Ne y ebiogo fellow Americans,

Thought I’d throw a little African dialect your way, spice up your day a bit…

Well it’s week two of the journey although I’m pretty sure my fellow trainees and I have been here for 2 months instead… It is amazing what you become accustomed to in such a short period of time. I am no longer bothered by the hundreds of flies that land on me per day nor the fact that there always seems to be a perfect circle of sweat on my stomach. It also feels as if I’ve known all of my fellow trainees for an incredibly long period of time since up until this week we’ve pretty much seen each other’s sweaty faces 24/7. Sadly though, this week our happy group of 31 has split into two, with 13 of us Small Enterprise Development people living in Ouahigouya and the rest spread across three villages outside of town. It’s definitely weird to not see everyone every day and definitely a bit more lonely…

Although I am missing my fellow trainees out in the African bush, I did move in with my host family on Sunday. Let’s just say that I am living in upper Manhattan compared to most of the rest of the volunteers residence in Queens. My family, which consists of a mother and four daughters ranging from 12 to 22, has a television, electricity and running water for their indoor shower!! Probably the only thing bad about this place is that the bathroom is still outside and filled with giant bugs so I try as hard as possible to never to visit it and prefer to hold it until I get to our training site. I’m sure I’ll pay for this later when I have severe bladder problems for years to come but for now I’d say it’s worth it! I haven’t quite adapted to the giant cockroaches yet…

The family is as wonderful as their ‘modern’ house. From what I sort of understand from my wretched French, the mother works for the Economics and Finance department of the government and oversees banks in Ouahigouya. To be fair this could be incorrect though seeing as I don’t seem to comprehend much…Communicating has been a bit of a struggle but I am determined to be able to speak with them in French (and after I conquer that hopefully the local language Moore). Each day has seemed to be a bit of an improvement over the last although I have to credit some of that to the fact that the two older ones have studied a bit of English. Despite the fact that I can only speak and comprehend simple sentences I enjoy hanging out with the family and even get to occasionally watch a soccer match on the television.

The typical SED trainee day in Ouahigouya consists of waking up at 2:30a.m. because the idiotic roosters outside the window somehow think that it is sunrise, again at 4:00a.m. because the donkey ran into the goat and won’t stop hee-hawing, and again at 5:30a.m. because the sun really does come up then and the roosters just won’t quite. Finally at 6am it’s time to rise, check the room because there is guaranteed to be some new bugs that have nestled into our room and hop into the shower/bucket bath. Breakfast consists mainly of bread and nestcafe so most of us (grudgingly at this point seeing as we‘ve had bread at pretty much every meal) grab the bread and head out the door to language tutoring. The next few hours are split into two sessions, one session of language tutoring and another of either health, safety and security, culture diversity or SED training. For lunch we zip around town on our ten speeds and grab a lunch which has mainly consisted of a sandwich, beans, or rice. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to expand our horizons much seeing as it is incredibly easy to get lost in Ouahigouya due to the fact that almost everything seems to be covered in the same reddish/brown dust and buildings are never greater than two stories. Afterwards it’s back to training for the rest of the working day, tutoring afterwards and possibly a run. Although to be fair that last part seems to be rare because it is rather difficult to run in Africa seeing as the temperature doesn‘t like to drop below 80 and the small barefooted, sometimes naked African children run after you screaming ‘Mensara mensara” (white person) which potentially drowns out the Ipod... This is not to say that the kids here are not adorable because they are, especially when they are wrapped to the back of their mothers with only a towel like cloth. I still can’t figure out how they stay on… Anyway for the rest of the night I’m at my host family’s house hanging out with the sisters and attempting to converse while they comb my hair.

The days seem to get long and repetitive here but luckily we all still enjoy each others company and small things, like watching a heard of goats and those funny cows with the big bump near their head cross the street, still makes me smile. Fortunately we also have sessions that every so often remind us why we are here. It’s in those sessions, the ones where we talk about the illiteracy rate, the mortality rate, the small businesses, the exports/imports, the agriculture, the generosity of the people and their willingness to accept everyone, where we finally breathe again. These are the sessions that put things into perspective and remind us why we are working so hard and giving up all those things in life that we know and love…

I think I’ll stop there before I get too dear diary… Anyway that will be my life for the next couple months. We’ve got some great sessions coming up, such as visiting the capital during one of the biggest craft shows in all of Africa (presents anyone??) as well as traveling to a current trainees village to see what sort of things they are doing there.

