home is where my house is

Back in Kongoussi and already feeling a million times better.
Well, million is a lot...but it's nice to realize how "home" my home here is after all.

Sitting in the Transit House in Ouaga I eventually begin to feel restless, stuck, nauseous, depressed. It's a frat house/hippie co-op (sorry Evan). Frat houses and hippie co-ops aren't necessarily bad. I could see myself perfectly happy living in a co-op, hippie or otherwise...lots of rooms, lots of people, hanging out, sharing ideas, sharing space. It's fun, but it's not what I want to be doing here.

Back in Kongoussi, I can put my questions and anxieties into context.
Perhaps it can be argued that my living situation does not meet all of the site selection criteria. I thought I'd have to re-adjust to being here, that In-Service Training had pushed me back a couple of steps in terms of feeling at home in my unique non-village, non-town site...but if anything I feel more comfortable at this moment. Nothing has changed about the way I want to live here and the amount of effort I want to put in, because that motivation is a big part of who I am, and who I am is a big part of why I am going to be successful. Perhaps my primary job here does not do much to further the specific goals of the Girls Education and Empowerment program, but maybe being here will change what those specific goals are...

Not every girl here is the "poorest of the poor," thank you Peace Corps, but that doesn't mean that they don't need someone to listen to them, to help them cultivate their life skills, set goals, make decisions, see themselves as important. They're in a good position, they already have a lot more opportunity than other girls their age here do...what are they going to do with it? How are they going to use it?

...and some girls here ARE the "poorest of the poor," neither of their parents are alive and they are here thanks to charity. Some girls here aren't students at all; they work all day every day to prepare food for everyone. What are they going to do with the money that they make? What options are available for them if they have never been to school? What are they going to give to their daughters? Of all the places in Burkina Faso to end up, here is not the worst for sure. But being empowered is about having options. It's about recognizing that life is made up of a series of decisions that can actively be made. What do they want out of their lives?

And what about the daughters in my little adopted neighbor town? They certainly don't go to school up here on the hill; they go out to the field and cut grasses and take care of their little siblings. It may not be my neighborhood so it may take a little more time, but the ladies down the hill could be my community too. It's all a matter of how much time I can put in, how many places I can go without spreading myself too thin. As long as I just let things happen, let connections organically build, spreading thin won't happen. It'll just take time.

My connections are real...they're when Adeline meets me at the gate and helps me walk my bike to my house and tells me that she is so glad to see me again, when Jeanette brings me her cahier and confesses that she didn't do well this past trimester, when Suzanne comes to my door on her own just to say hi before returning to finish washing her clothes.

They are every camper I have ever had. I am lucky in that I don't have to work on being convinced that it's the little things that matter. It's the bedtime stories and the roses and thorns. It's letting the little ones lead a song. It's being comfortable so that they can be comfortable, giving them space to be themselves, listening when they talk. Here, the parameters are different but the idea is exactly the same.

I don't think two years is enough time to be here. I buy in big time to the Peace Corps philosophy of working from the inside out, spending time becoming a part of your community before expecting any change to happen. Little things build upon themselves, and even just now, within the first three and a half months of living here I'm noticing some little things...girls opening up to me, little by little. This is not something that I want to exploit, you know? Ok good they're getting comfortable with me now I can give them all of this information raaaaah! No no no. I really want it to just happen, for me to take my steps in time, find a place where I fit in and let things flow. Before anything the school year is going to be over, and then a summer away and then a new school year begins. And then what? We'll see.

I hope I can create the sparks that set good things in motion...right now I'm working on preparing for all of that. What are my ideas? Write them down. Type them up. Show them to the Sisters and see what they say. How do I make sure I have counterparts on my side, working with me? What information am I missing? When does the APE meet? What about the teachers? A lot of this information I need to seek out, it isn't all out in the open. And I need to improve my French. (...though when I said this to Sister Elisabeth today she wanted to know why. "You think your French is bad?" "I speak only in the present tense!" "So do we!") (I chuck future and past in there as well, but if I wanted to tell you that I had been eating my sandwich when I remembered that it would be ages before I got sick of Vache Qui Rit cheese, I would be outta luck.) (And object pronouns. There are those.)

I'm already tucking the idea of a third year into the back of my mind. If I am successful in letting things build, if I'm on a roll and the two year mark rolls around, what else can I do? I like living in this country, Kongoussi is truly great. Slowly but surely my relationships with people are becoming more real. The distance between here and town is a challenge, but there will always be challenges no matter what. This is obviously not for sure at this point...it's just a thought. My heart has always been a little bit African.

reflections on the way out

A little homesick. The more connected I am with internet, telephones, the easier it is for me to feel homesick. Haven't really felt too homesick too often so far.

Parents are in town and people are visiting parents. I need to get out of Ouaga. I decided to stay an extra day to sleep in and rest up but now I've gotta go. I have to get out of here, go back to Kongoussi. The transit house, while cool, is not necessarily a good thing to have. I have lots of thoughts on this subject but I already shared them extensively with a similarly-minded friend this week and to be honest I'm very tired so I don't want to get into them again.

I'm catching the afternoon bus. I'm going to ride up to my home and get there and settle in. I'm stressing out a little. I have a lot on my mind. A lot happens, there's a lot to think about. Work things, life things, future things, interpersonal relationship things...what is going on?

This is going to be a wild month, this December, different from any month I've had here so far. It already has been with this IST training business, and then school is going to be finished for the trimester and all of the girls are going to go home, and Christmas will come and go, and then I am helping a neighbor volunteer with a mini girls camp, and then New Years Eve which I thought I would come back to Ouaga for but thinking about it I'm not sure, I think I might stay in Kongoussi and party with town friends doing whatever they do. And then January, a whole new year, a year full of months to fill with things and to pass into new months. What am I doing? When will I feel settled? It's a crazy thing, living somewhere for six months and never being in a position where you feel settled and calm.

I have a lot of really good things to say about this week, the conversations I had about my life, the fun I had being with my American friends from stage... but now I just gotta get back so I can start re-settling in. I'm hoping this won't actually be a problem or too much of a difficulty. It'll partially depend on what I make of it. Like everything.

one big happy family

...that's what my GEE stage is.
We're all in Ouaga for the week, just wrapped up a few days of training. It was great hearing about what's going on with everyone, to spend some time talking to the other two volunteers who are in boarding schools in other parts of the country...I have a lot of productive things to think about and I've been filled with a renewed energy and some sweet inspiration and motivation.
...and also some questions and aprehension and reflection of where I am and what it means and if it's where GEE should go, the direction it should be taking. So lots of ups and downs.
It's nice that we're all still here. This group has an interesting chemistry, I think it works well. It's a rare thing, being all together like this. It's been enjoyable.
Tomorrow night I am going back to Kongoussi. At the end of next week all of the students will be gone. Then Christmas is coming.

Want to know what's fun? Taking care of fraudulant credit card charges from overseas. So I'm off to do that.

thoughts from December 12th...my six month in-country mark!

I don't want to go to English club in Kongoussi today for several reasons, one of which is that it's just so far to get there...and I know that really it's not THAT far...but it IS kind of far, and the journey will be vastly prolonged by the number of times that I will inevitably stop to chat with people on the side of the road, no matter which road I take. And I do have stuff I need to do on my little to do list here, including work for Soeur Francoise. ...but...I know I won't be going next week because I'll be in Ouaga. And I enjoy seeing a few of the people that I see there. And having in-town connections is nice. And I can go to the post office and pick up my two packages, which will be good. Ok Molly. Just go. Tell Soeur Francoise that you'll be back at 18h and you'll do the work then. And voila. But do it now so you can get to the post office before English club starts.

---five and a half hours later---

...too bad I didn't bother knowing that the post office doesn't reopen in the evenings on Saturdays like it does during the week. I feel like this is something I should have known. So...a big part of the reason I convinced myself to go into town didn't even pan out. But you know, that's ok. And even though English club was boring and I myself would never choose to be in a club like that, that's ok. I chatted with Marc and Tal and was present and pointed out a grammar rule and it wasn't so bad. And I bought a bunch of cards in town to send to my fam for Christmas. So there. And I also bought a bit of food for Ono and for myself and I chatted a bit with some marche folks and with a couple of my girls on the way in...so it was nice, really.

Got a bit of work stuff I could do tonight, and I will...I might take a shower bath thing first but I have to heat up water I just remembered and even though I'm sweaty and dirty and a little smelly I really don't want to. I know I'll feel a lot better afterwards...but rahhh...and if I go into the kitchen to heat water I'll remind myself that I should eat and that's a big effort too.

Oh yeah, I bought sardines so that I could feed the effing cats that seem to think I am interested in taking care of them. Sister Elisabeth arranged to have them brought here so they could catch and kill mice, but they seem more interested in whining constantly and hovering around my feet and my door expecting food. It is only because I don't want to be responsible for their deaths that I am occasionally feeding them, even though it's reinforcing their bad habit of slinking around my abode. I really want them to learn to get the heck away from me to find food, as is supposed to be their job. ...but they were raised by a nurturing nasara who I suppose I resemble in the same way that I resemble any nasara, and my house is away from the dogs and animals that populate the other side of the foyer...those two conditions make me appealing, I guess, though I know that after a couple of days of neglect I personally would look for other solutions. But dammit...now they're gonna keep coming back here. I alerted Sis Elisabeth as well as the cuisinaire girls about this problem so that they could feed the things, especially while I'm away all next week, otherwise they probably will die, because I don't know if they could figure out how to fend for themselves. Hopefully I am giving them too little credit and they really will be able to survive...without relying on me.

