Greetings from the BF,
I’ve gotta start out by saying thanks to everyone that sent me snail mail. I never actually thought I would get excited by snail mail, but I’m telling you, it’s the little things these days! Anyway thanks for the letters, especially from those people that were born into the world of email and internet and still decided to send me one old school style anyway (I’m going to have to give my Cale and Bess shout-out at this point…)
This week was a big week for us here at Camp Peace Corps… the week that our future sites would be revealed to us. I found out that I will be living in a fairly large town, I believe around 30,000 Burkinabe residents, and will be residing incredibly close to the Mali border. For safety reasons which Denny emailed me about, I guess I am probably not allowed to reveal the name of the town on the blog, although he has also said he will be happy to show anyone my town on the map if you’d like to get into contact with him. Huh. Anyway the site has electricity throughout most of the day from 7a.m until 11p.m. which is crazy! It also has three rooms in it, although I’m not really sure what all of them are for. It is cool to think that I am only 22 and live in my very own house.. Even if it is in Africa..! There was a girl that was living there before me and left some pretty nice things behind, so I guess I am not really going to be ‘roughing it’ in the African bush for the next couple of years. As disappointed as I was to not have mud and a thatched roof, I actually got over it decently fast! The only real bummer about the site is that I am the only Peace Corps Volunteer for about 100K… So I’m probably going to get a dog. And quite possibly a goat which could bring back some nice childhood memories of Snickelfrince, my old buddy I used to ride around the grandparent’s farm. If you have any suggestions on pets or names for my pets let me know!
Also this weekend a couple of us ‘city girls’ took a trip out to the villages to see our fellow trainees. Village life was awesome. Not only was the ground not littered with trash, it wasn’t as dusty and therefore we could see pretty much all the stars in the universe at night! You definitely get celebrity status in the village as well but it’s a different kind. In the village everyone waves hello to you and tries to help you carry your things, which is a nice change from the city where all they do is point, stare and yell. The people there were really welcoming and fun to be around… Not to mention how wonderful it was to sleep outside under the stars. It actually made me wish that I was going to a smaller village where, well, everybody knows your name…!
Us SED volunteers also started working on our Income Generating Activities this week. We split up into three groups and have each paired up with a local businessperson to help them come up with ways to improve their business, both through actual sales and through other ways like accounting and marketing practices. Our group proposed the idea of iced coffee to a vendor that we frequent and she was very open to our suggestions. She sold our iced coffee one day and the next day came up with her own idea to sell iced chocolate milk and tea. We were definitely ecstatic not only because she was making changes to her business by introducing new ideas, but also because we got our very own Starbucks in Burkina! Not sure if she will keep selling all this stuff once her loyal American customers are gone but we can only hope! The business style here, both on the selling and consuming end, are quite a bit different from everything were used to back in the states… I think that’ll be a great subject for the next time…
Today (Sunday) was also cleaning day and I did wash my clothes again today by hand, although one of my sister was telling me the whole time that I wasn’t getting them clean… And then they made me clean my shoes as well, (brown Asics included although I kept trying to tell them that I had gotten them because they were brown so I wouldn’t have to clean them) although to their credit my shoes really do look like they’re fresh out of the box. My clothes are another story… Pretty sure they think I’m the most unclean human being on the planet! But oh well, they still like to paint my nails.
Much love.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Friday, November 7, 2008
Greetings from Burkina Faso… a land that is basking in the glow of Obama’s win.
A few of us stayed over at our training sight, ECLA, to watch the ‘live’ television coverage of the election on Burkina’s local (and I believe only) channel. Needless to say the set looked like something out of the 60’s and there were no pretty colored charts, maps or predictions to follow. I won’t lie, I fell asleep at about 11:30pm BF time since the coverage wasn’t quite as stimulating as CNN… Anyway at about 5am BF time I woke up in time to catch the end of Obama’s acceptance speech. There were only a few of us volunteers left to watch the election but we cheered particularly loud when he talked about the people huddled around a radio listening to the results. Ours was a little fancier then a radio but I’m pretty sure he was talking about us… The next day we were celebrities around Ouahigouya and instead of being solely called ‘Nesara’ (not a clue how to spell that but pretty sure it means foreigner or whitey) and ‘les blancs’ by the small children we were called Obama by all. It was a welcome change!
To back up a bit and write some about the week beforehand…
We had our much anticipated Dymystification visits last week along with our overnight stay in the capital city. Myself and three other girls got to go and visit a Peace Corps Volunteer located in the center of the country in one of the largest city’s, Koudougou. Let’s just say that our visit ended up being a bit more like a vacation... Well I suppose to us this was as exciting of a vacation as going to Hawaii if we were living in the U.S.. But to you all it would be more like a vacation to Iowa complete with a three nights stay at the DaysInn. Our ‘vacay’ went a little something like this: picked out dresses from a catalogue that we wanted made, shopped at a local market for materials, dropped off the photo and material at a tailors to have it made, made delicious food like fruit salad and mashed potatoes (to be fair I didn‘t do any of the cooking, I mostly just ate the fruit as soon as it was cut up and put into the bowel.. Luckily we had our very own Rachel Ray with us), lounged out by the local pool, and spent the last night celebrating Halloween with costumes and a pumpkin but were safely tucked in bed by 8:30 before things got too out of hand…It was definitely nice to get away from Ouahigouya for a little while and to be able to see how a fellow volunteer lives and works.
