because she spoke and the hare got to marry her. The end.

When I started at him in shock after a while, he looked concerned and asked if I understood and I was like...I think so, it's just real weird... you tell these stories to kids? Because the moral is to do weird to stuff to dogs. -No, no the moral is that the hare won because he was smarter then all the other people and animals.... right, he manipulated the feelings of this woman to win a contest. Curious. Next story.

Fast forward several years, the cheif of this same village is about to kick the bucket. But he has no sons and no heir and he needs to find someone to lead the village when he's gone. So he comes up with a plan. A competition no less! In the middle of the town there is a platform that is very clean, no dust and the chief says that the first person to dance so well and fast on that that they kick up clouds of dust will be the next cheif. Well once again all the people tried and all the animals, but no one could kick up any dust, that platform was too clean, it was just impossible. Then along comes the hare, he puts dirt in the cuffs of his pants and shirt and sets about dancing on the platform. Soon enought there is dust flying everywhere, everyone is super impressed and he gets to be the next cheif. The end.

So what's the moral of that one? If you cheat you can get to be cheif or something else awesome? Yup, he cheated but he was smarter then the other animals and people that's why he got ahead. -But he cheated? So when you tell this to children they will think it's okay to cheat. -No, he was smarter then the others, that's why he got ahead. -...by cheating. Then I told him about the tortoise and the hare. The moral of that story being that you have to work hard to win, you can't do a good job and then slack off at the end, it's got to be a continuous effort- the slow and steady win the race. Nope, if you're smarter it's okay to cheat. Cheat to win.

Land of the upright and honest people my ass.

Humor in the classroom

2010-12-09T14:31:00.003-07:00

Funny things that students have done or said:

My hair is growing out now and I have no one to cut it except myself so it's getting a little unruly, but they all really love my white person's hair and demand permission to touch it. That's the literal translation of how they ask it- Madame, I demand permission to touch your hair. Demand granted.

They all really love Justin Bieber and Hannah Montana and one day they asked me if I had seen them and I was like 'No. I'm not a child. I don't like them.' And then they asked me what "stars" I had seen and I thought about it for a while and realized I had seen only the stars/bands they had never heard of/would hate. So they started listing off people like Beyonce, Akon, Michael Jackson and a bunch of others and I was like...no, nope, no no. With each negative answer they got more and more angry and shocked until finally one of them asked Madame vous ne sortez pas? To which I laughed and said 'of course I go out, I just don't go to those concerts. Stars don't walk the street like they do here'. haha. Madame you never go out? oh children.

One day I was wearing a top that really accentuated my farmers tan and a student told me that I should stay out of the sun as much as possible and never tan because it looks really ugly. To which I responded 'haha!' The bluntness of these kids will never ceases to shock me. Really they just like it when my skin is as white as possible.
I was shaking a fellow professors hand today and he was like 'oh you have some chalk on your palm' and I said 'nope, that's just how my skin is' To which he laughed and probably didn't feel embarrassed about.

I had my first Informatique test and a few students wrote some really hilarious resposes. For example- How do you know that the computer is on? By the noise. (These computers are real old and some are very loud)
Name two activites you can do with a computer- one student wrote 'you can type texts.' Which is true and not at all funny except when they write here it's in cursive and they do their x's weird so texts actually looks like 'testes.' ha!
Another response to that question- name two things you can do with a computer someone wrote- Tuer un president ou voler argent d'une banque. Kill a president or steal money from a bank. It was one of those moments where I wish there had been someone there to see it, like when you fall or do something else really embarrassing, but this was incredible. I read it two times and then immediately tried calling four people- none of whom answered. Curses! I'm sitting there staring at this answer thinking 'what the hell? I mean true you can steal money from a bank so I"ll give you a point for that but I'm worried about this president killing one....what the hell?' Finally someone called me back and I told them about the answer, they were equally and hilariously shocked. I actually forgot about that when I returned the papers, there were over 200 so sue me, so I have no idea what student wrote that. They could kill me somehow with a computer, I don't know.

There is a student named Dorcas, and whenever I read that name I laugh, because...Dorcas. Hilarious and it always reminds me of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

A student asked me if sirens were real. And I was like...sirens? half woman half bird? - No, sirens, half woman- half fish (apparently it means both in french) - Oh! mermaids! Nope, those aren't real. - Really? Because this guy said he saw them. -Nope, those are not at all real. Just a story. At this point I'm laughing and she's just looking at me so dejectedly which only makes me laugh harder. Crushing the dreams of young teens since 2010.

For my english test I had students write out numbers in letters like 63 is sixty-three. And they made some adorable faults like writing 'twoty' or 'sixtyeen' I got a lot of ' ten seventy' for 17, and a few wrote one fivety threety two for 1532. Haha, dummies.

Speaking of my English class, that's a new thing I took over for a teacher who skipped town. The first day, the directrice of the school walked me to class, which made me feel like a child, but she said to the students 'now she's volunteered to take over this class. What do we do for her?' And then I kid you not all 61 of them stood up, clapped and cheered for me, which made me almost die from the adorableness of 61, 9-11 year olds so excited for me to teach them english. Standing ovation. Beat that American teachers.

Also it's really funny teaching days of the week because in french you often don't pronouce h's and the 'th' sound is really hard for them. So they have a lot of trouble with Tuesday and Thursday or Three and Thirteen. It's really hilarious. Sometimes I jut make them repeat it over and over again and then laugh at them. Mean you say? They laugh at me about 80% of the time, I don't feel at all bad about mocking their inability to make the 'th' sound.

When I gave their first test back to them some of them may have cried. Haha, I remember when I cared so much about school that I cried about tests or getting in trouble. Oh the memories.

Also I gave them a tongue twister- sally sells seashells down by the seashore. They thought that was really hilarious and were equally amazed at how fast I could do it. Their minds will be blown once wood chucks start chucking wood.

Adorable

2010-12-04T14:30:00.000-07:00

A really adorable thing: Yesterday I was chatting with my neighbor who is currently engaged with three kids, her fiancee lives and works in another city (totally normal here), so they see each other maybe once a month, maybe. When I asked her why she wasn't married to the man who is the father of her 2 year old and 6 year old, she was like well you have to be sure...If you aren't sure after 7 years I don't know that you ever will be, but moving on. She was talking to me about how she saves her money and buys things and then sets them aside until later (people talk about that like it's the most novel idea ever. Yeah, I'm not spending a lot of money right now and these things are cheaper now, so I buy them and then I put them aside so that during the vacation I have all this food saved and I don't have to spend a lot of money!) not only does she set aside food but she sets aside her nice, fancy clothes and perfume and things so that when her man comes around she can look good. Now normally, that idea would sicken me a little bit- getting dressed up for a man but not for yourself, but the way she described it was really adorable and made me wish I had a man to dress up for. awwwww

Speaking of men to dress up for. I had an incredibly frustrating evening dealing with faux types and finding another man here who is the worst (he was telling me about how hard it is managing the 8 different girl friends he has in 8 different cities. Oh I'm sorry I have absolutely no sympathy for you and no I won't find you a correspondent in America who you want to marry soley as a ticket to America. Oh what's that? No I don't have money to give you. Sure you do. No, actually I don't, I reall am poor. No you aren't, you can totally buy me a plane ticket to America. Believe me buddy if I had 2 thousand dollars lying around I wouldn't give it to you), and had basically lost all hope and respect for mankind here in Burkina when my neighbor called me and told me to come over. Naturally I hurried over because that meant food was being cooked, probably some sort of meat. Dog in fact! My neighbor's husband was out of town dealing with the funeral of his uncle and so his friend/collegue at the school had invited his wife over to eat some dog and also so she woudn't spend the evening alone. When I got there he told me that's just how it's done here, what would he tell his friend when he got home? He would ask what he had done for his wife, he wanted to know she'd be taken care of. So he sprung big and buying cokes and cooking up some dog meat. My heart melted a little bit, so nice and decent, didn't want his friends wife to be all alone missing her husband.

Let's not ruin that by reading into it too much.