...because I really don't have the means to feed a pet. I don't have a constant source of food here, and the food I do have is normally stuff dogs and cats don't seem to want to eat. Couscous or pasta with vegetables or sauce of some sort. Nose in the air. I very often eat over with my kitchen friends anyway and thus don't bother preparing anyhow, and even if I did I can't just walk five minutes and buy benga or samsa or anything really to make for them. I also don't have a regular schedule. I'm not always here and it's not always predictable. Really the point is I just am not in a place right now where I can be responsible for anyone's life but my own. I often laugh inside during the routine "do you have a husband? No? You don't want a husband? What about children? Silly nasara! May god send you a husband and children!" conversations that I have when I think about kids, and how having a kid means having a kid FOREVER, and taking care of it EVERY DAY FOR YEARS. Holy committment that I do not want.

...and you know, this isn't to belittle or dismiss the value that is placed on looking for a husband and children here. Family ties are extremely important, being able to have a husband or a wife here is valued the way that supporting yourself independently is valued in the states. As well as I try to and like to think that I DO fit in here in my lil community, I am one heck of an American girl. I've known this about me though...having dated a Canadian, I've had many of my American qualities and characteristics pointed out to me. Mostly with smiles. :)

La la la lalaa La la la lalaa La la la lalaa...

Sporadic adventure to the homeland!

Here I am in Ouahigouya, having taken a trip on over with Sister Elisabeth so that she didn't have to drive it alone and so that I could hop on over to Bogoya to SURPRISE my host family with a little hello! I'm nervous and excited. I'm about to go buy them a lil' present and then hop on my bike and pedal away.

Tonight we'll be riding back home, three hours encore...adventure, adventure. I think that this little tiny bit of travel across a partially-unfamiliar road back to a familiar place will do my spirit good. It was nice to ride along the route that I took when I biked biked biked to visit a nearby (relatively speaking I suppose) PCV, and to pass it and begin bumping along unfamilar territory. ...and now here I am! Procrastinating at the cyber cafe because I'm nervous!

So that's all...nothin' big to say. Just had a few extra minutees on this extremely fast internet here. By the way, you know what is just so g d nice? Texts and letters from friends. Texts make my day, literally...it's so funny that that can work! And I al so grateful for the CDs I have been sent...they've saved my sanity now that my ipod is being difficult.

...and there! Substantial reflective blog entry to follow at a later date.

been a long time, been a long time

So here I am at the internet in lovely ol' Kongoussi again. It's been a while because in all honesty the internet really stresses me out a little. I had sort of planned to write something wonderful ahead of time so that when I finally eventully went online again you would all be guarenteed a substantial Burkina Faso read; however, things did not work out this way, so what you get is what you get...rambling, probably misspelled thoughts as they come into my head and get tapped onto this heavy keyboard.

Today was quite a different and productive day! I've been spending a lot of my time hanging out chez moi up on the hill with the nuns and the students and the cuisinaires. Little by little I'm forming real relationships, having deep conversations, becoming more comfortable with people who are becoming more comfortable with me. It's nice. I've also chilled out a bit about American time and have recently spent some quality moments visiting and being visited by Peace Corps volunteers near and bike-ably far. TODAY was nose my way into important organizations day. Despite a sudden and obnoxious boogary cold that I blame on a combination of lack of sleep (which itself can be blamed on a combination of things, including one particular dog that I am growing to despise) and a classroom full of coughing and sneezing teenagers for whom I was proctoring an exam, I got up and ready at a reasonable hour and bouged myself into Kongoussi. No, this reasonable hour was not 5h, which I have decided is one of my two favorite hours here (17h, or the other 5:00 being the other), but I think my body was very happy for the extra sleep it got.

Anyhow. I biked into town to pay a visit to the office of my school's APE (Association de Parents des Eleves) president. We chatted for a while about his work travelling to the villages surrounding Kongoussi to do education sensibilizations with families, philosophies of development, lots of good stuff. After a bit he took me over to the Action Sociale bureau, which is a social service agency here in Burkina/Kongoussi. I chatted with a bunch of the people who work there and was extended a very warm and very enthusastic welcome to come by again any time. So I will. There are some good conections that can happen between this org and my school je pense. Then my APE President friend and I went to visit a friend of his nearby who works with microfinance and petit enterprises for women...groups of women go to her organization to take out tiny loans which are paid back with minimal interest, and they use this money to start businesses, invest in livestock, quoi quoi quoi. Good stuff.

We went up the road a bit for lunch, where we sat with two other gentlemen and ate and had what was ALMOST an interesting and completely comfortable conversation that did not eventually turn into questions about my marital status and slightly impolite suggestions about how it can be changed. Almost.

I feel like I should have some sort of clever and overarching theme to this entry but I'm not sure that I do. I'm feeling pretty good about life and myself these days though. It's kind of nice to have gone through a couple of relatively crappy experiences in my late adolescence slash early adulthood because I have found here that I am remarkably good at keeping things in perspective. Not that I've been having to face any crappy experiences, really...but I'm totally able to go with the flow in a way that impresses myself. I'm good at this, what I'm doing here. The Peace Corps is good for me and I think I'm going to be good for it, and Burkina Faso is clearly where I was meant to be. I could see myself staying beyond the two years. There's lots of stuff here that's good for my soul.

...ok...I guess I'm going to submit and post a picture of my puppy. Yes, I have a puppy. Sort of. Well, yes I do. He showed up at the Foyer and quickly became the one and only dog that I have ever loved. Mam baaga biiga, my puppy dog, who I call either baaga biiga or puppy dog, which has become his name...PD. Puppy Dog. REGARD:

HOW COULD YOU NOT LOVE THAT DOG? Impossible.

...and for your viewing pleasure, here are a couple of other things:

A view of the sky from my porch as huge clouds rolled in that ended up not unleashing any water onto us...the rainy season is probably over.












Sun shining through the clouds on the road to Kongoussi...I turned on my bike to take this photo of the Kongoussi sign as I was biking away because it looked so beautiful, but ended up getting this quick shot instead of something more artistic due to some people who were hanging out on the side of the road, watching me intently. I like to lay low with displays of wealth and touristic qctivities, especially in and near my town. But look! Pretty road, pretty sky.

Ok, with that I shall leave you because this internet is doing me in. I just dished out monthly internet dues to the lady here though, so I do have a little bit more of an economic incentive to come back.

picture post

here is my house from a bit of a long view...I live in an condo type thing next to a bunch of 3eme students who share two of the others
when I go down those stairs and keep going straight I get to the house where the sisters live, as well as to the general area where I go to find people to hang out with

this is my bit of the building closer up

flowers in a little jar on the ledge of my living room window sill
the pretty braided grass (upper left hand corner of the photo) was made for me by one of the girls here, and my camp counselor heart loves keeping all things like that

some wall deco near my door...pictures, calendar, pretty things

trinkets on my bedroom window sill...smelly good candle and pretty rock sent from home, accidental green theme
the wall that you can see out of my window goes around all of the school grounds

here are some lovely hills as seen over the wall of the ground of Ste B's...actually a lot more beautiful in person

life on the hill

I had two nice blog entries lined up for you today...unfortunately, one of them has humorously gone missing -- I must have saved it to the wrong place -- so you will all have to wait, fittingly, to hear about my SAGA OF THE CHAIRS.

Also...scope out my new address, located on the right hand side of this here webpage. I took out the little tip about addressing me as Sister, because who knew I'd be sharing a post office box with four nuns?

And now...a blog entry.

June to September. A whole New England season has come and gone!

I don’t really know what to expect from the season changes here. I know that the rain is going to stop making appearances sooner or later…no one here really seems sure when, the season has been so sporadic and unpredictable. The green grass and green leaves will eventually disappear and all will be red and brown again! It’s hard to imagine.

My life on the hill out here in Kongoussi has been flipped all around! The girls have arrived and classes have started and I’m working on finding my niche in this place for a second time.

So…what is my living sitch?

It’s not a village, because there aren’t families or houses. It’s not really part of the town because it’s so removed on its little hill. It’s not like the summer camp situation I know and love…it’s a school for sure, and it doesn’t have the same flavor of American culture. …and it’s not like college because the girls are under age 18 (some of them well under).

But it IS like a village, because it’s so small and intimate and there really has to be a community going on. And it IS in Kongoussi, connected to the town. There are some pretty dorm-like dynamics as one might expect from a group of girls living together at a school, and it’s also kind of like summer camp, with all the singing and laughing and girls everywhere in groups.

