And You Thought Holiday Traffic in America Was Bad

Christmas came, and passed. It was successful, or as successful as you can have when you’re living in West Africa. So, to pass the New Year, Kathryn (my host sister) and I accepted an invitation from our host family to come to their New Year’s party. We were really excited to go visit them! Kathryn lives significantly closer to them than I do, but my travel is much easier because I just had to take one bus on a paved road (this is a big deal in Burkina Faso). So, I thought the trip would be easy. I would leave at 8am and arrive at my family’s at about 1 in the afternoon. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

So, the bus only left at one time (8am), which wasn’t enough time for me to leave my site and get to the bus before 8, so I had to leave the night before and stay in my regional capital for one night. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. We have a satellite office there and there are many hotels. Well, what I didn’t take into consideration was that it is the holiday season and many people are moving around, so all the hotels were full. Luckily, throughout my travels, I’ve been in a lot of situations where I really had no plan and things didn’t go quite as planned, but somehow, they always worked out. So, I didn’t panic. I eventually found a place I could camp at for the low price of $2.00 per night. Perfect. Except, I had no tent, no warm clothes, and nothing suitable for camping. (And for those of you who think living in Africa is like camping, you couldn’t be more wrong.) Also, it’s the cold season, so the temperatures get to about 60 at night in my part of the country, so it’s kind of cold for camping. Anyway, so I eventually found a tent that another volunteer left in the office, and went over to set it up. When I got there, I saw a huge group of about 30 other white people (a rare thing in West Africa), and even rarer, they spoke English. They were from the UK doing an overland tour from Cairo to Cape Town. It’s a weird feeling, when you have to speak English and come across many other white people. Anyway, I fell asleep pretty quickly, but then woke up about an hour later freezing because I was only wearing a tee-shirt and my jean sweatpants, not the warmest clothes ever. All in all, I got about 2 hours of sleep that night.

The next day, I had to leave early to catch my 8am bus out of the city. I called my normal taxi man, Kareem, to come and pick me up. Well, what he didn’t tell me on the phone was that he already agreed to take a couple other volunteers to their bus station at the same time. Next thing I know, all 8 of us are crammed into a small taxi trying to get to the bus station on time. Little did I know at the time, there was no reason for me to rush to the bus.

Normally, they start loading the bus about 30 minutes before the scheduled departure. Well, 8:00 came … and went, then 9:00, then 10:00. Ok, what’s the problem here? I finally get up to see what’s going on, and they tell me that the bus is broken. Super. But we are scheduled to leave at 12:00. Only 4 hours later than planned. This, relatively speaking, is not that bad. So, I’m sitting around, waiting, waiting, and more waiting. Finally noon rolls around and the bus starts… woohoo! So, I hurried and put something on the bus to claim two seats (one for me and one for the other volunteer I was travelling with), when all of a sudden the bus takes off out of the station like a bat out of hell. I’m the only person on the there and the previously “broken” bus is now speeding around town. I felt like I was in “Speed” haha. Finally, after about a 20 minute tour, we head back to the station. As far as I could tell from the runaway bus, everything seemed like it was working fine, but apparently, no, it was still broken. This time they assured me that at 1:00 PM, we will definitely leave. As I expected, 1:00 came and still no advances on the bus. Then, finally, they bring in another bus. Thank God. But the new bus is only half the size of the original bus so there isn’t enough room for everyone, so it’s a mad dash to the bus. I’m pushing big African women, small children and goats out of the way so that I can make it onto the bus. I get on when the mechanic announces that the original bus is fixed. I was doubtful, probably considering that there were a significant amount of bus pieces still lying on the ground. But everyone got off the new bus and loaded the old bus. We were crammed on there, sweating, and the bus was still going no where. So, again, we all get off, and at this point, I was about done. I was getting hot, sweaty, hungry, and annoyed. I was about to just go home and forget the entire trip. But, I ate and got a new wind and decided to wait a few more hours. I really wanted to see my host family and Kathryn.