Random side note: On the way back from watching a soccer practice i saw two ten year olds- a boy and a girl beating the shit out of each other. Like a full on bar fight- running, tackling, wrestling, pummeling. It was terifying! I walked over there and they were pulled a part and i went up to the boy and was like 'hey, you hit girls?' and he said nothing, just looked at the girl with crazy eyes and heaving chest. It was insane! Serious fight, like grown men would have.

h8t shrt txts

2010-11-30T14:29:00.001-07:00

You know what I've always hated? When people shorten words in text messages. Hate it. I am all for it in spoken language, I enjoy throwing a wtf and an oh-em-gee out there every now and then but I have always hated it in text messages. It's just annoying. Write the whole word for goodness sake, it's not that hard and you look like a five year old when you shorten 'see you later' to 'cu l8r.' However, someone today said 'nfi' for not f-ing invited and I laughed really hard.

So you can imagine my chagrin when I find that people love shortening words to text in any language and it is just, if not more so annoying in French becuase half the time people can't spell right anyways and it's very hard to understand what they are saying. If you spoke french I would tell you about the awesome and longest text message ever from a faux type whos calls I've been ignoring for about a week now.

Anyways, it's cooling off here. It's now winter meaning once the sun goes down and in the early morning it is a downright chilly 75 degrees. Seriously though, that's chilly. I close my windows at night and sleep with a little blanket. In the mornings I leave my windows closed until about 8 or 9 and sometimes when I go outside I wear a jacket. Turns out 80 is a little cool and 85 is the perfect temperature. It's somewhere in between that right now in my house and I am perfectly comfortable, not even sweating a little bit. So the mornings and nights are cool/cold but the days still get hot around lunch time. But yes, 85 is cool. I'm in trouble when I get back to America.

What else, what else? They only make one type of cake here and there are many variations on it. Essentially it is just a fried ball of bread dough, kind of like how we (my family) make scones but bigger and with a ton more oil. So giant fried dough balls, sometimes you can get them with a spice in the middle or a spiced fish thing in the middle. It sounds gross but it's pretty good. This week though, I hit the jackpot, the women at my school who run the snack shack made fried bread dough balls with mashed up bananas. I forgot the name but oh man it's super delicious, a really greasy and bad for you banana bread. And I love banana bread and grease so it is just a match made in heaven.

Last weekend I bought a watermelon and was super excited to eat it and I did and then was super ill the rest of the day. Way too much watermelon.

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T14:27:00.001-07:00

I had a surprise Thanksgiving feast today. Right as I happened to get to Ouaga for my meetings tomorrow everyone was leaving to go over to a Peace Corps persons house. We arrived and it was a legitimate Thanksgiving feast, turkey, stuffing mashed potatoes, delicious salads and pie! Pumpkin and apple. I ate over 5 hours ago and am still sickeningly full, so I'd say it was a smashing success. Tomorrow morning were going over to someone else's house to eat breakfast- homemade bagels, quiche and cinnamon rolls and play board games. I love everyone right now.

Today in my English class I taught them the verbs to clean and to wash and they made sentences out of them about household chores and I was really impressed and happy with them so I applauded them. They really love it when I do that. Also I showed them how to make hand turkey's for thanksgiving and they thought that was the cat's pajamas.

In traditional Thanksgiving fashion I'd like to say a few things I'm thankful for. At the moment, I am thankful for overeating and looking forward to the overeating I'm going to be doing tomorrow. I told a neighbor about Thanksgiving and I said, 'it's a party where you eat to much.' He laughed and so did I, but really....it's true! I'm thankful for the internet (get ready for some more updated blog posts! and maybe some photos). I'm thankful for the great good fortune I had to be born in America. I'm thankful that I can say no to men. I'm thankful to be here and get a more than welcome change of perspective and turn my life around. I'm thankful for frozen bags of yogurt. I'm thankful for electricity. I'm thankful for little kids, if it weren't for adorable, hilarious children I would probably go crazy and cry all the time. I'm thankful for my family, I really love it when they call me. I'm thankful for surprise packages. I'm thankful for friends and memories. I'm thankful to have found an employment where at the end of the day or the week I can look back and feel proud of what I've done.

I uploaded a couple of photos

Why is the ocean so blue?

2010-11-13T01:47:00.000-07:00

Whenever you start learning a foreign language everyone says that the hardest thing to do is be able to tell a joke and have people get it and laugh, but once that happens you know you are in and good to go. Well that happened to me this week and it was really glorious.

I was chatting it up with my neighbors and they were complaining about a couple of things that I found to be ridiculous. One of which was how they aren’t allowed to sell things from their houses like yogurt or ice to the students because their houses are on the school grounds and it’s not allowed to sell things in a house that’s owned by the school. So they were complaining about that and I was a little upset because it also meant that I wasn’t going to be able to get yogurt anymore either which is unacceptable because it’s the highlight of my day when I get a delicious, partially frozen bag of yogurt. So, I was like ‘well if the problem is that you are using the school houses to sell then just put the fridge outside and then- no problems.’ Which was followed by a moment of contemplation, and laughter about how ‘yes! That’s the solution.’ Bingo!

Later that day after five hours of class, I saw my neighbor again and thought about how great a cold, delicious yogurt would be after a lot of talking and sweating. So I told her that I was going to come over later and that a yogurt was necessary but since you can’t sell it I’m going to give you some money as a gift and then you can give me a yogurt as a gift but the money and the yogurt are not related at all, which was followed by a moment of contemplation and then more genuine laughter. BOOM! Topical jokes, done and done.
Now I have to master the puns and word play, that’s going to be more of a challenge.

Another thing not about jokes but the things my neighbors were complaining about. They were talking about their servant girls. Servant girls are a huge, very common thing here. Like if you have a job at all, you probably have a servant girl, because you have a job and thus shouldn’t wash your clothes or clean anything.

Anyways, my neighbor was complaining about how her girl was in Ouaga again because she was sick and what was she going to do now because she has classes and the kids and she can’t watch the kids and work at the same time and then my other neighbor was like, ‘well maybe she’s pregnant.’ ‘Um, no I don’t think so.’ ‘Well I can help you look for a new girl until she gets back.’ ‘Well then I’d only have the new girl for a week and then let her go, but my old girl gets sick all the time and then doesn’t really work very hard so I kind of want a new one.’ Which was followed by my other neighbor talking about how one time she had a girl who stole from her and it was really hard, and you have to watch out for those girls because if you don’t get a good one they might steal from you or hit your kids or not work hard. But now god blessed her with a good girl, who works hard and doesn’t steal and you should really try to find one.

I sat next to them and listened quietly to the whole conversation blown away by how casually the idea of her being pregnant was said and then dismissed (me thinking that’s a huge deal but also how in the world would she find time to get knocked up?) and then the ridiculous nature of this conversation! Servant girls. Finding good ones. Ridiculous.

Insert a quote from The Fountain

2010-11-09T05:51:00.000-07:00

The other day there was a huge storm in my friend’s village, which felled a house in the night and killed the two people inside. Within the last month I’ve heard about 7 deaths of people young and old. Coming from my background where up till a few years ago no one I really knew had died, that is a staggering number.

Death is a weird thing in any culture. Not weird necessarily but definitely very unique and specific for each culture. Shortly before coming down here I read a fantastic book called The Undertaking by Thomas Lynch, an undertaker and poet. First and foremost you should all read it and also watch the PBS special and listen to him read excerpts from it. So fantastic. Anyways the book is really beautifully written and discusses the importance of grief and how funerals really aren’t for the dead but for the living, it’s a way for them to come to terms with the dead.

Here in Burkina they do things a little differently when it comes to funerals. First of all public displays of affection are almost non existent. In training, while discussing cultural norms we talked about how to show affection in relationships and how to tell if people even like each other. I still consider that a very difficult question, even after living with host families for three months. More often then not I could not see anyway that my host parents showed they loved each other much less even liked each other. Public displays of affection are not acceptable. Mostly the way married couples show their affection for each other is through small acts of kindness or even what I would call common courtesies, also if the husband spends a lot of time at home, that’s a good sign that there is affection.