But even though I live right next to a bunch of giggly sixteen year old girls who demand that I teach them how to say “fart” in English, I’m not a camp counselor…I don’t have to check up on them or keep them occupied. And despite my proximity and living arrangement, I’m not an SA (or RA for those non-Mount Holyoke goers), I’m a neighbor…but I’m not REALLY a neighbor because it’s not a neighborhood and I’m a pretty cool age-gap away from them all, and also a girl like them and also a nasara novelty. And I’m not a teacher, so what am I doing here on their campus? I’m applying some of my life lessons of years passed and suspend a need for definition so that I can understand this as it is and not try to fit it into a mold that doesn’t necessarily work.

The feeling of having too much free time, not having anything to do…it’s a veritable Peace Corps guarantee but it hasn’t yet really occurred for me. I feel like I always have somewhere to go, someone to talk to, some group to find and causer with…often I feel like I’m missing out on something when I take time in my room or in my kitchen. There are places to go in town, errands to run, spots to hang out, marché ladies and shop owners to talk to, organizations I could introduce myself to, Justin’s clubs that I could attend, tipsy dolo drinkers who will seemingly always insist that I stop under the trees. Here at the school there are the girls who cook and love me, the (now quite busy) Sisters, Sister Elizabeth especially who always has time for me and always lets me accompany her to do whatever task she’s running about doing at a given moment, and my twenty 3eme neighbors as well as 180 other students I can be around, if only just to break the ice and say hi. There are classes to attend in a school building that is literally a 30 second walk from my front door, teachers to observe and to talk to…

…I also feel as though the undefined and unstructured nature of the GEE program is being interpreted a lot differently here. Madame la Directrice of the college included me in the before-school teacher meeting and introduced me quite eloquently and correctly to the student body on the first day as a Peace Corps volunteer who is here to work for girls’ education in a broad sense, who will be getting to know the school for the first trimester before starting any groups or clubs, who is here like Robert was but not to be an informatique like him.

I feel as though I’ve been given a key to the school grounds, like I can go anywhere and observe anything and help out if I can but just hang back if I want. I feel so structured in my non-structure, it’s a little intimidating, especially since (as fellow boarding school GEE volunteer Rachel put it) this school is so high functioning already. Theatre presentations on social issues, honor roll and rewards for good marks, built in study hours, seemingly motivated teachers, an organized library, lots and lots of loud and proud young ladies…what do I do? Where do I start?

I guess I’ve got the trimester to figure that out. And really I’m pretty proud to be able to test run this new GEE direction. I do have a lot of girl scout camp counselor/director, sexual health educator, tutor, peer mentor, all-girls school attend-er experience to draw from, and if I can make any sort of contribution to a program that is already sustainable…well that’ll be pretty cool. …and fortunately I have a pretty good small-victories perspective, so I can get satisfaction out of the handshakes, smiles, finger snaps, and every day conversations too.

out of the gate and to the marche

Pedal pedal pedal, out of the school gate, down the little rocky hill, mini mountains in the distance rolling and beautiful covered in green grass and little trees.

Pedal pedal, past the tall fields, around the little bend, up the small but steep incline onto the goudron (which is how one refers to the paved road, literally “tar” en Francais). Whew. It’s hot, but it’s not a bad hot.

Pedal some more down the road, rockin’ every Moore greeting I know as I pass the benga maize and gateaux vendors, the dolo drinkers, and the causer-ers who scatter the route. Most people wave back with a smile, some engage me in a bit of a prolonged greeting test of my skills, some call me over – “waka!” – to chat more in-depth. Sometimes I stop to talk. At this point it’s usually the same thing…I should stay and drink dolo, I should buy everyone dolo, why do I pass every day and not stay, I should teach them English, I should put this baby on my back and take him with me, ha ha ha. I usually click my helmet back on (that’s right mom) and say goodbye when I’ve backed myself into some sort of conversational corner…such as accidentally agreeing to take the baby.

Pedal pedal pedal my way down the goudron and into town. Get to the round point (roundabout…rotary…everywhere I’ve lived there’s a different word for these things!) and follow it to the other side, keeping a strategic eye ahead of me to view the bike/moto/pedestrian/animal/sometimes bus or car situation since the stop signs in place are strictly ornamental.

I park my bike on the side of the street and descend down a small incline past women grilling corn and into the first phase of the Kongoussi marché. Enter past the boutiques on the perimeter, a hello to my friend who sells bread and Nescafe, past the young guy always lounging on his tall chair in front of a table full of pills and bottles that I’ve never stopped to examine too closely for fear of picking up and examining something that will provoke an unwarranted reaction. Here there are mostly women vendors, seated on the ground behind pagnes that are covered in whatever fruits or vegetables or herbs or other edible products they are vending. Each product occupies its own section on the fabric spread out in front of them, and within that section the particular fruits and such are arranged in neat little groups – one something stacked upon a triangle of three other somethings, perhaps, to be neatly exchanged for a single coin.

I enjoy walking through this section of the market. There’s a bit of a path created by rope tied to the shade-giving trees as well as the way the women have spread their things out, and I wander around slowly, testing out my language skills encore. I get lots of laughter and encouragement from the vendors who marvel at the white girl who “speaks” Moore – “Nasara gombd Moore!” they laugh to their friends – even though every day that I stop to chat with them I use the same greetings, phrases and four or five verbs.

Past the food vendors to enter phase two of the marché, booths and shops lined up all along the edges and all throughout the middle, creating aisles to walk through. Step into this shop to scope out plastic things you might need for your house – buckets and baskets and cups, oh my. …or step right up over here if you’re looking for t-shirts of various styles and designs. You a Bob Marley fan? You’re in luck! Gaudy jewelry, nail polish, Barack Obama key chains, soap, lotion, lollipops, glasses, flashlights? All can be found in this shop over here. There’s no shortage of plastic woven mats and pagnes. Fresh meat cut off of this newly slaughtered goat that you see hanging by its feet through the prison bar type window right here? Sure thing!

I haven’t purchased meat yet. I’m a little a-scared.

…but I do enjoy walking through the inside of the marché, too. It’s mostly men that run the boutiques and stores in here, though there are women too. There are a couple of corners where I can go to be assured friendly conversation…conversation that means well, at the very least. I wonder if I’ll ever get sick of being asked if I have a husband.

So. The Kongoussi market. It’s a very nice market indeed. Whenever I head into town I head into the market, even if I don’t really need anything. It’s full of lots of things, lots of people, and not a whole lot of pressuring to buy. Also not a whole lot of bartering necessary, I’ve found. Perhaps I settle for prices that are a bit inflated but really I don’t think that can be avoided and I’m not going to make a routine out of dueling to the death over 50 cfa. Often the food women will slip an extra tomato or onion into my bag with a smile. I’m sure karma comes into play somehow!

…but now it’s time to leave. I’ve got my purchases in my bag, which is slung over my shoulder, and I head up to my bike and if I have nothing else to do while in town I turn it towards my home on the hill and pedal pedal pedal away.

Kongoussi

The cyber cafe in Kongoussi is located along with the local radio station on top of a small mountain with a panoramic view of other small mountains as well as the town below. Fields and trees and hills are greener now than they've been yet this year as the rainy season has hit its peak. The clouds that fill the sky keep some of the heavy heat out of the air, and it's possible and even probable that if you wait for it you'll be able to experience a stream of fresh air breezing past your face.

There are four computers in this little turquoise-walled room, each travelling at the speed of snails. The keyboard of the one that I finally got to work after a half hour of patience sticks with almost every keystroke, making my French-keyboard prowess even more difficult to increase than it already is. The web sites don't fully load, so it's difficult to tell where I have to click to make things happen.

Ouaga time went by like a blur. Dinners and celebrations with friends abounded. I spent some time in the med unit relaxing from a bit of a parasite infestation (blastocycstis hominis, I later learned...how freaking cool sounding is that?). Swear-in was great. The speaches were touching. My complet was lovely...sparkly golden swirls on blue green pagne fabric with a dark phoenix design all over, simple shirt, simple skirt. I wore silver high heels that helped me reach the sky. My friends all looked beautiful. We went out drinking and dancing that evening, talking, laughing, clearly some crying. Next day was surreal...early morning car departure, me and Charley on the road north to Kongoussi, talking and looking out the windows, all of my stuff in the backseat. Got to the school, up on the little mountain...smiling Soeur Elizabeth there, Peace Corps driver changed the locks on my door, got into the car, I hugged Charley goodbye, away they drove. Deep breath in.

The campus of the school where I live is big and wide, beautiful, set atop a hill off the road, out of the town. I have privacy, a space of my own. The Soeurs (Sisters) are smiling, friendly, worldly, open minded. They invite me to eat with them, we causer (co-zay, chat) on their porch. The students arrive on the 15th...for now there are about 10 girls who live there, the ones who cook and clean and a couple of students who live too far away to go home for the summer. They have all been friendly and respectful...some speak French, some laugh and encourage my "bilfu bilfu" amount of Moore so that I can talk with them too. They work during the day, pulling up the long grass, washing clothes, feeding the animals...talking with each other, sometimes talking with me. Right now, my home is a peaceful, tranquil place.