Stay safe and healthy! Thanks for the emails, although I struggle a bit responding quickly enough with the limited internet time and French keyboard…

Much love.

Hello dear people,

Just as a precaution, this is going to get a little long. You may want to grab a snack in between or possibly take a short nap before wading through all of this… I guess the best place to start would be from the beginning….

Leaving the States sucked. Let’s just put that out there. I never knew that saying goodbye could be so hard/awful, but turns out it is! I am above and beyond blessed to have such an awesome group of friends and such a caring family all of whom sent me off in the best possible way. Thank you so much for all the love and support, although it definitely made it much harder to leave!

On to Africa….
Flew into Philadelphia on Monday, oddly enough on the same flight as another fellow Peacecorps volunteer from Eden Prairie. I met her along with another guy in the airport (we were able to pick each other out because of the overwhelming amount of luggage we were toting) where we grabbed a quick lunch and went to orientation to meet our fellow trainees.

All of the trainees fall into the age bracket of 22-31 which includes one married couple. I’m not going to lie, everyone here seems to be pretty brilliant. For instance pretty much everyone has traveled and stayed in a third world country before, has an impressive resume and education background and can speak at least one language, some people even taught themselves French within a matter of months and can speak it adequately. Needless to say I think the group is decently intimidating but at the same time everyone is extremely friendly, outgoing and helpful.

We arrived in Africa on Wednesday night (I know most of you will never believe this but Africa is HOT) which is odd to think that it has only been 5 days since we’ve been here since it feels like I’ve been in this completely different world for so much longer. Since the beginning, each day has seemed to stretch on for ages since we have had tons of meetings, orientations, classes and tests beginning from sun-up to sun-down. For our first night we stayed in one of the nicer hotels in the capital city where we had more information thrown at us along with language testing and medical clearance. I can say that I passed the medical exam but definitely have some major work to do with language! The following day we headed towards our training sight in Ouahigouya where I and my fellow Small Enterprise Development people will be living for the next couple of months. (The community health development volunteers have to stay out further in the villages for their training although they do come in at least once a week for volunteer-wide training. Suckers). It’s definitely going to be weird being split up from one another since we’ve all seemed to bond incredibly fast within the short time that we’ve been together… Luckily we’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other still!

Training days range from 7am-6pm and consists of language, culture, how not to get AIDS/malaria/diarrhea, and a wide variety of skills that we may find handy for small enterprise development. As nerdy as it may sound I’m actually unbelievably excited to work on my language (both French, Moore - a widely spoken dialect here, and possibly another local language) and SED skills which have classes titled Animal Husbandry, Gardening, Environmental, Microlending… etc. Cool right?!? During the entire time that we are in training we will be staying with a host family which we actually find out today! We have lovingly titled today as our adoption day (no one can replace you Denny and Linda, no worries) and get to spend the following couple months in a room in a Burkinabe family home where we get breakfast and dinner cooked for us. Not a bad deal if I do say so… And speaking of which the food here is not bad thus far. We’ve had spaghetti for a meal, along with rice, fries, curry and chicken, so nothing has been too out of my element yet, although I am hearing that I will soon be eating something called Toe (sp?) and something called Foo (sp?) which I guess is a local specialty here…

I feel as if I’ve got about a million and one more things to write about but this is grossly long and I‘m sure there will be quite a few more to come… Anyway if you so feel inclined to send snail mail my address here is
Corps de la Paix Americain
01 BP 6031 Ouagadougou 01
Burkina Faso (West Africa)

Or if you prefer modern technology my email her is ofstedaj@gmail.com. (and I’m getting a cell phone pretty soon so stay tuned for my African number!!)

I hope all is going well for everyone back in the states. Make sure you write to me and tell me about the election and how everything is going in your life!

Much love,

Abigail