The other day I was at a wedding anniversary, the couple has been married for 26 years and she got him a new pair of shoes, he said a public thank you to her in front of everyone and then they gave each other bisous, which is just the French way of kissing each cheek two times. That’s it.

Also a tradition which I really love is that while public displays of affection are not acceptable, it is culturally appropriate to hold hands with your friends. I love this. I love seeing two grown men holding hands and talking as they walk down the street. Just a sign of affection and friendship. Adorable.

Anyways, back on topic- because public displays of affection or emotion are pretty much non existent, grief, in my opinion, becomes fascinating. I have yet to understand how people here deal with their emotion, oft times I wonder if they have any (clearly I know they do, but it’s just so different and rare to see it, besides fake anger directed at misbehaving children. It’s hard to fathom how they keep it to themselves, coming from our culture where everything is loud and open). Typically when old people die there isn’t much fuss about it, they were old, they lived their life and it’s not unexpected or a surprise when they die. Usually, there’s not much fuss about it, that day word will get around and neighbors will come by to express their condolences and that’s that. Sometimes when the person is really well known and respected like a chief they could wait a year to do the funeral, in order to have a proper awesome sendoff. Now this was confusing to me and I asked repeated questions because I could not understand how they could wait a year to bury someone. But I think they bury the person right away but don’t hold the funeral services until they are prepared to have an awesome party and eat a lot of food, thus appropriately honoring the person and the life they lead.

However, if a child dies it’s a completely different story. During training my friends 9 year old host brother got sick with what they thought was malaria but really was typhoid and they found out too late and he died in the middle of the night. The next morning he found out and said he would go over after school to give his condolences, but the family said he should do it that morning. By the time he got back home at 5 that evening the son was buried and everything was finished. The next day the boy’s father called his dead son’s best friend and cousin over, and filled his arms with the dead boy’s clothes.

Coming from our culture where funerals take at least a couple of days, for people to hear about it, get there, and get everything ready for the wake and funeral service, a 12 hour turn around from death to burial of a child is incredible to me. I asked why it happened so fast and someone said that with little kids they bury them right away because it’s sad and they want to forget about it quicker. Leading me to a quote from The Undertaking,

“When we bury the old, we bury the known past, the past we imagine sometimes better than it was, but the past all the same, a portion of which we inhabited. Memory is the overwhelming theme, the eventual comfort.

But burying infants, we bury the future, unwieldy and unknown, full of promise and possibilities, outcomes punctuated by our rosy hopes. The grief has no borders, no limits, no known ends, and the little infant graves that edge the corners and fence rows of every cemetery are never quite big enough to contain that grief. Some sadnesses are permanent. Dead babies do not give us memories, they give us dreams.”

That idea, to bury kids fast so they can forget about it does not make any sense in my mind. I have to feel that I misunderstood, because to me you can’t forget about a child who dies. However, at the same wedding anniversary, while the husband was publicly thanking his wife and God for the 26 years they spend together, he mentioned all the good times they had, all the blessing and briefly touched on the trials. One of which sounded again to me like a son who died in a car accident only a year ago. I felt I misunderstood. I now know this family quite well, I have met everyone and am friendly with all the kids who are about my age, they are very kind to me and talk about themselves and ask about my family, and they never once mentioned another son or brother. Surely I misunderstood. Surely when someone dies young they don’t go into a book where no one mentions their name again or speaks about them. Surely they aren’t forgotten. Surely I misunderstood.

A room with a view

2010-11-04T05:49:00.003-06:00

Let yourself go.

Pull out from the depths those thoughts that you do not understand,

and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them.

- E.M.Forester

Before coming here I often thought about what was going to be the hardest thing and what terrified me. A friend told me it didn’t matter and I shouldn’t waste my time doing that because once I got here it would end up being something that I never even thought of, which is absolutely true.

I thought I would have a lot more trouble being the only white person and being stared at all the time. And while I do not like it at all, it doesn’t really bother me. I don’t miss movies as much as I thought I would. But oh man do I miss food, something that I never considered. My first two months in country almost every night I would dream about food and I would wake up so grumpy to only have bread for breakfast. Now I never think about it, because what’s the point? I’m not going to get it and it just makes me sad. But I do get so excited when I can go into town and eat a hamburger or a pizza and while I’m eating discuss what pizza is best in

America

or how I would love a strawberry lemonade, fries and a giant hamburger from Red Robin right now instead of this pathetic imitation.

The most challenging thing has been working on changing my perspective about what matters. It’s really funny they way fellow volunteers talk about things. In training we just talked about what we did in America, why we came here, what we hope to do afterwards and weird things that have happened to us since we’d arrived. When we meet volunteers who have been here for six months, they talk about their village and what life is like there (it’s incredible how different each experience is), those who have been here for a year just want to talk about America and what’s going on over there, and did you bring any new music or movies, or what happened in these tv shows and when you’d ask them how they felt about being half way done and what they were going to do at the end, they’d get quiet and a little sad and suddenly looked stressed out, because who knows? That’s a terribly difficult decision and they’d always talk about how they didn’t know if they’d be able to make it back in America, obviously they were so excited and could name exactly what they would eat and who they would see and what they would do the first weekend, but everyone is rude there and no one knows what it’s like here or can comprehend their experiences.

But gradually things change, slip out of focus and seem to not matter.

And as I sit in my courtyard, marveling yet again at the simple life children lead as they run barefoot kicking a tattered soccer ball, saying hi to my neighbor, asking if they slept alright and if everything is going well with their family, I receive a little shock when I think about the lives people are living halfway around the world. And I hope that if they knew what it was like here, people would behave so much differently, and surely if they saw what I saw or heard what I heard they couldn’t sit in their houses and only think about their day, or the things that annoy them or avoid listening to the news. Surely they would feel compelled to do something. How could you not? When you have so much and people here have so little and it’s so easy, so incredibly easy to change a life or at least make a life a little easier.

And then I’m troubled as I struggle to forget about they way I lived in America and try to adopt the lifestyle here and try to be friendly and open and loving, hoping that one day I won’t have to try. But it’s hard. I want to sit in my house alone and read a book and not talk to anyone. It’s so much easier that way. Being outside requires me to give so much more. And that’s it, that’s the thing that’s the hardest. It’s working against 23 spoiled years growing up in America, where you have the luxury to be self possessed and self centered, where everyone can think only about themselves and turn the phone off and watch tv all day if they want to and live only for yourself. And then I’m terrified that if I do figure out how to love people and really care, that once I leave it’ll evaporate and I’ll go back to living a carefree, selfish life never thinking that other people live differently then me.

Weird Wild World

2010-10-31T03:05:00.000-06:00

While chatting with a neighbor yesterday I learned another interesting piece of information about Burkinabe culture. Apparently, when a woman gets pregnant but the man denies that the baby is his, it always happens that once the baby is born it looks exactly like his father- so the guy can no longer deny that it isn’t his child because it is an exact photocopy. Nice.

So this post is current, I'm typing it up right now and will then post it. Two days in a row! So lucky. I'm sitting here in the transit house in the capital downloading podcasts to listen to at site, wishing people were awake in america and on gchat, typing up this blog post and overhearing the others watching the newest episodes of Glee (that show has really gone downhill, but it's still entertaining. Modern Family on the other hand, still hilarious). This week is the international arts show here in Ouaga, it includes all the west african countries and happens here every two years. We went yesterday and I"m going back today because holy cow it's amazing. Makes me wish I had a ton of money because then I'd buy you a ton of sweet stuff and then send it to you and you'd be all about it. There's jewelry, traditional masks, painting, tapestries, i saw a really sweet chess set made out of granite, really awesome, some statues carved out of wood, animal horns, stone tons of stuff. I'm going to steal my friends pictures and then upload them at some time later.