Soon there will be twenty times the amount of girls there. I will meet the teachers and perhaps some parents. Though I am not supposed to work during my first three months at site, I will be able to keep myself busy sitting in on classes, attending teacher meetings, figuring out how the school works and what it needs and what I can do to help facilitate those needs being met. Eeeek.

For now, I am spending my days in different ways. Often I make the 3km bike ride into town. I stop along the way to causer with the people I've met thus far...Soeur Elizabeth's sister who works at a small business in town, a restaurant owner who has the same name as my lil' bro(what what Samuel!), the various women and men in the market. I went to an English Club meeting last week with my PCV sitemate and really loved it so I think I'll go again. I've stopped by the bus garre to ask some questions about transportation. I ate grilled corn on the cob with the girls who work in the alimentation across from the marche, sat down to shoot the breeze with a bread man, with the girls who work at a telecentre, came up with new and exciting ways to not give strange men my cell phone number. I buy phone credit from different people all over Kongoussi so that no one will know how much money I drop on in-country text messaging. Sometimes I stop to chat with the people who sit and work along the side of the road on my way to and from the College. I ordered chairs and a bookshelf the other day, they should be finished and at my house tomorrow...and then I will be able to start making ly house a home, piece by piece, little by little. Sometimes during my trips into the market I buy a thing or two to meet this end...a bucket, a mat, a ladle. Food to prepare. I've been doing that too...experimental cooking. It usually turns out ok, but then again it's only been a week. The other day it rained and I stayed in reading some of the stuff I was thrown during PST. Thinking about my life here. What I'm doing, what I can do, how to fill my days with measurable, meaningful, managable things.

I'm off now to go do some of those things. Talking, walking, seeing. Maybe I'll cook myself a good lunch.

I'm going to be really happy here. It's alredy difficult, and it'll be difficult again. It's much different than what I thought it would be, even though I thought I had no expectations. Surprise, surprise!

TOMORROW!

Tomorrow we leave for Ouagadougou where we will spend a couple of sessions going over last minute important things we need to know in order to be a volunteer in this lovely country of Burkina Faso. There will be some mad dash shopping to furnish our new houses and on TUESDAY we swear in as volunteers. WOAH.

I got a pretty dress made for this fancy little event, and I am really excited about wearing it and being dressed up and enjoying a day full of celebrations and fun. Weirdly, I am heading out the next morning to be dropped off at my site...not a whole lot of time for processing after a 12 week long training full of doing pretty much nothing but that!

I am pretty excited about furnishing my first house! Kind of overwhelmed when I think about it, because there's really not a whole lot of time to make calculated and nuanced decisions while shopping in Ouaga. Fortunately my site has a pretty extensive marche all the time, so I really don't NEED to go too crazy buying things if I decide that I just want to take my time. I really want to make sure that it's comfy and cozy and filled with good vibes and pretty things so that I feel really good about being there.

It's so wild that in four days we'll all be Peace Corps volunteers, all alone in our little houses figuring out what the heck we're going to do to meet people, get integrated into our communities and fill the time. No more daily contact with each other, days filled with similar experiences and stresses. It's time to go out and be big kids now. It's a whole new chapter. Wish me luck, and send me good thoughts on Tuesday!

swing swing swing!

Today was a hot, sticky, fly-filled day. ...and you know, the heat and even the sweat doesn't usually bother me too much. It'll never stop, so you just sort of get used to it. But some days...man. When Burkinabè greet you with "Il fait chaud, oui?" you know that il does in fact fait chaud. Fortunately the rain has FINALLY come (just today, about two hours ago, as soon as I got into town), which has significantly cooled things off and will finally give all of the farmers in the villages some work to do in the fields...the drought has been pretty scary for a lot of people this "rainy" season. If crops don't grow, there won't be enough food to eat for the next year. Straight up.

Back to today being hot and sticky. Man. Today was just a day for me to feel stressed and irritable. It happens in Africa, too. Here is a petite list of little things that mixed heavily in my soul today. BRACE FOR VENTING:

* hatred of packing and moving, exacerbated by the dense heat that fills my little house and surrounds all of the things that have accumulated and gotten dirty over the past two and a half months along with the good intentions of my host brother who was really trying to help me but really just not

* flies swarming all around my sweaty body when I finally give in and decide to take a bucket bath as an attempt to de-stress a little

* sweating the entire time that I am taking said bucket bath

* CLOGGED RAZOR when all I want to do is shave my dirty sweaty legs -- I find myself wanting to do this more often than you might think I do...I feel like it's a control thing. I may sweat and smell and have muddy feet, but damn it my legs are smooth. Or not.

* listening to a ridiculously repetitive call-in-and-give-your-friends-a-shout-out radio show for a very long time wherein every five seconds some bouncy looped African beat is interrupted by the same exact DJ to listener exchange

RAH.

I've noticed that I'm getting a little freckly on my arms in a way that I don't think I ever have before, and I wonder if these freckles are here to stay. I'm uncomfortable with permanent sudden changes to my body. Also also, this spot on my bottom lip that I thought was a bruise...?? ...turns out that's probably a freckle too. WEIRD. Sometimes people here poke at the freckles on my arms and ask me if they're mosquito bites, which has lead me to realize that the concept of a freckle is very hard to explain to someone who doesn't have them and has never seen them. Sometimes, like hot and sticky today, people here, like my little host sisters, poke at the places on my face where I'm breaking out because of the heat and the sweat and the stress and ask me if THOSE are mosquito bites. And then I decide to bike into town.

Here is a little list of home-things that I miss:

* Noho / Moho culture

* little bars and concert venues

* driving down Hartford Rd to get coffee -- for some reason that stretch of road has popped into my mind a couple of times

Okay...so that's not a whole lot, but really I haven't been too homesick or miss-y. Even about food, though stagaires talk about American food ALL the time. As I type, in fact, I am listening to a Nasara conversation about American food and good beer. Coincidence, but not a very surprising one. These convos don't make me hungry, just a little put off. It's akin to always bringing it back to conversing about being with some good looking celebrity. Sure, ok, Brad Pitt is hot, yes. That's a given, it doesn't really need to be said every day. You're never going to meet him or be with him in any way, so let's talk about something else.

Here is a list of things that I appreciated today:

* standing with my bike in the heat riiight in the middle of the day, having showered and changed and started my trip down the dirt road into town, and feeling GOOD...no flies, no sweat, just warmth and pretty clouds and green and brown fields.

* the smell and feel of tiger balm that I rubbed onto my ouch-ing shoulder

* noticing and enjoying that my hair is longer than it's been in a long time

...ok. So that's all well and good but now I'm stuck in Ouahigouya for a bit because it's rainy which makes biking uncomfortable muddy and long, and I don't really want to be alone but I don't really want to be in a social situation that requires any sort of effort. I just want to sit in a comfortable place with someone or someones and listen to music or read and not feel the need to talk if no talking is happening. You know?

I'ma get myself out of this funk right quick. ...which I hope means by tomorrow morning. Maybe I'll go to bed early tonight. Or something.

I think I'm going to go to ECLA, get a warm coffee, talk about my feelings to anyone I know who happens to be there and wait for this rain to stop.

so that people don't think I'm Jon Rudnicki...

Hi, this is Molly! I guess it's about time that I write something in my own blog. Unfortunately I have no pictures with which to entertain you all right now, so my tangential rambling will have to suffice. ...but do not fret! There's lots of it. :)

Holy moly it's been almost twelve weeks, right? When did that happen? Next Wednesday I will be spending my final night with my host family...after a couple of nights in Ouahigouya, all of us trainees (yes, all of us...all 32 that came in together at the beginning of June) will head to Ouagadougou to swear in as actual, legit, this-is-what-your-tax-money-is-paying-for Peace Corps Volunteers. Woo!

I'm starting to get a bit nervousexcited, and I'm definitely feeling a bit bittersweet about leaving my host family. Every morning I walk out of the door to my courtyard to a flurry of Moore greetings from tiny children who extend their hands tittering with "ça va!"s and "ne y yibeoogo!"s, excited shouts of "Mariam! Mariam! Aujourd'hui tu va ou??" I greet my host father with smiles nods and "laafi bala"s as he shakes my hand warmly and happily, wishing me a great day and bidding me goodbye until the evening. Then the kids -- five or six of them at least, sometimes even more -- take my bike and my backpack and walk with me past the goats and the cow (or "boeuf", which I love to say) , out of the family's compound and onto the little path that will eventually lead me to wherever training is for the day. The little ones often walk with me for a little while, seemingly making a game out of how long they can maintain control of my bike before I finally give in and tell them I need to start riding. ...to be honest I love every minute of it, even the period of gear-shifting adjustment I must go through every time I finally mount and begin my journey because Ousanni, Safi, Azeta, or whoever it was that commandeered my velo that particular morning clicked through some crazy combination of the 21 speeds. It always throws me off a little since at that point my NesCafe hasn't kicked in yet, but it never fails to make me smile a little, especially since I'm usually still shouting goodbyes to them over my shoulder as its happening.

I ride my bike through the village, greeting pretty much everyone as I head to the school to meet up with the other trainees who live in my village. Unless that day's training is happening either chez us or in the next village, we have a lovely 20 to 45 minute morning bike ride to start our day. It's really pretty nice...it's not too hot before 8am, and it's nice to enjoy some breeze, some exercise and some conversation before getting started with the day's training activities.