Finally at 3:00 (7 hours late), the mechanic announces (again) that the bus was fixed, so once again, everyone loads onto the bus. This time, it seemed like a good sign because they actually started loading the bags and the bus was on, they were revving the engine and everything seemed good. The motos and bikes are tied down, and we are preparing to leave the station, when, naturally, the bus stalled. Typical. The mechanic gets off, takes a couple of minutes to fix it, and once again, “it’s fixed.” This time we actually make it out of the station! Woohooo!! We get about 20 minutes outside of town, with the bus only breaking down once, when a woman decides she doesn’t want to make the trip. Which, who could blame her, I’m doubtful if we will actually make it either. But, then the kicker, she had to get down her moto, which was on the top of the bus. So all the men had to get off the bus, untie all the motos and carefully lower down her moto. This whole thing put us another 45 minutes behind schedule.

So, now it’s nearing about 4:30, and we are only 20 minutes outside of the city. I still have a 5 hour bus ride ahead of me. But, we were going, finally. The bus only broke down… 2 more times. Then, about 5 hours later, a dehydrated, starving, smelly, dirty, tired me arrived at my host family’s house. A trip that should have been 5 hours, turned out taking 14.

When I arrived at my family’s, I was greeted by a huge sign saying “Welcome Home, Sara & Kathryn!”, decorations, music, food, and family. So, at the end of the day, I would do it all over again. I would sit at that stupid bus station another 8 hours waiting for the bus so that I could come here. I’m happy to be here, and happy to spend the New Year’s here in the company of good people.

‘Tis the Season (12/06/2010)

Well, it’s that time of the year. God, how times flies when you’re having fun… or when you’re sweating your ass off and fighting away invasions of insects in West Africa. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and my birthday have all come and gone. In October and November, I was craving pumpkins, watching the leaves change on the trees, and of course, Halloween candy. Now, it’s December, and I’m craving Christmas. I want snow, Christmas smells, Christmas trees, cookies, decorations and lights. I live in West Africa (in case you forgot), so there’s nothing I can do about all these cravings. I have one lone Christmas smelling candle (thank you, Mom!!!!), which I don’t want to burn because I don’t want it to run out. I just keep smelling it, and thinking of all you lucky people in America, who are surrounded by friends, family, and Christmas cookies.

This week is my last week of school before Christmas vacation, and I’m just as tired and burnt out as the kids are, so I decide to avoid teaching today and throw a Christmas party at school. It was probably the most pathetic Christmas party one has ever seen. First of all, I wanted to teach them about the history of Christmas in America. The town I live in is split between Christians and Muslims, so I start by explaining to them that in America, Christmas is not only for the Christians, but it’s for everyone to celebrate. Then, I started to tell them traditional American Christmas stories, which is when I lost them, and they thought I was completely bat-shit crazy. I mean, I would too if I were them. I told them about this magical, fat man named Santa Clause who flies around the world in his magical sleigh pulled by magical reindeer (only I didn’t know the word for reindeer in French, so I told them he was pulled by an animal like a horse). He lives in the North Pole and has midgets that work for him and build toys. Like I said, they thought I was crazy. I continued on to tell them that the night before Christmas he stops at everyone’s house and gives them a present, so that when they wake up in the morning, there’s a present under the tree. This is when I got the question. “Madam, why doesn’t he come to Burkina Faso?” Uh oh. What do I say here? No, this magical, fat man doesn’t avoid your entire continent. He is make-believe, and it’s actually the parents who put the presents under the tree. Crap.

After my stories didn’t go over too hot, I decided to teach them some Christmas songs. Once again, this didn’t go as planned. First of all, I couldn’t remember the words to any Christmas songs, except the chorus to Jingle Bells, and Rudolph the red-nosed Reindeer. Then, the dreaded part, I had to sing to 80 little Burkinabé children. Half applauded and the other half laughed at my pathetic attempt at singing. There’s a reason I always fake singing “Happy Birthday.” Then, I wanted to play them some Christmas tunes from my iPod, except I don’t have any. I stole a couple of songs from my site mate before class, but they were all instrumental only Christmas songs. I mean shit, can I get some Alvin the Chipmunks Christmas tunes, or something entertaining I can give these poor kids.