Finished my first month of teaching and all in all it went really well. This week had a bit of a break through with the students, think they are becoming more comfortable with me and no nearly as terrified to speak to me, which is great because I can't do my job if no one talks to me/is terrified of me. And now it's november and then suddenly it'll be december and then the first trimester will be over and everyone will be back in Ouaga for more training and a christmas party and then a new years celebration and then it'll be 2011 and that's crazy. Days go by pretty slowly but weeks go by really fast. I'm getting along really well with my neighbors/fellow teachers, men bother me all the time but I think I've figured out how to deal with their pesky advances, and all in all things are great.

And I'd just like to end on this note, a girl walked into the transit house wearing a barack obama patterened shirt, basically just a shirt with barack obama's face on it several times, it's really obnoxious but people here really love it.

Dingo at my baby!

2010-10-30T05:48:00.000-06:00

So my behind me neighbors are pretty sweet. The first time I met the husband, I was out with some other neighbors helping them peel potatoes. They kept talking about how one of the dogs was being very “aggressive” and then the son full on hit the dog with a stick slightly smaller than a baseball bat. To which all of the girls around me, including myself, went ‘Whoa! Don’t!’ So hard! That poor little dog. A few minutes later the dog had run off and the neighbor walks by carrying a shot gun.

‘Whoa whoa whoa whoa. What’s going on? What are you doing with that?’ I ask, my mind trying not to be alarmed and figuring out how it is possible someone here has a gun.

‘Oh that dog has rabies. So it could hurt someone and will die anyways, so I’m going to shoot it. Is that bad?’

I blankly stare back and really just manage to grunt something, because I have no idea what words to use to respond to that.

That was that, I presume he killed that dog. A few days later I see him come home in the evening holding a dead bird in his hand and apparently the equivalent to a bb gun in his hand. I followed him home, chatting about that and the dead bird and how apparently he likes to hunt but he can only do it from the left side because one of his eyes are bad. And he uses the bb gun because it’s not really dangerous. He’s also the Physics/Chemistry teacher at the school. He talked to me about hearts the other day and asked if I was any good and knew any strategies and I was like…of course I do. And then we talked about more games and apparently they have checkers and battleship here, which I am very excited to play with him. The only other game I’ve learned is a card game that doesn’t seem to have any rules or a point.

His wife teaches sowing, is from Cote d’Ivoire and we had a really interesting conversation about how it was hard for her to move here because people aren’t as nice here as they are there and how I thought that was incredible since to me everyone is the nicest person I’ve ever met. She also talks with a bit of a lisp and it’s charming. They have two kids that are adorable and really hilarious.

Most importantly though, his mom lives with them and she is educated. It’s kind of incredible how rare that is. I didn’t even realize it was rare until I met her and then realized I hadn’t met another old lady who could speak French well, had all her teeth and had clearly been to school. It could be because she grew up in Cote d’Ivoire and not here but still, all I want to do is ask her a million questions.

Yesterday she was telling me about a beach in Cote d’Ivoire, so beautiful that it was clear God loved us. She also told me a lot about the taxis there and how they worked. She told me about some leaves that she made into palm oil (the only oil ever used here and also I feel like ever single tree here people take the leaves, and can make something to eat out of it, it’s incredible). She is amazingly vigorous and spry for a lady probably in her 70s or 80s who has 8 full grown children. A few who live in Marseilles and Belgium, places she’s visited, which is yet again astounding to me. And now she’s here, staying with her son for a while, enjoying life. I stayed for dinner one evening and they opened a bottle of wine and I asked if it was a party and she was like, ‘no I just like a little of the blood of Christ before I go to bed, it helps me sleep well and have great dreams.’ Fantastic.

I hope they don’t get sick of me because I think they already are my favorite.

Feeling adult-ish

2010-10-25T05:47:00.000-06:00

Great news team, living on my own is everything I always dreamed it would be. Seriously, since going to college all I wanted was a place of my own. A private room would no longer cut it; I wanted a place without roommates, a place where I was the only one who used the bathroom, a place where all the food in the fridge was mine. I used to day dream about such a place. It may seem silly, I know, but in my mind having a place of my own was like a right of passage, a sign that I was a fully functioning adult. And now I have it, in West Africa of all places. Granted there is no fridge, or television or air conditioning or really any furniture of any kind, but it’s all mine. Inside those walls I can wear whatever I want, listen to the same song over and over and over and over again, I can read all morning, I can do any sort of weird work-out I want and make as much noise as I want because I am the only one in there. It’s so wonderful, just like I always thought it would be.

So while I’ve made the leap forward, and have my own place and a real, adult job that doesn’t involve busing tables or taking orders, why is it that I still feel like a child? Oh I know why, it’s because I currently live in

Burkina Faso

, I’m less then 30, unmarried and a woman.

The other day we had our teachers meeting, where all the teachers get together and discuss a little of the last school year and get ready for this school year. It was the first time I had seen all the teachers at my school and also the first time many of them had seen me. So naturally, they talked about me for a while. In Mooré, with vague, incomplete french translations, as if I wasn’t there. They talked about how since I was a woman and single they needed to be careful visiting me or that men needed to be careful visiting me, or that no one should come inside my house but of course it’s okay to chat with me, or maybe watch out for me and make sure no men try to take advantage of me, or something along those lines, and then looking at me expectantly with a pointed ou bien? And me staring back, mouth slightly open with a confused look on my face as my brain tries to catch up on everything that has just been said and then works to translate a response…and then they keep talking. Now it seems while I can do my own laundry by hand, surely we should find her someone to clean the house and the yard -- no she can clean the yard herself -- no she can clean the house herself but not the yard, no, surely not the yard, let’s find someone to do that for her -- no if she wants to clean the yard herself, let her do it, let’s just give her the tools that she needs -- no I think we should find some kids to at least clean her yard for her.

It’s manifested in neighbors brining over plates of food, or looking at me dubiously when I’m cooking some American looking food in the kitchen, or always telling me to come over and watch them cook and telling me to eat more and eat more, but really eat more or you’ll get sick. Granted in a different mood these things are looked at as a huge blessing, with wonderment at the generosity and fraternity that people here show to an undying degree. Always looking out for me, seeing if there is anything I need and more than willing to give me the shirt off their back if I need it. But after 4 hours of discussing the importance of ending class on time and good discipline in the classroom, I just cannot see it in that light.

I am going to be so awkward when I come home

2010-10-20T05:45:00.000-06:00

An important part of life, important in terms of safety for me but also just important because that’s all people really do, is chatting. Just sitting around chatting. For hours. In host families I always thought it was funny and kind of adorable how neighbors or friends would always manage to come over around meal time, maybe ask two questions and say a few things, then hang out, watch television, get fed and then abruptly leave. To me, such a pointless visit and clearly they did it just to get food. But that’s how it works here and it’s perfectly acceptable.

Which is great because I have exploited it to its fullest. Being blessed to live and work at a rich school where all the teachers live like functionaries with precious perks like guns or televisions or drinking wine, everyone has a refrigerator, one family has a microwave which blew my mind when I saw it. So because they have money I don’t feel bad hanging around for dinner, when I don’t feel like cooking. It works perfectly because I need to visit and be seen and they love having you around even if you don’t do or say anything. Which is very awkward to me, to go over to a neighbors house, sit in their yard and watch the kids play or watch the servant girl cook something and sit there not really talking. But it’s nice and they like the company. It baffles me, but I’m going to get so good at it and be so awkward when I come home. It makes me laugh just to think about that future me, who will find sitting in silence with another person for hours, exchanging a few words, rarely looking at each other and feeling perfectly satisfied with that human interaction.

Granted we don’t have to sit in awkward silence. I have about one million questions I want to ask each person, but I just can’t bring myself to ask a perfect stranger about their hopes and dreams, what they want from life, are they happy, do they get jealous, what have you heard about America, why are you a teacher, what’s your dream job, what’s your dream house, do you like movies, do you read, what do you think about me, what do you think about foreigners, do you want to travel, what terrifies you? These and many more are questions that I want to ask but I just can’t yet bring myself to ask such probing personal questions. Also, I know that I’d stumble over my words and only understand half the answer they give and I want to understand all of it and build off that and talk more and deeper about things. It’s hard.