I don't hate training (or stage, pronounced French-like, as it's called here in Burkina). "Go with the flow" might be a phrase of mine that's bordering on overuse, but really that's what I'm doing...going with the flow and enjoying things for what they are. So I suppose I can say that I'm enjoying myself...because really I am. That's right. I said it. I'm enjoying stage. ...and not because each day is packed full of useful and pertinent information. Not because there has been value in all of the activities we've had to do. Not because GEE training fits comfortably into a 12 week time frame. Pas de toute. ...but I really like the group of Americans I'm with, I've really enjoyed spending time with the people in my host family, I've had a great experience learning to be comfortable in my little village and in Ouahigouya. I've found value in a lot of the things that we've done and I've also come to realize that the experiences I'm brining to the Peace Corps are going to suit my life here well.

It hasn't quite hit me yet that all of my new friends and I are going to be spread out all over the country, and the people that I've grown accustomed to hanging with, venting with, laughing with, blundering with, and drinking Brakinas with will soon live hundreds of kilometers away from me. What? Peace Corps? I'm going to be getting some mileage out of my cell phone for sure. Who woulda thought that sending text messages in Burkina Faso is as easy as having 30 CFA with which to do it?

Speaking of cell phones, I'd like to point out that receiving both text messages and phone calls on my plan is free, and that www.uniontelecard.com supposedly has a pretty good USA to Burkina deal with its bharatt phone card. ...voila some classy Burkinabé indirect communication skills. :)

Where were we? Ah yes...stage. Training. Every day, training. Four blocks of different stuff, plenty of time for lunch and relaxation in the middle. When us GEEs are in one of the villages we laze around with each other during lunch time, eating some meal prepared for us by one of our host families and talking or listening to music. The day officially ends at 17h15 (c'mon, you know what time that is!) at which point we generally bike back to our host families. Sometimes I visit with one of my other village trainee friends and their families. Sometimes I bike into Ouahigouya to indulge in frozen yogurt in a bag. This by the way is the best stuff ever. The plane ticket to Burkina will be worth every penny as soon as you put some of this in your mouth.

When I get home, I greet everyone I see...generally my oldest host sister, age 17, busts my butt about something or other...it's a sense of humor I've learned to enjoy and play along with. After a little bit of conversation in my host dad's courtyard I enter my little courtyard, shut the door, and get my water ready to take a bucket bath. If it hasn't yet become dark, I don't have to worry too much about cockroaches and gatingargas (that's Moore for HUGE ASS FREAKING HOLY SHIT SPIDERS). Taking a bucket bath is like diving into a pool...once I brace myself for the first cup of water that I dump over my head, it's wonderful. ...and I am clean! ...no more sweat, a negligible amount of dirt, and usually pretty good spirits. I join my momma in her courtyard where I either help fix dinner or just sit around on a mat and look at the sky and talk to her (and her kids...or any kids!) about our days. We eat dinner together, she and I, back in my courtyard outside of my house. Vrai Burkinabè the two of us...voracious appetites, hands mixing rice and sauce. Afterwards, she generally leaves to take care of her kids and her husband. I stay in my courtyard and talk with my oldest host brother and/or whatever members of the Mariam Fan Club happen to be around on that given evening. Sometimes I gather in front of a television that's been brought outside, along with dozens of other family members, to watch African music videos or Burkinabè movies.

Usually I'm in bed by 22h. The days are so long! But you know, I've enjoyed pretty much all of them. I'm here and I dig it. I knew I'd feel good about being in Africa, and I'm confident that this confidence is going to follow me into the next new phase of my life.

...but wish me luck! On August 25th I'll be swearing in. It'll be starting for real. New home. New neighbors. New job. New town. New life.

That's how it goes.

degrees of comfort -- guest blog by jon rudnicki

The infirmary door opens, I hear a “Co co co…”, (the burkinabe equivalent of “anybody there?” when entering a room) as someone rounds the corner toward the sickbeds. Its two fellow Peace Corps trainees, Molly and Coleman, coming to check on the downed soldiers. I like to think that they came out of sincerity and concern however it might have been more for their amusement or in Molly’s case even for karma sake considering she’s seemingly the only trainee out of 32 who hasn’t been sick yet. (jinx) whatever it was I was happy to see them after they were finished with training classes for the day. I think I may have been reading at that point, starting to feel better, but still staying the night because hell, I earned it from the previous two sick nights spent in my village. No one was going to move me from that bed. “We just wanted to see if you were still alive”, after a quick health status update and their sympathies they were on their way back to village.

The infirmary in Ouahigouya is a small medical building with a little white room that can just barely fit two beds, where people go to moan and whine about little sicknesses, that, because we’re in West Africa, make us think we are actually dying. Even though we sit through medical courses in the first weeks we arrive where we are repeatedly told that “you are not dying”, I had to disagree.

Charley, who I now refer to as my “old war buddy”, had the fortune of passing the time with me in the sick house. The short occasions between his spells of freezing in the fetal position rocking himself to stay warm and telling me that his “skin was on fire”, we would share our war stories. These are the stories that granted us the privilege to be lying in the beds we were currently occupying. And also allotted us the convenience of indoor plumbing with a toilet! (by the end of this story you’ll have a better understanding of why I chose to use an exclamation point there) We even had a functioning fan in the room. We were rockstars. Albeit at the expense of our ailments, I can easily say more than one time I wouldn’t have minded a minor sickness for the use of such luxury items here in Burkina Faso.

Charley didn’t have to do much explaining of his purple heart tale. As he lay there, malaria positive, splayed on the bed sweating and groaning I was humbled knowing he had just pedaled in an hour ago on his bike from village five miles away in 90 degree heat. Although I arrived in a less heroic fashion, I’m not going to let that undermine my epic war story.


Two days earlier I just finished dinner, which was plain cous-cous and water, which I have learned to be excited about, low dirt content. You can’t help but consume the red African dirt everyday being in the sahel, its in the air, you breathe it, you sweat and it sticks to you, forming a layer of fine dirt on your skin. It unavoidably gets in and on everything, it just happens to be more noticeable in soft foods but you quickly learn to live with it. Shortly after dinner I started feeling ill with stomach pains, headache, and nausea. So I told my host brother that I would be going to bed soon. I shuffled into my concrete room took some ibuprofen, started drinking oral rehydration salts (essentially this is drinking salt water, mmm… oceany) and got under my bug net to try to sleep.

All symptoms got worse as the night went on which prevented me from sleeping. All night long I tossed and turned and moaned and groaned until sunrise. When my brother came to the door I let him in which required me to get up out of bed and open the door because it remains shut from a latch on the inside. painfully and nauseously I shifted up and unhinged the door in a manner that must had semblance of an arthritic 95 year old. I explained to him my current state and that I was not going to training classes today because I wanted to rest and get better in my bed.

Shortly thereafter, my host mother came to the door, so I repeated the laborious processes- slowly sit up regain balance, untuck mosquito net, feet on floor – stabilize annnd stand,, creep to the door - unlock, phew ..all without throwing off the delicate equilibrium of my stomach that could have erupted out of my mouth at any moment. she only speaks the native language but I could understand she was giving me blessings because she kept using the word which means God. Ok thanks mom, time to rest, now. I lay back down,

“Co co co…” now it is my host father. Repeat process. Except add a sigh somewhere in there.
“Co co co…” now it’s my host uncle, repeat,
“Co co co…” now it’s my host brother, repeat, insert an “ugh” somewhere
“Co co co…” now it’s my host neighbor? Or a host stranger? I don’t know I’d never seen him before, I’m sure he told me who he was in his language but I wasn’t able to hear. The fact that I was so sick beyond the point of making any effort to do anything except for use every ounce of energy I had to keep getting up and unlatching the doors and not throwing up on my guests who I think were now making pilgrimages from other towns.
“Co co co…” now it’s my language teacher. Ok, I was actually happy to see him. If something goes wrong during training he is all over it. But he couldn’t do much in this situation. I was 3 seconds away from vomiting on him.
“Co co co…” now it’s a muslim priest, I feel awkward, do I kneel or something? It’s probably culturally insensitive to keep coming to the door in a blanket and not even speaking the same language to mumble something incoherently and point to my stomach to this community’s high chief but I WAS SICK. Forced insincerity. I assume now there is a sign up in front of Mecca that says DETOUR and points toward my house. So this is called integration because, please note, I haven’t said anything negative about their ways of handling situations. It’s nice to know people care and they support you. See, that was even a compliment.
My host brother came to the door one more time and at that point I could muster no more energy and just yelled from the bed. “I’M GOING TO SLEEP NOW (…please inform the entire town this fact)”

Miraculously, there was a lull in the visitors, like I was in the eye of a storm, like a metaphor, but then a real storm came, like a terrible thing, in real life. A sandstorm hit pretty hard. I was too nauseous and bereft of strength and energy to move my bed away from my windows that can’t close all the way. But I could wrap my sheet over my head so I could still breathe. So I laid there in my bed, with a sheet around head, waiting for the storm to pass, while it was raining sand on me and my bed. This, as one might imagine, was uncomfortable.