My final failed attempt was making Christmas decorations for the classroom. Not only do we have no supplies, literally no supplies (there was about 10 packs of colored pencils which all 80 students shared), but they lack all creative ability (something they never harp on as children… critical thinking and creativity). So when I tell them to draw something relating to Christmas we can hang in the classroom, they draw exactly the same pathetic Christmas tree and “Happy Holidays” sign that I drew on the board. When they are all finished drawing, which took an exceptionally long time considering, I wanted to glue the drawings to the classroom walls, which, once again, turned into complete chaos. I had 80 children running up to me, “Madam! Madam! I need to glue this!” I only have one small bottle of glue, so I’m trying as best and quickly as I can to put glue on every single piece of paper they hand me. During the gluing chaos, the kids are putting up their pictures on the walls. I’m finally done, and not only do I have glue all over me, but I accidentally glued one girl’s finger to her paper, and spilled glue down another girl’s back… woops. Then, I have time to breathe and look around at all the decorations. This is when I see that the kids went crazy while pasting their pictures. There was one paper glued to the ceiling, one glued in the center of the blackboard (obviously, “because it’s the best one, Madam”), and then I see the picture that takes the cake. It’s a picture of a half-nude NASCAR girl in a bathing suit. I live in a country where it’s slutty to show your knees, and now, I have a picture glued to my classroom walls of a girl in a bikini… excellent.

So, now, I’m home. I’m exhausted, and it’s the end of my holiday party. It could have been better, but it also could have gone a lot worse. All in all, I wouldn’t say it was a complete failure. I’m retired back to my humble abode, and am sitting eating Reese’s (thanks Grams!), smelling my Christmas candle, and watching “Elf.” Merry Christmas, and enjoy everything about Christmas that I am missing right now!

Mes Grands Merci Beaucoup!

So, I try to write a new blog everytime I have internet, but this time I don't have any new stories, so I want to take this time to say thank you to everyone at home who has taken the time to support, call, write and love me! It always makes my day better receiving a letter or package, and stories from home! Living in Africa isn't always easy and I can't just pick up the phone and call someone, but the letters get me through!

Special thanks to the following people:
Of course.. my parents, Hannah, Jessie & Yoda
Grandma Kathy, who writes me every single week with the new gossip
GB and Jean
Grandpa Ron & Kay
Aunt B
Jenn O.
Albright
Alpo
Urias

Merci Beaucoup and I love you!

Pics from The Fair

The Fair (11/04/2010)

So about 2 months ago, I heard rumors of a fair in my town. I didn’t really think much of it because often times this kind of thing is either false information or the ideas never actually take off. Well, as time passed, more and more people started talking about it. I told one of my neighboring volunteers, and he said it’ll probably be nothing so don’t get my hopes up. Too late, I was already expecting face painters, carnival rides, cotton candy and clowns…. haha just kidding!

Some time passed and the fair was out of my mind, when all of a sudden, my neighbor tells me, not only is the Burkinabé government going to construct a brand spanking new market for the fair, but the president is coming! I also found out that the last time they held a fair like this was in the 1990’s. So yea, it was a big deal.

Well, the week of the fair rolls around, and I’m still not sure what to expect, but I’m excited. The admin at my school calls a last minute (as usual) meeting for the staff. We find out that the school will be closed for not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 days to “prepare the town for the fair.” Prepare the town for the fair? Ok, why not.

The Tuesday before the fair, was the day everything would be closed to “prepare the town.” All I know is that I don’t have school, so I slept in haha. I get a call from my site mate, another Peace Corps volunteer, saying, “Sara! Get up! You have to get into town! It’s crazy down here!” Ok, I’m up and heading into town. Well, no kidding. Every single man, woman and child was out with a shovel, rake or broom cleaning the town. They were pulling all the weeds, cutting down branches, clearing the roads, and picking up the trash. And to top it all off, there were drummers there to “inspire” and “motivate” the workers. (Could you imagine the Borough of Downingtown announcing the town will be closed and everyone must go down to Kerr Park to help clean for Good Neighbor Day? HA! Yea right!) My other site mate told me later in the day that he went out to buy a broom for his house (just conveniently on the same day as all this), and they were sold out everywhere! HA!