So more often then not, I’m not brave or comfortable enough to ask the seemingly random probing personal questions to strangers so we sit in silence, because its summer and we haven’t done anything in a day so there’s no new stories to talk about and we really have nothing in common so small talk is basically out of the question.

I miss carpet

2010-10-14T05:44:00.001-06:00

The other day I went down to visit my closest neighbors Dwight and Mari. I realized that it was the first time that I’d seen another white person in three weeks. Definitely a first. It was a really great visit and interesting to realize that compared to their village I live in the middle of nowhere with absolutely nothing (at least I’ll be easily able to save a lot of money to travel with during the summer). As I biked through town, I was in awe at the large number of restaurants, bars and little stores that lined the seemingly never-ending main road. My town has one bar, maybe two hole-in-the-wall-I’m-not-prepared-to-eat-there-yet-restaurants and one tiny store and I can bike the length of town in less then 8 minutes. It also happened to be market day and once again I was shocked by the huge numbers of people, the stands, the spices and the veggies! Oh, the glorious veggies! I got spinach and cucumbers and green peppers that are larger then a quarter. Mari made delicious shrimp fired rice, I had cold water a plenty, dried mangoes, frozen delicious yogurt, an apple and pineapple, and more veggies and then they gave me some to take home! Oh it was a glorious day, so wonderful to eat so well and speak English and talk about crazy things that have or haven’t happened in the three weeks since we’d all been together.

I also got a good amount of exercise and slept very well that night despite the heat. And I may have forgotten to put on sunscreen and may have gotten a sizeable sunburn. But what does that matter when for dinner I can eat a salad! A salad I tell you! Not spaghetti with only onions and tomatoes, but a salad with different, delicious veggies. And what’s that? Tomorrow for breakfast I could have an omelet with all those veggies and spinach? Too good to be true! I am going to eat very well this weekend and enjoy apples instead of just bananas as a fruit source. Yes, next week it will back to the same old same old, but this weekend I will live it up and enjoy all the vitamins I’m getting from fresh veggies instead of eating tomatoes and onions that have been boiling in oil for hours and have lost almost all nutritional value.

I will also look forward to the approaching weekend (which as you read this has already come and gone, because how else would you be reading this?), when I can see more friends, speak more English, tell/hear more ridiculous stories, use the internet and eat oh so well for a day or two before coming back down to real life again.

I would love a cold Dr. Pepper

2010-10-09T05:42:00.000-06:00

For a sweet language activity during training we had to ask around and find some superstitions in the Burkinabé culture. Turns out there are a lot and most of them are really hilarious. Here for your amusement I have made a list. Enjoy.

Don’t whistle at night because it will attract genies and bad spirits.
Don’t travel with a duck; it is bad luck so if you have to travel with a duck be sure to wound it before you go.
Also travelling with honey is bad luck. Be sure to tell the driver you are carrying honey and he will put a little honey on each of the wheels and then you’ll be fine.
Pregnant woman should not eat chicken eggs because their children will grow up to be thieves.
Pregnant women shouldn’t eat dairy or they will get fat.
Pregnant women shouldn’t shower outside at night or the genies will do bad things to their baby, like take it’s spirit or give it a genie spirit or something like that, I’m not real sure what the reason was for the one but it had something to do with genies.
Don’t travel with a cadaver, it’s bad luck. So if you happen to die in a car accident you should be buried there, because if they take the corpse back to the house someone else will also die. Same thing if someone commits suicide, you should bury them where you find them because if you take them to your house then someone else will commit suicide. Bad luck all around with cadavers turns out.
If two brothers intentionally sleep with the same woman, one of them will die.
If you give money to one twin be sure to give the same amount to the other one otherwise the one you didn’t give money to will put a curse on you.
If you put garlic in your house it will chase the genies/bad spirits away.
The first son of the Mossi chief cannot eat chicken eggs because he will have bad luck.
If a woman has twins, she has to take them around begging or possibly the twins will take her begging. They think a lot of weird stuff with twins.
Don’t play cards when it’s raining.
Don’t throw hot liquids on the ground because it will disturb the spirits and make the genies mad. It’s better to wait for the liquid to cool and then throw it out.
If you hit a dog while driving, don’t look back at it or you will hit a person.
Don’t shine your flashlight at the sky at night because God thinks it’s rude.
If you lose a tooth, throw it at the sky (or on the roof?) and the next day you’ll get a rooster.
If a baby sucks on its feet a grandmother will die.
If your eye twitches you will see someone you haven’t seen in a while.
If you have a mole on your eye you will kill your grandparents.
If your left hand itches you won’t have a lot of money but if your right hand itches you’ll be rich.
It’s good luck if a baby pees on you.
And my personal favorite: If you get hit by lightening, you may have stolen something.

Natural peanut butter is delicious

2010-10-04T05:39:00.003-06:00

I want a poem to be beyond me.

I want it to be something that transfers a feeling
I don’t quite understand the limits of.”

- Louis Simpson

So even though I know you all want to hear about Africa, I have to write a little about some of the books I’ve been reading, because I can and it’s interesting and I’ll throw in some things about Africa to make it worth your time.

Lately I have really been aching for some good poetry. Before I left I made a list of essential books I wanted to bring with me, one of which was a book of poetry but it didn’t seem as important at the time and I left it out. Bad idea me, bad, terrible idea. I don’t often get the need to read poetry but when I do it is nearly overwhelming. Luckily, my need has partially been met by the few Writer’s Almanac podcasts I had saved up on my ipod. Even if you don’t like poetry, just listening to Garrison Keilors voice reading them makes you want to love it. Man, can that man read a poem! He can really tear your heart right out of your chest, it’s fantastic. If you want here is one of my current favorites.

I’m hoping to find something poetic to make my heart ache when I go into town, and if anyone really loves me they could send me Sailing Around the Moon by Billy Collins and Necessary Light by Patricia Fargnoli. I think I might love them.

Since I’m poem less, I have had had to resort to listening repeatedly to the saddest songs I have over and over again. This week it’s been Joe Purdy’s “The Pretenders.” I’ve listened to it at least 50 times. Genius.

I just finished reading Vladimir Nabokov’s autobiography Speak, Memory. Quite possibly the best autobiography I have ever read, and while I didn’t know it before the only way an autobiography should be written. It isn’t built on facts of life and constructed stories of actions in the past, important things that happened each year, but just memories - memories that are never fully complete, but glimpses of color, movement, and feeling. Things that separate are nearly meaningless, but when placed together give you the idea of a person and a season, the happiness of a summer or the obsessions of youth. It’s dedicated to his wife and near the end he speaks directly to her about their son and says some really fantastic things about parenthood from the perspective of a father.

One of the greatest tragedies here, in my opinion, is that no one reads. Ever. During training we were told a joke about how there was supposed to be a meeting in one room for the teachers of a school, but someone else was in there at the time, so someone put up a sign saying the meeting had changed locations and was in the next room. But people went up to the door, saw it full of other people and then just went home. The person in charge of the meeting came out of the other room and told someone what had happened. Within 20 minutes, everyone was there after having received a phone call or been told in person what had happened. While no one ever reads, the grapevine is working in full force.

It’s important information to have, because it’s hard to notice when things are missing. Who would notice that there aren’t signs or posters anywhere? It is however very easy to notice that no one reads, especially in the summer when there isn’t anything to do. People clean, prepare to cook, cook, nap, watch a little television, prepare to cook, cook, chat and then sleep. That is incredibly boring to me, also I don’t have a television and the television that they do watch is the most boring stuff ever, in the history of the world. So I sit in my courtyard and read, and everyday someone will pass by and chat and invariably say ‘ah, reading again. Isn’t that tiring?’ Nope, it’s pretty relaxing actually. ‘Huh…well, it’s not easy.’

It’s a bummer really. There aren’t resources available here. There are notebooks available for school, but unless you are lucky or rich there aren’t any textbooks, which means that the notes you take in class usually read like a users manual and you can see people rereading their school notebooks years later remembering all the things they learned and they can because they are the most precise, exact notes anyone has ever written. It’s kind of incredible and takes them forever to write things down. But you have to do it, because otherwise there is no way for them to be reminded of it. With no text books, you have to take exact notes.