Later that day, language class was held in my little room, so I could still participate. It’s not as bad as it sounds, my condition somewhat improved, after I dug myself out of my bed. That was an exaggeration it wasn’t that sandy, but I did have a sandy mouth for the rest of the day. It was good to interact with English speakers even though we were supposed to be speaking French.
“I’m getting better” was my optimistic mantra that evening. However my stomach had a different mantra. It was something more like “DIE JON”. I am now going to describe my latrine, so you readers can get a visual of where I spent most of the night. About 15 paces out my front door is a mud brick wall with an open entrance. So upon entering there is a half wall so people who don’t “co co co” will only see half of your naked body. 5 foot walls surround you in the open air …which is nice because:
* The sun can shine on you
* The stars at night
* Breezes
* You can see the trees around you
…Which is bad because:
* The kids in those trees can look back at you
* Chickens fly in
* Cockroaches
* Rain
In the middle of the latrine is a hole. One must not look down the hole for obvious reasons. The not so obvious reason is that typically these structures are like 10 feet deep, so it is kind of like you’re on a roof pooping into a room. Which adds another dimension of scariness thinking about the floor giving way and falling in (which we have heard tales of).

Anyway, to spare many details of my second night of no sleep sickness, me and my flashlight frequented the latrine, that I share with the rest of my family, somewhere around 15 times this night. It’s funny when you decide to give in and call the Peace Corps Doctors because nobody really wants to inconvenience them but you think there is a strong chance you are legitimately dying. So needless to say my pain/etiquette scale had started tipping heavier toward the death side around 3am. I didn’t have to say “I think I am dying” because surely it was just assumed based on how hard I was trying not to say those exact words. The white land rover donning the Peace Corps symbol like superman’s “S” swooped into my village and picked me up within a couple hours. Admittedly, I felt a sense of guilt and dejectedness for failing so badly at the integration thing I was being physically removed from my environment like a broken human figurine on a train set.

I had notified my host brother where I was going so I didn’t doubt for a second that the entire village would be gathered to watch when I made the move from my little house to the car, because this was like a two for one deal, not only do they get to see a car in their village but they get to smile and laugh at the white foreigner. The Burkinabe’s humor is the “laugh with you kind” as they LOVE to set you up for cultural faux pas or situations that Americans have just never experienced and then laugh at you when you look most uncomfortable. Which is what they relish, American awkwardness. So you can have an idea of how to gauge this moment in their eyes, on the American excitement level it would rank somewhere around New Harry Potter book and superbowl. I hesitated at the door before leaving, running through most tactful ways to convey to my driver “stop the vehicle I’m going to ‘vomit/have diarrhea/pass-out’ ‘on the dash/in the seat/now”. This message seemed eminent considering there wasn’t actually a “road” to our village, there were means of access for bikes but that was even rough going on good days, so needless to say I was in for a turbulent ride. Then I realized that I was still going through the motions as though at this stage of my sickness I had any remaining pride. Without sleep or food for the last two days completely drained of energy, pride was the last thing I had on my mind as I crawled into the front seat. As the rover drove towards the infirmary, the villagers stared, fastidiously observing all movements, the last one they saw from the reclining passenger was an arm slowly rise to give a thumbs up.

welcome home

I really don't know how to react to my site. It's...unlike anything I would have expected, and unlike anything that Peace Corps training has prepared me for.

For the next two years I am going to be working within an all-girls Catholic boarding school situated in a ridiculously beautiful part of Kongoussi. The girls who live there are between the ages of 11 and 18. They come from all over the province, from the main town as well as the smaller villages. A lot of them come from very poor families and have been recruited by the sisters who run the school. I met a few of the students during my site visit this past weekend and wow...they seem great. I also talked a tiny little bit in my tiny little bit of Moore to a few of the girls who live and work there as cooks who have fleed forced marriages back at their homes.

...I can't even start talking about my housing sitch. It's ridiculous. For real. I have more than electricity. I have a fully functioning bathroom with a shower and a toilet that flushes and has a seat. My sink has a mirror. I have ceiling fans. Down the outdoor-hall from my room I have a kitchen with a stove and a FRIDGE and a FREEZER. A dining room. I have indoor sinks for washing my clothing. A second bathroom, just in case. It's unreal. It's kind of...communial seeming, the kitchen/dining room/laundry area. Which, you know, is cool. Unlike anything the Peace Corps prepared me to expect. But...cool. I've been told that the kitchen and all of that is just for me...which seems excessive and ridiculous. You know, I really wouldn't mind having a little propane stove set up in my actual house. Autonomy. This is overwhelming.

The sister that took care of me during my visit showed me around and cooked for me, ate with me and laughed with me, told me stories and watched French news with me on TV (!). She's a riot, she's quite jolly and laughing and lovely. My counterpart is on the ball...he's professional, down to earth, friendly, knowledgeable about the Peace Corps, just really into it. He took me around town, introduced me to all of the head haunchos, took me to lunch at his house to meet his wife and kids. I spent the evening hanging out with my super wonderful site mate Justin and we hit it off like no other, drinking beer and laughing late well past sun down.

I don't know what to think! Working to promote and develop life skills at an all girls boarding school that reaches out in particular to impovershed families and also serves as a haven for girls who have found the courage to flee forced marriage...could I have found a better place to be, a better way to bring my itshe camp counselor safe passage love and skills into Burkina? Also, here is a lil' photo of the view that one can enjoy from the school grounds where I will be living:

Mountains. :) Look at those mountains.

Ahh...so that's a tiny little what-my-life'll-be-like update. I've been out of my host village for a little over a week now. It'll be really nice to get back, to spend some more evenings eating dinner with my momma. It'll be weird to get back into training. That starts Monday. I've got a whole lot of sleeping to do between now and then.

I'll try to think of a good story or anecdote to throw your way sometime soon. I'm sure I've got some good things kickin' around.

Up next...a guest writes in. Stay tuned.

back so soon?

YES, indeed I am. I am prompted to post again in order to share with you all a wild coincidence. Before leaving for Burkina I posted a link on my blog to a youtube video produced by a former PCV in Burkina describing his town and his site and such and GUESS WHAT. His old home will soon be my new one! So...if you want to get a glimpse of what my soon-to-be hometown looks like, clickity click on the link on the left.

So that's kinda cool, right? Good.

Just got back yesterday from a brief little trip to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso's capital. Big, busy, spread out, full of restaurants where very American food is served. I housed a pizza that was covered in garlic and cheese along with a beer the size of a small child. The huge beer wasn't so much of a novelty, but the pizza definitely was. Dinner was Mexican food at the house of one of the APCDs...I am resistant to learning and using all of the Peace Corps acronyms but I just may have no choice in the matter. Assistant Peace Corps Director...for the Small Enterprise Development (SED) sector. APCD SED. OMG. Anyhow. Nothing is ever more delish than Mexican food, and with a little bit of encouragement I was able to Push The Limit and do my rugby stomach justice. I couldn't really move for a solid hour afterwards, which of course didn't stop me from eating a cookie. ...and then I just sat and listened to music and made some easy comparisons between the Peace Corps staff lifestyle and the summer I spent staying with Raj Rahel and Maya in Dhaka while digesting. Not too shabby.

...notice if you will how immediately this blog entry turned to an opportunity for me to drool over the thoughts of warm spicy food filling my mouth and belly. This is very much in keeping with my life here during training where every conversation topic quickly turns to either food or poop. The number of times I've uttered the word "cheesecake" in the past month is probably disgusting. So is the number of times I have participated in graphic discussions about diarrhea. A casual observer (a mouche dans le mur, if you will) might be grossed out by the detail that stagieres tend to go into when talking about their GI tracts. My time for terrible gut wrenching stomach pain has yet to come, which is quite fine by me. It seems, actually, as though I am doing better here health-wise than I was in the states. No tummy troubles, no cramps. Not yet...

The bus ride to and from Ouaga was pretty nice, especially the ride back when I WASN'T squished next to a large man who shifted uncomfortably any time I adjusted my body in my seat and inevitably made contact with him. If you don't want people touching you, you probably shouldn't go jonesin' after the window seat on a crowded Burkinabe bus. Just saying. The ride back yesterday was nice...I was a lot less exhausted because it was a lot less of a 6AM departure. I listened to music and watched the scenery whiz by at alarming rates, spotted some hills on the horizon and enjoyed food and drinks that were purchased out of the window during stops to pick up and drop off passengers. The people sitting in front of me purchased a small bushel of weda, this crazy sour fruit that you have to squeeze open using superhuman strength so that you can get to the little juicy furry seeds inside. The actual seed part of the seeds isn't intended to be injested, but due to the slippery nature of the fruit itself and the bumpy nature of the bus a big one definitely found its way down my throat. Soon enough I may finally have a GI story of my own.

I would have written a story...

...but it seems to be really difficult for me to coordinate motivation, memory, and access to the internet. ...but here I am! I haven't really said anything yet, have I? So it really doesn't matter what I start with, or if I even start. Right? Right. Ok. So there was my rambly intro to get me warmed up a little so that I can actually write something that is worth reading.