So finally, Thursday rolls around… the day of the fair. I’m up early and excited. I put on my best clothes and head down to the mayor’s office for the opening ceremony. This, again, included drummers and a lot of important Burkinabé government officials. They also had a wonderful thing called bonbon glacé (a frozen yogurt and coconut popsicle-like thing). The ceremony is finished and we head down, along with about 1000 other people, to the fair grounds. When we arrive there, they aren’t letting anyone from the general public in yet, only the important officials. Well, as I quickly learned, I’m not the general public… I’m white. I got in with the important people, which included government ministers and people from the French Embassy. We wandered around to check out everything. It was amazingly organized and clean. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, in Africa that is.

I run into my bamuso (my adopted mother) wearing a full green and white “Burkina Faso and USA friendship” outfit. Well, coincidentally, I have the same fabric made into a dress. So, of course, I had to go home and change so that we were wearing the same thing. Now, if this were America, I would never be caught dead wearing the same thing as my mom (no offense, Mom). But, this isn’t America, it’s Burkina Faso, where it’s totally acceptable and encouraged to dress similar. So, now, I’m back at the fair, wearing the same outfit as my bamuso. HA!

I head around one corner, and there’s a huge mass of people surrounding one stall, so of course, I had to go check it out. When I get there I see three old men sitting covered in various furs, teeth and bones from different animals and that’s when I saw it. The thing everyone was there to see… an elephant head. It was humungous! You don’t realize how big these animals are when you’re at the zoo. The elephant was accompanied by a hippo head, a warthog head, and a full cheetah! It was quite something! (Sorry, I tried to take pics, but the men didn’t like that ha.)

The next thing I come across is the row of traditional medicine men. (Now, if you forget how fascinated I am with medicine men, please refer back to my blog about my bike accident.) Needless to say, I was really excited to check them out. Most of them were normal (well, as normal as any old, traditional medicine man will be) and selling various herbs and plants to cure everything from hemorrhoids to blindness. I asked about a couple of the plants they had, and as curious as I am about this stuff, I’m still nervous about taking any it myself. So, I continue down the row, when I come across one man that really creeps me out. So, naturally, I had to stop and check out his stuff. The first thing I notice is a pile of about 50 human teeth on a mat on the ground. Not only were they human teeth, but they were still attached to the root, as if they had been pulled straight out of the gum! Then, I look over, and he has a huge scorpion crawling up his arm! I tried to chat with him, but he didn’t speak any French, only Jula (the local language here). And, once again, I tried to take a picture, but he wasn’t having any of that. And the last thing I need is some weird African spell put on me because I took the picture of a traditional medicine man.

So, I’m back, wandering around the food section, buying some amazing bananas right off the stalk, when I get another frantic call from my site mate, “Sara! You gotta come over here! There’s a man with a monkey on a rope!” Apparently, there was a whole other section of medicine men that I missed, and one had a monkey! So, I had to go check it out, and got distracted on the way buying more bonbon glacé. I round the corner, and see another swarm of people, so I know I’m in the right place. And once again, I’m white, so I was immediately dragged to the front of the group by the medicine man. I’ve seen a few monkeys here and in Guinea, and none of them were very big. They reminded me of the little pet monkey that Ross (from Friends) had. This man had two monkeys, and one was really big. The little one was just sitting contently eating bonbon glacé, but the big one was mad, probably because he wasn’t eating bonbon glacé and was wearing a tee-shirt that said (in English) “Who’s my Daddy”. Anyway, I saw the monkeys, and it was fun, but nothing I would want to get too close to.

The chaos of the fair lasted for three whole days, and the whole while, everything in town was crowded and the cell phone reception was overloaded so I couldn’t make or receive any calls. But, all in all, it was great! I bought a lot of good stuff (which I will be sending home as Christmas presents), and ate some really good food! I saw an elephant head and some crazy medicine men. I mean, how many people can say that they’ve done that?

On a side note, a lot of my devoted blog readers have asked how my gym classes are going, and I proudly want to say that I was not chosen as the gym teacher! Thank god for the youth of Burkina Faso.