We’re told that we are the greatest resource for education here in Burkina; because we have the knowledge and the critical thinking skills and the imagination to teach physics or chemistry with just a chalkboard and no other resources. It’s an exciting challenge but so disappointing when you can’t explain the joys of reading in a way that people will understand. There isn’t reading for fun, there are no books, and there isn’t any interest in learning about the joy one can get from the way words feel as you say them or the truth in a sentence so well written that it hurts. They don’t care to understand that possibility, or at least I have yet to find it, or maybe it’s really not important.

Nonetheless a little part of me cries when I think, if only these kids kept a journal, they could write the most fascinating novels and the most heart breaking poems later on in life. Such a unique perspective that rarely gets told.

Supplies!

2010-09-30T17:37:00.001-06:00

Things I hated in America but now love/am incredibly excited when I get.

Plain yogurt. Or any kind of yogurt really, but I especially hated plain yogurt. Here it’s just really exciting to get any sort of dairy product and when it’s partially frozen -- Delightful!
Tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes on anything, especially sandwiches, never really liked biting into them; here it’s one of the only veggies I can get regularly besides onions so I put them on everything.
Vegetables in general and salads. I never really thought about them in America because they were everywhere, but here having a meal that doesn’t consist of something fried for hours in oil, but is instead fresh, clean and just looks healthy to eat is really a treat.
Showering. I used to hate showering. It was so much work. Changing clothes, getting dressed again, looking sort of presentable, doing your hair…So much work. Here, cold showers wake you up the morning, and cold showers are really delightful at the end of a hot day and make sleeping so much more comfortable. I look forward to them; sometimes I even take three in one day not one every three days, three in one day. Incredible.
Ice. Not that I hated it in America, but I do appreciate it so much more now.
Skirts/dresses. Nope, that’s a lie. I still hate them, but I am forced to wear them everyday to teach/be respected/a woman.
Cooking. I avoided it like the plague. Now I like doing it, because I know what goes into my food, I know it’s clean, and it passes the time. Am I any better at cooking? Please, don’t be ridiculous. I’m still terrible but I eat it anyways, and I eat it with a smile on my face.
Chicken. I did not hate it in America, but oh man do I get excited when I know I will be eating some chicken! It’s a spendy bird here and when you are used to eating dried fish, or meat that is mostly bones and fat and have no idea what animal it came from, it is really exciting to eat chicken and have it taste…like chicken. Such a wonderful flavor that you all take such advantage of.

I’m sure there are many more things but I can’t think of them right now.

Things I still love – reading and garlic. Oh garlic, you make everything taste so much better! And reading and books and poetry, I could blog about you all day long. Unfortunately, no one wants to hear about that, they just want to hear about Africa. Dummies.

You're welcome

2010-08-25T13:15:00.000-06:00

Great news team, I uploaded some photos today. To see all of them visit my picasa page, also for those parents of other Volunteers there are a couple of the whole group so chances are high you will see your child.

And here's a quick preview of the best ones, first up is me shaving my head.

A partial shot of my computer lab at school.

Hanging out with the sacred crocodiles of Sabou.

The whole secondary ed family plus language teachers with the crocs.

Me, and my current hair, with my host dad, Ali.

With my wonderful language teachers, the awesome Pengwende, Awa and Alima.

The courtyard of my host family house.

A view of the street.

Tonight is our last night here in Koudougou and then we are off to swear in and then on Sunday I'll be at my site and moving into my new home!

2010-08-20T02:28:00.002-06:00

One of the greatest things about being sick is that you get to skip class and stay home all day and read. Granted your fun, relaxing day is a little ruined by the fact that you are sick, feel like you could die and have to use the bathroom every 5 mintues, but hey! at least you aren't in language class and can instead sit in your courtyard, ignore the children coming in to stare at you and just enjoy a nice novel in the shade.

I've had the lucky opportunity to do that this week and suddenly with Model School over I have more free time to spend ignoring other people, sprawl out on a bench and enjoy an incredibly violent awesome novel and another delightful one. First off I read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. Oh man, what a great book! Very exciting. My friend here had it and asked if I wanted to reat it, I took one look at a quote on the back that compared it to a mixture between an Ingmar Bergman film and Thomas Harris's Silence of the Lambs and immediately started reading it. I mean come on, what a great mixture! Also interesting note in Swedish the title translates directly into Men Who Hate Women, if you've read the book I highly doubt you can dispute that as a very fitting title. Anyways it was very entertaining and anyone who loves me is more than welcome to send me the next two books in the series. Also please read this incredibly interesting NYTimes article about the author and his family.

Following that I started reading Julie Child's My Life in France and oh man what a delightful little memoir! You should really all read this book. It's been pretty great except that now every night I have the most wonderful/horrible dreams about delicious food that I cannot eat for several years, it's a real tragedy and sometimes I wake up a little grumpy. However I did love this particular quote- "The sweetness and generosity and politeness and gentleness and humanity of the French has shown me how lovely life can be if one takes time to be friendly." I can't necessarily say if that still holds in France today, but I can definately say that that is the way things are here in Burkina. It never ceases to suprise me how incredibly welcoming and friendly people are here, it really does make life so much more enjoyable when you take a little time to be polite, courteous and friendly. Hopefully I'll get so used to it here that it'll stick with me throughout my life, it's definately a trait most Americans lack and one that can easily make life a million times happier.

The ending of the begining

2010-08-18T05:15:00.000-06:00

Well folks, stage is almost over. I feel pretty darn great about that all in all let's be honest. I know that I have been a terrible blogger but I’m going to use the excuse that I’ve just been getting you used to not hearing from me months at a time because that’s probably how it will be once I get to site. Of course you could always call me and talk to me whenever you want but few of you have chosen to show your love in that way… Anyways, Model School is just about over, my students had their final test yesterday and I gave them their grades this morning and told them to come back on Friday for the party. They asked if I was going to give them a gift and I said “What?! You want to give me a gift! Of course you can do that!” (Oh second languages, how I love pretending to misunderstand you.)

All in all Model School has been really great. I was successfully insanely worried and stressed about it, but once we got down to it and taught everyday, I realized that even speaking French I’m still awesome and can teach all about computers and blow people’s minds. Yes that is exaggeration, but it went well and I enjoyed it enough that I am not at all dreading being a teacher for the next two years, in fact I’m rather looking forward to it.

Some of you may be wondering what exactly I will be doing for the next two years, I know we were all pretty confused when I received my invitation about the ambiguous nature of what an IT teacher would teach in Africa and what computer literacy actually meant. Well for Model School I had a small class (13 students) of older people I’d say ages ranged from 20 to somewhere in their 40s and we went over the different parts of the computer, what all those parts are called and how they work, the different types of clicks, these computers all have Windows on them so we talked about the desktop, how computers are laid out and how to find stuff, what folders are, what a file is, how to type, important keys on the keyboard and how they work, talked a little about Word and how to change font size, style, save things and then a tiny little bit with the internet. They had a lot of trouble understanding what a file is and how it was different from a folder, I’m not really sure they grasped the organizational structure of the computer, I thought I taught it well but once I had them save a Word document and close it, then ask them to find it and open it again I just got a bunch of confused, blank faces staring back at me. We did all that in three weeks. Now I’ve been told that if I were lucky I’d be able to cover all of that in one full school year at site.

It’s pretty crazy how much we take advantage of the things we know when it comes to computers. Several of my students still at the end of three weeks had the hardest time double clicking a mouse. Or if the mouse was a the edge of the table but they still needed to move it across the screen they cannot fathom the fact that you can just pick the mouse up and place it down in a different spot and get that cursor to move where you want it to go. And don’t even get me started on click and dragging. To us these are the most basic things in the entire world and I’m not going to lie, it’s incredibly comical to see someone hitting the mouse buttons and getting incredibly frustrated when all they succeed in doing is highlighting the name instead of opening a folder. But even with all that, barely being able to type their name or open a folder they can with rapid, fast as lightening speed find and download porn from the internet. True story.