Maybe I'll start with a picture or two. That's a good idea. Let's see how long it takes to upload a lil' somethin' for your viewing pleasure...

Hey, that's me learning! I do that a lot these days, in theory. I think in this picture I actually am doing something kind of productive...in fact, I was working on part of a little "what is the Peace Corps speech" that I'm giving with a few other volunteers next week. In French. Est-ce que vous etes impressed? I am. It's actually been pretty cool to see how confident I am with just speaking French out and about and around with folks.

The lil' speech I'm working on in that picture there is going to be given in front of the Girls Education and Empowerment volunteers' counterparts, whom we will be meeting for the first time on Monday! Each volunteer has one main Peace Corps-assigned partner to work with on projects and such over the course of the next two years. My counterpart is the gym teacher at an all-girls boarding school run by nuns. I will in fact be working very closely with this school. Boarding school partnerships is a brand new part of GEE, which is itself a brand new program, so I am pretty excited to have the opportunity to blaze some new trails. After we all meet our counterparts, we'll be travelling with them to our new sites to check things out, ask some questions, see our new digs...I'm quite excited. I was just told today by the GEE director that my living space is beautiful. Near a lake. Lac Bam. That's right. I'm really looking forward to getting out and about in this here country!

The gentleman in the background of that picture there is my friend Jon, an important character to know about in my Peace Corps life because we're pretty symbiotic. He may be contributing a guest blog entry or two in the near future.

Ok, time for a new photo:

The reason this picture is cool to add is because it was taken TODAY. Talk about current! Chances may be slim that I get to the internet and write a little blog entry on a day where I also happened to be able to upload pictures to my computer, which is also a day that I actually took pictures! I actually planned this out a little bit. So that's blue eyed tanned nassara me at about 645 in the morning before leaving my little house to head into Ouahigouya, which is where I am now.

I really am loving my little house and my host family, which is huge. I'll be gone for 10 days because of all the counterpart-meeting and site-seeing that GEE is doing this weekend and next week, and I know I'm gonna miss it. My 19 year old host bro (same age as my real bro!) (what's up, Sam!) is this incredibly mellow, patient guy named Amidou who spends a lot of time hanging out with me and is very indulgent of my French-learning weirdness. The other night I insisted to him that we had to spend the night talking only in the future tense and we did, and he helped me, and it was great practice. My host momma is I believe 29, we have such a nice rapport with one another. Every day after I get home from traning, after I say hi to everyone around my little house and wash my sweaty dirty body and play with the boatload of kids who find their way into my courtyard and help my sisters with their sisterly duties, I head into my mom's courtyard to help her cook and talk about our days. We eat together in my coutryard after night has fallen, me and her and sometimes Amidou. It's just really nice...I look forward to dinner time.

Now it is just about time for me to go get tonight's dinner...the Secondary Ed trainees are currently everywhere in Burkina visiting their future sites, so it's just GEE here in the big city (...not really such a big city). It's weird to be here without our other halves! Tonight I'm going to indulge in a little burger beer and fries action. ...with ketchup, which I just discovered they have here! Tomorrow we all get on a bus to head to Ouagadougou for a day and a night, and then it's on to meeting our counterparts and discovering our sites. It's a big few days coming up!

what can i say in five minutes?

I feel really good about being here, it seems that this Peace Corps business will be good for my soul. It seems weird to keep a blog because this is just life that I'm living here, going with the flow as I've been having myself do for the past while...

I am very much enjoying the people that I am with. I'm digging the training, the biking, the kids, my host fam, my fellow Peace Corpsy people. I don't have much time right now, but I thought it fair to pop onto this thing to at least let you all know that I am alive and I am well. ...and I am sweaty. :)

just give me that june (june june june june)

Oh my gosh. It's June. M-month. T-minus not too much time until I'm wiping tears off my cheeks on a plane out of Hartford and invoking a brave spirit to face the beginning of this journey I've been waiting for for months...years...it's almost here. It's almost time. Wow.

my first true act as a Peace Corps volunteer

I very recently had a great visit with Odyssey Community School, my alma mater, the school that opened its doors for the very first time my very first year...what a trip! The Odyssey students and I are going to be keeping in touch with each other during my time in the Peace Corps, and this past Friday I was the guest speaker at their all-school meeting. A group of fifth graders put together an awesome power point presentation about Burkina Faso, Lia said some wonderful things about me, and then I was invited up to talk about myself, Burkina Faso, and the Peace Corps. I answered a lot of great questions and was filled with a renewed sense of excitement about the connection that I'll have with all those great Odyssey students. It's pretty cool to have had a chance to talk with the students with whom I'll be keeping in touch during these next two years.

After I visited OCS, I spent Friday up at Mount Holyoke cheering on the alum vs student rugby game. Thank goodness I purposely neglected to fill out the health form and bring cleats because I was eennnnnnnvvviiiiouuuusssssssssssss of everyone on that pitch kicking butt, and I know that playing rugby after such a long dry spell in physical activity SO CLOSE to my departure day would have been tempting fate severely. After going four years without a significant injury, it woulda been a crying shame to twistpoptearbreak anything that needs to be intact. ...but it was so great to see so many of my Moho peeps from so many different years. I love Mount Holyoke reunion time.

My mother and I were planning on taking a little trip to New York City this weekend but decided against it due to the loud and rainy weather forecast. We didn't really want to be walking around in the rain and thunder...we're such wimps! (...no no...just flexible see?) Instead, my mom and dad and I went shopping for some of the final things on my packing list. I actually can't believe how much time I was able to spend shopping, I'm usually quite terrible at that.

My final weeks are shaping up quite nicely. I have adopted a pretty stellar go-with-the-flow mentality, and I am loving the pace of my life as I am living riiight on the edge of something new and exciting.

Part of the free and awesome feeling I'm exuding these days probably has to do with the fact that I am not formally responsible for anything but myself right now...no job, no real commitments...I'm essentially on vacation right now. A very local, very shoestring budget vacation. I love it. It's great. I love how great it feels to say "yes" to adventures and social gatherings and spending time with friends. I love how flexible my plans are. I love that lots of the people in my life seem to be indulging this flexibility and jumping on for whatever part of the ride they can. And I am jumping on for whatever parts of THEIR rides that I can. Intersectionality. The way I am spending these days is very good for my soul.

departing from Hartford CT at 9:32 am June 9th

...thaaaaat's me! I just got off the phone with SATO travel after speaking with the same gentleman who helped me fill out my passport and visa application forms. He's a trip, he got right down to business after half-jokingly (?) reprimanding me for waiting until so late in the day to call. I felt a little lectured when he was presenting me with my flight options...but whatevs, I've got a flight and I don't have to do anything but show up.

Departing: Hartford CT 9:32 am
Arriving: Philadelphia PA 10:40 am

Staging will take place at a hotel in downtown Philly, registration is from 1:30 until 3:00, at which time we'll begin our first bit of orientation training. (Why, then, couldn't I have taken the flight that leaves Hartford at 11:30 and arrives in Philly at 12:40? Good question.)

Now there are about a billion little things I have to get sorted and signed and put together. I have to defer my loans, grant my mom Power of Attorney, make sure I've read/signed everything that these Peace Corps folks want me to read/sign...I have to finish quite a few more hours of the Rosetta Stone, acquire the rest of the things on my packing list. Purge all of my belongings and random crap. Hm.

...no more job! That's official. I was going to push it out until tomorrow but the chips sort of fell in a different way. I have a lot of little things I need to do before leaving, and I'm running out of...time?...money?...neither one of those things, actually.

This is just SO FUNNY! It's almost weird to think that after all of this waiting and such, I have a flight booked to staging (and, I hope, to Ouagadougou). I have a hotel room waiting for me on June 9th in Philadelphia. SATO travel man let it slip that there are 68 trainees heading to Burkina Faso...sixty-eight. That can't be right, that's such a large number. Sixty-eight. Hm.

Hm hm hm. I'm gonna chip away at some of the stuff I have to get done now. Four weeks to the day until I leave. I have to remember to take my final exam tomorrow evening. Maybe I'll tie a string around my finger. I have a trip to Canada to look forward to this weekend...I'm going to visit Rahel's friends and family with her for a few days. After that, I am wiiiiide open. A lil' visit to Odyssey Community School so that I can talk with the kids who will be following me on my Peace Corps adventure...a lil' good-bye party the next weekend so that I can see a lot of the people I may not otherwise get the opportunity to see...a lot of outdoor time and friend time and cooking and eating and being merry, and I think I'll be good to go four Tuesdays from now. Or I'll be peeing my pants. Perhaps inclusive or.

and the countdown gets...longer?

Just got a little email from Jason, the Burkina Country Desk Assistant. Staging will begin on June 9th (not 8th) in Philadelphia. I'll be getting a bunch of info about this in the mail next week.

Woo! Solid info is on its way!