After our visit our entire Small Enterprise Development (SED) group met up in Ouagadougou to spend a couple of nights at the transit house. Although the name implies that it is somewhat of a halfway house for recovering addicts, turns out it’s just the place that all Peace Corps volunteers around the world can stay in for a very low price… Free internet included! If that doesn’t make you want to join…. While we were in Ouaga we also had a Mexican feast cooked for us at our SED director’s house. It was probably the most amazing thing I’ve eaten yet!!
We returned back to ECLA after our little vacation/trip and it was back to classes in Ouahigouya. We’re fast approaching the mid way mark of our pre-service training and I can speak for most of the group when I say we are looking forward to the end! It seems as if everyone had a great time on our Dymst visit and cannot wait to get into our villages. Although I don’t know if us SED kids are entirely ready for the village seeing as many of us have electricity, a television and some of us lucky ones even have running water… A couple of my health volunteer friends came over to see the house and meet the fam and let me know that this life was in no way similar to village living. I will be taking a trip out to the bush next weekend to stay the night though, so I’m going to finally experience the African bush!
And as a side note, I think that language for all is improving. It seemed like so long ago that I was telling my host mother ‘I friend rice’ rather than ‘I like rice.’ Luckily for me though, there have been other large blunders within our group. I think my favorite of all the stories though has to be about one of my favorite health girls sprinkling millet (some sort of grain) all around her toilet because she thought that her family had told her to do that. They were a bit confused when she came back with the bin and no millet… Pretty soon we will begin attempting to learn a local African language so I’m sure there will be plenty more miscommunications along the way!
Not too much else on the horizon except within a week we will be learning which village will be graced with our presence! I know Denny is particularly looking forward to that seeing as he bought the worlds most detailed map of Burkina that shows every city/town/village/tribe/elephant and I’m sure he’d be happy to let you know precisely where I’m located!
Wishing I was in the states right now to see the aftermath of the elections….
Much love.
A few of us stayed over at our training sight, ECLA, to watch the ‘live’ television coverage of the election on Burkina’s local (and I believe only) channel. Needless to say the set looked like something out of the 60’s and there were no pretty colored charts, maps or predictions to follow. I won’t lie, I fell asleep at about 11:30pm BF time since the coverage wasn’t quite as stimulating as CNN… Anyway at about 5am BF time I woke up in time to catch the end of Obama’s acceptance speech. There were only a few of us volunteers left to watch the election but we cheered particularly loud when he talked about the people huddled around a radio listening to the results. Ours was a little fancier then a radio but I’m pretty sure he was talking about us… The next day we were celebrities around Ouahigouya and instead of being solely called ‘Nesara’ (not a clue how to spell that but pretty sure it means foreigner or whitey) and ‘les blancs’ by the small children we were called Obama by all. It was a welcome change!
To back up a bit and write some about the week beforehand…
We had our much anticipated Dymystification visits last week along with our overnight stay in the capital city. Myself and three other girls got to go and visit a Peace Corps Volunteer located in the center of the country in one of the largest city’s, Koudougou. Let’s just say that our visit ended up being a bit more like a vacation... Well I suppose to us this was as exciting of a vacation as going to Hawaii if we were living in the U.S.. But to you all it would be more like a vacation to Iowa complete with a three nights stay at the DaysInn. Our ‘vacay’ went a little something like this: picked out dresses from a catalogue that we wanted made, shopped at a local market for materials, dropped off the photo and material at a tailors to have it made, made delicious food like fruit salad and mashed potatoes (to be fair I didn‘t do any of the cooking, I mostly just ate the fruit as soon as it was cut up and put into the bowel.. Luckily we had our very own Rachel Ray with us), lounged out by the local pool, and spent the last night celebrating Halloween with costumes and a pumpkin but were safely tucked in bed by 8:30 before things got too out of hand…It was definitely nice to get away from Ouahigouya for a little while and to be able to see how a fellow volunteer lives and works.
After our visit our entire Small Enterprise Development (SED) group met up in Ouagadougou to spend a couple of nights at the transit house. Although the name implies that it is somewhat of a halfway house for recovering addicts, turns out it’s just the place that all Peace Corps volunteers around the world can stay in for a very low price… Free internet included! If that doesn’t make you want to join…. While we were in Ouaga we also had a Mexican feast cooked for us at our SED director’s house. It was probably the most amazing thing I’ve eaten yet!!
We returned back to ECLA after our little vacation/trip and it was back to classes in Ouahigouya. We’re fast approaching the mid way mark of our pre-service training and I can speak for most of the group when I say we are looking forward to the end! It seems as if everyone had a great time on our Dymst visit and cannot wait to get into our villages. Although I don’t know if us SED kids are entirely ready for the village seeing as many of us have electricity, a television and some of us lucky ones even have running water… A couple of my health volunteer friends came over to see the house and meet the fam and let me know that this life was in no way similar to village living. I will be taking a trip out to the bush next weekend to stay the night though, so I’m going to finally experience the African bush!
And as a side note, I think that language for all is improving. It seemed like so long ago that I was telling my host mother ‘I friend rice’ rather than ‘I like rice.’ Luckily for me though, there have been other large blunders within our group. I think my favorite of all the stories though has to be about one of my favorite health girls sprinkling millet (some sort of grain) all around her toilet because she thought that her family had told her to do that. They were a bit confused when she came back with the bin and no millet… Pretty soon we will begin attempting to learn a local African language so I’m sure there will be plenty more miscommunications along the way!
Not too much else on the horizon except within a week we will be learning which village will be graced with our presence! I know Denny is particularly looking forward to that seeing as he bought the worlds most detailed map of Burkina that shows every city/town/village/tribe/elephant and I’m sure he’d be happy to let you know precisely where I’m located!
Wishing I was in the states right now to see the aftermath of the elections….
Much love.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