So that’s that. Model School is over, on the 27th I’ll be sworn in as a Volunteer and then two days later I’ll be shipped off to my site to get started moving in, meeting the neighbors, fixing some computers and doing a lot of lesson planning. I’m very ready for the real business to begin. Bring it on Africa. Bring it.

Never trust a fart

2010-08-01T11:22:00.000-06:00

Alrighty, so much to say, so little time to say it in.

First and foremost, I have not uploaded any photos to the interwebs because Im super lazy and the internet is slow and I don't feel like waiting for them to upload. But if you would like to see some photos of Africa, check out Joeys blog on the blog list to your right or see my new shaved head haircut. Truth, I shaved my head when I got here because it was really hot and because I could and I'm pretty bad ass. Nothing new there, right? You may be wondering why this is the first time you've heard of this since I did it almost two months ago. Well I mailed a chunk of my hair to my mom in America and that took a long time to arrive, in order to have the maximum affect, no word could get out about my awesome new look. She "loved" it. Now its significantly longer and I daily rock a sweet fohawk that everyone loves. Be jealous you can't see it.

Secondly, check out this website and feel free to donate to your dogooder hearts content. It's a great cause and a little goes a long way in Burkina (note I am not in any of the pictures so don't waste your time looking for me, but still look at them if you want).

Tertiary (look how good my english still is), today I went to the market with my mom and I watched a chicken get its throat cut, bleed out, de plumed, and we took it home, cut it up a bit and then I ate it for lunch. It was really intense and I'm not yet sure how I feel about it. I completed my first week of model school, teaching in french for an hour everday and it went over pretty darn well. This week I have to make up a test and then give it to them in addition to continuing to teach them in french. It's pretty intense and I really should be doing that right now instead of writing this blog post, but I thought you deserved something, interwebs.

So there you go! One day I'll write a real blog post full of interesting social commentary, and thoughtful musings about life in Burkina Faso but you'll have to continue to wait for that until I have the time. Just know that I do have some really interesting and fascinating thoughtful musings and when I do sit down and write them you'll be glad you waited. <3

I do not dig diarrhea

2010-07-11T08:19:00.000-06:00

Not that I want your world to be shattered, but yes I am blogging right you. You are one lucky duck, internet.

While I have a million things to talk about, I think I can choose just two topics and stick to it for this blog post. We got our site announcements on Friday and I taught my first lesson in front of students yesterday. Yeah. BIG news. So for site announcements, it was a really adorable exercise were the trainers drew a big map of Burkina on the ground, blindfolded us all, lead us to our city and then we removed the blindfold and were able to see our site and our neighbors.

My site is pretty close to Ouagadougou or Ouaga as the cool kids call it (ie everyone) and I am the first volunteer there. Yep, breaking ground, setting the bar high. What I know about my site right now is that the school is half public/half private, meaning there wasn't a school there so a church came in and petitioned the government so it's half run by the church and the other half not, potential meaning they have more money then a public school and less then a full private school, hence me working there and them having 20 possibly working computers.

We visit our sites this week so I'll meet my native counterpart who will probably be a teacher at the school and then we'll go down together to my site where I'll be introduced to all the big wigs of the city and see my living accommodations and most importantly my school and the computer lab. I'm really excited to see my new home and I am really looking forward to being the first volunteer there and setting the standard of awesomeness and excellence that everyone else will have to struggle to reach. But more on that after I visit, I have been told that my site has the best milk in Burkina, but he mentioned two animals in French that wasn't cow or goat so I have no idea what other animals it could be.

Teaching yesterday was pretty darn exciting. Yes it is super fun to teach teens how to use a keyboard when you don't have one. It's also super fun when you draw a really nice/classy keyboard but not in sharpee so no one can see it unless they sit in the front row. It's also really fun when you plan your lesson around students who have never seen a computer in their life and then teaching a bunch of rich Ouaga kids who know exactly what a keyboard is and how it works. But while I was super nervous and had a mini panic attack when two buses full of kids showed up, I was solid as a freaking rock when I got up in front of them. In other news, teaching in French is hard and it is so easy to get flustered/embarrassed/not be intimidating. But this week we have site visit and then we move into our new training site the following week and then the last month of training is model school, where I will have at least 10 full lessons with students! Yikes/Yay!

Hope all is well with all of you and yes, I do hate every single one of you for not emailing me/snail mailing me/texting/calling me. <3

hot hot heat

2010-06-28T03:37:00.000-06:00

Great news, it rained on Friday and has remained relatively cool since then, which means that my life is much more comfortable and I dont wake up feeling disgusting.

We practice doing some peer teaching this week and then real life teaching in French happens a couple weeks after that. All I can say about that is yikes and eek. Next week we find out where our sites are though and then we get to go visit them, Im really looking forward to this, itll be much eaiser to plan lessons and figure out how everything is going to work once I know what resources are available to me.

But things are going well and yeah I dont know what to write because theres just too much. Hope everything is great there in the states. Later nerds.

Greetings from Africa!

2010-06-18T11:45:00.000-06:00

It’s pretty intense. There is so much I could blog about that I literally have no idea what to blog about. First off though, I got my cell phone and I would love it if you called or texted me. My number is on the side and basically Monday-Friday Im in class till 5pm, but Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday I’m free and will hopefully answer, maybe text before you call so I know.
Anyways here are some fun African things.
Last night it was 95 degrees in my room when I went in to go to bed.

The other day for lunch I had a bowl of rice with fish sauce and it was as if they took a fish and just cut a middle piece out and then put it in there. Trying not to look to closely at it, it was just a section of fish with bones/innards intact. Yum.

I know so much about poo and diarrhea and think/talk about it all the time, it’s a little bit out of control.

I love watching the World Cup.

Coke here is super good- it’s made with real sugar, and I have no idea why we put up with the crap they give us in the US, because it sucks compared to this.

Little kids really love white people and will yell at you and follow you around and just look at you and laugh as if you were the funniest person in the entire world.

I’m really happy to be here and I love computers and I’m excited to teach these kids about them. We were discussing today what old computer games we used to play like duck hunt, Keen, Oregon Trail and others?

This morning my family played a Phil Collins concert dvd for me. It was the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. Straight from 198something. It was so incredible. They were like ‘do you like this?’ and I said ‘hell yeah I do.’

That’s all for now folks, I’ll try to keep this up as best I can but it depends, I don’t often have access to a computer, just know that I’m living the dream and you should all call me at some point, I’ll probably cry when I hear your voice (I kid you not) but I’m doing great. No worries.

And away we go

2010-06-05T22:05:00.000-06:00

So I'm leaving tomorrow morning. Wednesday at 8:00 pm I'll be stepping down on African turf. All in all I'm doing pretty well. I freaked out like nobody's business on Friday, but was talked down and the rest of Friday and today went by like it wasn't a big deal at all I was about to go live in Africa for two years.

I don't know what to say really, I have no thought in my head except a need to get things moving along before whatever is ailing my stomach, either an anxiety induced ulcer or developing sickness, sends me over the edge. Let's just say I'm ready to start this adventure. Ready to hit the ground running. I probably won't be able to post again till Saturday or Sunday at the earliest and from then on who knows how often it will be. But rest assured, I will post as often as I can and keep you all informed on the awesome/terrifying/African incidents in my life.

Peace out America.

Oh movies how I will miss you

2010-06-02T22:44:00.002-06:00

"I love you, don't you know it? I'd like to die in your arms, that's my one great wish."

Jeremy Irons you gorgeous, brilliant man. I just watched Georgia O'Keeffe and it was fantastic. You should all see it. I love movies about famous people, especially artists, especially if there is love involved whether it be good or bad or both. It's just an adorable, interesting movie. And it made me want to move to New Mexico which is a thing I never thought would happen. Red Box it.