Also, Mr. Jason has kindly stoked the fire under my bum about practicing French with the Rosetta Stone. He will be checking to make sure we actually use it for 40 hours like we said we would when we accepted our free subscriptions. Good thing there's some high school accountability stuff going on here because I don't think I would make it to the two score mark without being told that I'm going to be checked up on. Not that I'm flagrantly irresponsible or poor at time management (I'm really not either of those things), I just haven't found the program to be as helpful as I thought it would be given its reviews. It seems like it would be more obviously effective if I had zero French experience.

...though any language review is good, really. ...and I've had months upon months to get this in, so really there's no reason for me to NOT make the mark.

It's cram time.

changing season, flowing soul

I have survived another winter! New England is finally looking and smelling and feeling the way I like. My stubborn refusal to wear real coats or boots is no longer cursing my day-to-day physical well being. The sun is shining progressively later into the evenings and I am happy to be getting some of the vitamin D that I have been severely lacking these past few months. Wheewww, night shifts.

Little bit of a life update on that front: I quit my restaurant job soon after my March entry and have since gotten a six-week-ish-stint through a temp agency. I couldn't stay where I was any more and it would have felt a bit too crappy to sign on to a new job knowing full well I was going to leave it in a month and a half. Turns out (surprise!) no one who's hiring really wants to hire someone for such a short period of time, so honesty wasn't really on my side as I walked through town with resumes and references. I enjoyed the time away from working, actually...time with myself to walk and visit Pam and Enzo and such.

Alas...I have bills, as well as a number of missing items on my packing list. So now it's temp time.

The work I'm doing now is robot-level repetitive...it seriously requires no sentience at all. All day long I stare at a dim computer screen in a poorly lit room and I type type type numbers that have absolutely no meaning to me, transferring them from one place to another. The same tax form over and over, four pages of the same thing for hundreds and hundreds of businesses...it's all on the computer, it's all completely disconnected from me.

Turns out, this mundane and mindless job is an absolute friggin blessing in disguise. I wake up early, clock in at 7 or 8, and then for hours and hours each day I am free to let my mind really wander and think about all sorts of complex things while clacking my fingers around and getting paid. I listen to all sorts of podcast goodies from NPR, PRI, the BBC, and various other places. Total nerdy goodness with a hefty hefty dose of Dan Savage to keep me crankin. I ponder politics, economics, capitalism, creativity, issues in foreign policy and how they manifest domestically, philosophy, etymology...I feel smart and motivated and purposeful and in-tune and full of some really great things.

...and I've been having a lot of really good conversations with myself about my future career ambitions, the kinds of social and political issues I'd like to tackle in this world, the concept of seeking out journeys and not destinations. When I think about the Peace Corps in the context of an international relations job, a foreign service-type endeavor, I feel really really good about what kinds of life-decision-shaping experiences the next two years will bring to me. When I rev up for the excitement of taking on Peace Corps service as employment, with networking and connections and opportunities to move into other real world service, all of the jitters and the anxieties melt away.

I've had ample time to go through all sorts of emotional twists, considering my Peace Corps service from angles that were right in front of me and angles that I really had to search to find. I think that I'm coming around to a very good place. Perhaps this is coincidental and extremely fortuitous...perhaps I would have gone through all of these twists no matter how much or how little time I had to think. Who knows.

I don't expect that my emotional reaction to this has anywhere near leveled off. Of course not. However, it's a true fact that for every time I find myself feeling blue, there are ten times I think to myself "god just get me OUT OF HERE and over to West Africa!"

What a bizarre and unknown combination of THINGS Peace Corps service is going to be. It's wild to go into this having but a vague understanding of what it is I will actually physically be doing, and it's difficult to refrain from drawing up expectations. ...especially when I have oh so much time to think.

Application Status Update:

Dental (checkmark!)
Complete. Peace Corps has completed your dental review. There are no dental holds on your account at this time.



Yaaayyyy!!! On an official bureaucratic paperwork level, I have NOTHING LEFT TO DO in order to get my plane ticket!

(...knock on wood)

April, May, June

Nerves are beginning to kick in a little. ...a lot? It's all relative.

I'm mostly having Rahel-related nervousness at this point. ...but we've been talking and talking about all of this upcoming parting business and I think things will be good if we just keep talking things out. Right?

I hope right.

Peace Corps service is 27 months long. When I leave in June, Rahel and I will have been together for 27 months. What does this mean? I don't know.

Oh man oh man oh man.

Also, my birthday will be upon the world when I have been in country for only three days. Anyone who wishes to send me letters of love and encouragement that I can open on my birthday are welcome to do so at any point within the next month.

Speaking of time passing, so much of that has happened since I first thought I wanted to join the Peace Corps. I'm only little...do I still want now what I wanted then? Do I really think I'm prepared for Peace Corps service, or am I only really prepared for the idea of the Peace Corps?

Whew...there go my nerves again. Man, I'm nervous. I haven't really been nervous yet. This is a new thing. I'm glad I'm getting some of it out now so that I can accept it and deal with it and learn how to roll with it. If all of the nervousness that I could potentially feel about moving away for two years was to show up at the same time--on d-day--I would most likely vomit everywhere.

But I'm not vomiting everywhere. So that's good. ...and even if I was, that would be fine. Nerves happen.

the new depression

I'm reading about it and seeing it throughout my community. Businesses are shutting down, for-rent signs are popping up in store windows...though not a new phenomenon, it seems like a lot more of this is happening than usual. This is not the best time to be working for gratuity, although the amount of business cycling through restaurants is surprisingly high, all news considered. On the surface it doesn't look as though individuals are really being hit too hard...there's still a lot of shopping and spending and buying going on. People seem to be trying very hard to maintain their sense of normalcy and go about their lives without giving in to the reality of this economic situation. Wise, unwise, who knows. We'll find out.

I never doubted that I would be offered a spot in the Peace Corps. I feel as though I had a very strong application, relevant experiences and interests, as well as realistic and open-minded aspirations. Plus, the organization never had a reputation for being altogether too hard to join. If willing to stick it out through an arduous application process was the biggest hurdle to joining, then I could definitely do it.

It seems as though its competitive edge began to increase around the time that my original nomination date of October 08 had passed, but still I took my time for a while in this process. A little frustrated with the amount of roadblocks that had come up medically, I put off a few doctor's appointments and supplementary application materials for the duration of the summer in order to focus on other things in my life. The Peace Corps would always be there, it seemed, waiting for me patiently as I took my time getting things done.

My friend Stef, currently serving in Jamaica, informed me not long after her arrival this past July that the Peace Corps just stopped its long-standing practice of providing all volunteers with a subscription to Newsweek, something that the organization had been doing steadily since 1982. This was my first clue that things were changing. Articles about budget cuts and slashed positions began to surface regularly across the PC community. I stepped up my game in terms of getting things done, got in touch with many staff members in Washington, filled out a bunch of extra paperwork, had a second over-the-phone interview, and finally received my invitation more than a year and a half after I began the application process.

Now is not the easiest time to get invited to join the Peace Corps. The number of volunteer positions has been cut by 400 due to some massive budget cuts, and the number of people whose job prospects are dwindling--especially post college--is on the rise. These factors taken together make for a very competitive application process. At this point, I do not envy those who are waiting to find out if Peace Corps service is going to be in their future.

The Peace Corps application process is a game of patience and flexibility. It can be long, it can be repetitive, it can be invasive and offensive and frustrating. Sometimes you have to be willing to put big life plans on hold. You have to spend time and money to go through the process of being medically and dentally cleared. You have to wait and wait and wait to hear back from Placement Officers and medical staff, never really sure if what you've sent in will (finally) suffice.

I can't imagine going into this process with a decreased amount of confidence. There are very motivated, very dedicated, very prepared, and very qualified people--people like me--applying now who will either not be offered a volunteer position at all or be required to wait a long, long time before they are able to depart. Even knowing this, I feel good about myself and my position. The program to which I have been assigned seems like a perfect fit. The challenges that stand before me are huge and wonderful and I am ready to take them on.

I feel very at peace with the way things worked out for me. Yeah, this was a long time to wait...yes, having to live back at home with the fam after graduating from college is rough on the ego at times...but I got to spend a whole extra school year's worth of time with Rahel and my family and my hometown homies, I got to meet some great new people, I got to get more involved in my local community...I got to be here for my cousin's first baby...I had time to collect lots of music and to read lots of books and to expand my soul and my mind...I had time to get tangled up in the sort of drama that fires my spirit and defines key parts of my life, and I learned from it all.

It's very exciting to know that I'm going into the Peace Corps at a time when the organization needs to prove its strength in the face of everything that seems set to weaken it. I'm sure that magazine subscriptions and volunteer positions aren't the only things that have been cut--there are a lot of adjustments going on in Washington and in PC offices across the world that are disrupting routines and forcing flexibility. Maybe there will be housing shortages or changes in the living allowances per country. Maybe more volunteers will have roommates, stricter regulations about travel, less resources for training. I'm sure that recruiters and Placement Officers are looking even more thoroughly into an applicant's motivation...the coming wave of volunteers needs to be strong. There's a lot going on within the organization right now, and it needs to be held together so that it can get through these tough times .

Life does not follow the easiest course all of the time, and that's OK. It gives you a chance to change your expectations of what it all means, and to choose some pretty exciting battles to fight.