Deeply unattractive but love that body

2010-05-27T13:39:00.002-06:00

One of the great things about being back in Oregon is a little thing called 'cooperative libraries.' It's genius really and one of the greatest things ever. Whereas in Utah libraries don't share resources, here they sure do. Which meant that last time I was home I watched all of The West Wing, now I'm renting movies for free and enjoying A Bit of Fry and Laurie, because really who doesn't love a pair of fast talking, intelligent Brits? Especially if those two are Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, speaking of Hugh Laurie how about that House finale? Good times television, good times.

Anyways, here are a couple of great clips from that show. Enjoy it and laugh.
also

and

I may or may not want to marry this person

2010-05-19T11:40:00.001-06:00

I just found this and am a little bit in love. And you can bet I will be wearing my nerdy Ts as well.

Hahaha, he did a video about Settlers of Catan, which is also adorable. So I'm pretty sure by this time next month we are going to be best friends.

I'm going to the DMV today to get my drivers license renewed (blurg), but while I'm there I'm going to read a National Geographic article about the Sahel, which is a desert right north of BF and sort of a big deal. I'll tell you all about it later or you can read it yourself.

Oops...

2010-05-16T16:27:00.001-06:00

I accidentally saw a calendar today and almost had a panic attack. There are only two weeks left in the month! And then it's June! And I move to Africa in June! I could be so much more prepared then I am right now. Seriously. I spent the last week doing some shopping but mostly just watching the rest of Bones (I caught up, hurrah!) and pretty much nothing else.

There are so many other things I could be doing with my time to prepare. Like reading a bunch of stuff I got from the PC, or reviewing my french textbooks, or studying this new language I'll be speaking, or reading about West Africa, or shopping for the things I need.

Or I could continue to avoid dates and calendars and continue to watch copious amounts of television. This is just a very difficult decision.

2010-05-14T20:49:00.000-06:00

This video on fail blog literally made me go "Oh ho ho ho ho nooooo" outloud.
Too wonderful internet, what am I going to do without you for two years?

I was also thinking these past couple of days what a HUGE tragedy it is that while I will be in Africa during the time the World Cup games are going on, I will not be able to see even one because I will be in training and also because they are on the other side of the continent. What a great thing to feel sad about.

Tonight on television, it was showing Romeo and Juliet that version with young Leonardo DiCaprio and I actually watched most of it because I don't think I've seen it since my freshman year of high school. While watching it I remembered a few things the first being the reason why I haven't seen it in like 8 years- that movie is bad. It's just weird and I don't like that they made it modern but still spoke old school, it just didn't fit. Also, I hate young Leo. Hate him. It's actually only been the last couple of years where I've been able to stand watching any of his movies, but now I'm totally on his side because he's a pretty impressive actor. I mostly hated him for so many years because every person in the world loved him after Titanic and at a young age, I just choose to hate something that everyone else loved. You know you've done it too. We all do.

Also, I'm leaving for Africa on June 6th. Ticket has been bought and now I'm working on getting all the gear I need. Yikes...

Better late then never

2010-04-22T10:06:00.000-06:00

As promised, here are some more Peace Corps details. I got a little side tracked because shortly after finding out I took my very first trip down to Moab, ATV style with my sister and these cute little munchkins.

That was very fun, I got a pretty bad sunburn because I forgot when you are outside in the springtime the sun burns you...it's been winter for too long.
Then Sarah and I ran the Salt Lake City Half Marathon! Look at how legit we are!

I ran it in 2.00:44, so close to breaking my two hour goal, if only mile 11 wasn't entirely uphill (those bastards).
Now I'm back again to normal life...sorta. Next week I'm taking a week long vacation with this lovely lady to California- Sacramento/SanFran areas (also places I've never been to before). If we are really lucky we'll see Wicked, and I plan to do a lot of swimming and napping and seeing the redwoods and all sorts of glorious things. Then I'll be back here for a few days before flying home to Oregon for the month before I leave, because hey, my mother loves me and wants to see me before I leave for Africa. Can you blame her? I mean look at that face (see above).

And now to the heart of the matter. I'll be a Peace Corps Volunteer in Burkina Faso, Africa from June until August of 2012, it is a 27 month commitment, three months of training and then two years on the job, so sort of like a mission. I'm going in the secondary education program, as an IT Teacher basically teaching computer literacy. As of last year there were 29 totally secondary ed volunteers, whose ranks I'll be joining, and surprisingly/terrifyingly enough the IT program is only two years old. I'm quite excited/nervous to see how few and how incredibly old the computers will be. I'm imagining those tiny boxy desktop computers I used to play typing games, and Oregon Trail on in elementary school.

My primary duty is to address problems of access/equity, quality, and efficiency in secondary ed schools and help increase the number of students who stay on, seeing as how most people are incredibly poor and don't see further schooling (i.e. middle/high school) as being really important. It's pretty crazy really, after the three months of training I'll be sent to the Village where I'll be living and working, probably alone. The Peace Corps does a lot of things in general, the other big program they do in B.F. is the Girls Empowerment and Education program where volunteers basically empower and educate girls about everything, from sex ed, to AIDS to education to everything. It's actually a really cool and interesting program that I'm a little bit jealous I won't be a part of, but being a teacher kind of is a dream come true even though I know nothing about how to do it, nor do I feel qualified to really teach computer literacy in French. It's like Sarah and I are connected in a weird, we-like-to-do-hard-and-possibly-crazy-things way (She's doing Teach For America, they only accept 10% of applicants and she's one of them. What a champ).

I'll be teaching in French, but while it's the national language most people don't really know it all that well, so day to day I'll be speaking one or two local dialects. I'm learning one right now and it's very intimidating, the alphabet is small, but more on that later. It's like a real job, I get paid and vacation days, the PC pays for room and board and they give me a living allowance, and the money I make while I'm there they will give me at the end of my service to help me fit back into society when I return. As to living conditions, this is my favorite thing to quote, "Housing will most likely consist of a modest building constructed from mud bricks or cement blocks with a tin roof. Floors made with cement. Don't be surprised if you occasionally have visitors in the form of spiders, cockroaches, mice, ants, etc. (some Volunteers find cats are helpful to have around)."

Haha, awesome. I hope to have a get together for any of you kids here in Provo before I leave, where you can ask me any and all questions in the world about this. And for those of you graduating today/tomorrow, congrats!

Peace Corps suckas!

2010-04-04T21:23:00.004-06:00

I know that most of you who read this blog probably already know this but I figured it was about time I blogged about it, thus making it officially official. I got my Peace Corps invitation to serve in Burkina Faso! I know, no one has heard of it! But it's really there, right north of Ghana! I changed my map marker to the country so you can all see where I'll be for the next two years.

I've spent a good amount of time reading some booklets the PC sent me and learning things, for example, Burkina Faso produces some of the best mangoes in the world, which is great news because who doesn't love to eat mangoes and really just saying 'mango' is fun.

I have a million thoughts going through my head a day ranging from how I feel about it, to imagining what it'll be like, to just being plain terrified.

I thought about how I won't have ice for two years. Because there's no electricity where I'll be living so no refrigerator so no ice. Plus it'd melt so fast, because hello Africa. So I contemplated luke warm beverages for two years.

I thought about bucket showers, getting water from a well, and probably rarely shaving.

I thought about what in the hell am I going to eat?! I looked up a bunch of foods that they eat regularly and wasn't particularly impressed. I already miss hamburgers and sushi and I haven't gone anywhere.

I often stop and want to scream- I'M GOING TO LIVE IN AFRICA!!!!

More than anything else though, I've been thinking about all the things that suddenly won't matter. It reminded me of a new favorite movie Nowhere in Africa, a fantastic German film you should all check out, about a Jewish family who escapes to Africa to ride out Hitler and WWII. In it the wife talks about how in Africa words lose their meaning, words like streetcar, china or chocolate. That's what I spend most of my time thinking about, words that will lose their meanings, things and activities I won't do and instantly missing them.
It's funny.

I leave June 7th, and I'm very excited. Side note they choose Burkina Faso because it means 'Country of the Upright, Honorable People.' Isn't that nice? And even though it's one of the poorest countries in the world its people are known for their 'don't-worry-be-happy' mentality. Fantastic.