Le Conseil (09/28/2010)

I’ve been at site for about a month. On September 15, the other teachers at my school were supposed to arrive, and we were supposed to have a big, important meeting, Le Conseil. From what I understood, it was a meeting to discuss teacher’s schedules, the last school year, and problems at the school. It would be my first school related meeting and my first meeting in French. I was nervous, but also excited to get going. So, September 15th rolls around and no there’s no conseil. I wait, and wait, and eventually it comes. I get a call yesterday morning from my homologue (the person at my school who’s my contact for any problems and pretty much in charge of me), telling me that the conseil will be held that afternoon at 3. Finally! Only 2 weeks late hah.

I show up at my school around 2:40, as a good American, I’m a little early and ready to go. There’s no one there. I sit around and wait. Eventually, at 3, my homologue (who is also the Vice Principal) shows up. He tells me that the Principal is sick with “le palu” (AKA malaria. SIDE NOTE: Everytime someone is sick here, they think they have malaria, a parasite that can be deadly if it goes untreated. My homologue told me twice he probably had malaria because he was really tired. They’re usually fine within a couple of days.) So eventually some of the teachers start rolling in, and the conseil starts closer to 4. We start of with introductions, and, of course, everyone is wondering who is this new white girl. I introduce myself, “Je m’appelle Sara. Je suis une volontaire avec le Corps de la Paix. J’enseigne le SVT et l’Anglais.” (My name is Sara. I’m a Peace Corps volunteer. I teach science and English.) Whew… I made it! The other teachers seem satisfied with my response because they continue on. At this point I realize that only 12 of the 20 teachers and 2 admin showed up for the meeting, and I’m the only female teacher! Oh boy.

We continue on with information about last school year. Basically just a lot of statistics unimportant to me, but there was one shocker. He announces how many students passed the BAC (the equivalent of the SAT’s, but students are required to pass the test in order to graduate). 43%!!! Yes… only 43% of the students passed! I couldn’t believe it, and I think my face said it all because my VP stopped the meeting to ask me if I was ok haha.

So, next section of the meeting, problems at the school. The big problem for this school year is lack of sports equipment, athletic fields, and a gym teacher. I take a mental note that I may be able to help with sports equipment and athletic fields. Then, he asks for someone to volunteer to teach gym. I ignore the request because he could not expect this skinny, white girl with glasses to teach any type of sport when out of nowhere, “Sara, could you be our gym teacher?” Oh fuck. Well, I once walked the mile in 25 minutes, and almost failed gym another year, so I was probably the best person here HA! I politely tell him that I don’t think I’m the best candidate, and he assures me that he can give me all the resources required (except sports equipment and athletic fields…). I try to weasel my way out of this one, and I’m still not sure if it 100% worked. We’ll see if I show up for the first day of school and have “Gym” on my schedule.

After the whole gym debacle, we move on to the part I’ve been waiting for… teacher’s schedules. Now remember, this conseil is being held 3 days before school starts and the teachers still have no clue what they will be teaching, and no one seems concerned about this except for me. I browse over my schedule… it’s looking good so far, 2 sections of middle school English (74 students each), 1 section of high school English (60 students), and 1 section of Geology (99 students!)… wait, Geology? When was the last time I studied rocks? Let me tell you, it was with Ms. Davidheiser when I was in middle school… 10 years ago! Uh oh… I’m in trouble. After the conseil, I head to my homologue’s office and the “library” (a room with one locked cupboard filled with old textbooks) to collect the books I need for my classes. I immediately get overwhelmed when I come to find out that there is no curriculum or book for my high school English class, and the geology book is a really in-depth, wordy book about rocks. Do we have a rock collection at my school? How am I supposed to teach this?? Not to mention, they throw in a section of Sex Ed after rocks… can you say “le penis” haha.

So, the whole day today I spent running around to different bookstores and the other high school in town trying to collect the books and materials that my school was lacking, and trying to figure out how to teach 99 kids about rocks. It’s been overwhelming, stressful, and frustrating. But, hey, it’s Peace Corps… “the hardest job you’ll ever love.”

Pictures

** It took too long to upload pics onto my blog, so i updated my snapfish account **

http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2589346022/a=1579671022_1579671022/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Enjoy!

Pictures

Apparently I can only post a max of 5 pics at a time...

My New Peace Corps Record

So, I'm happy to say that I've beat my old Peace Corps record of 4 days at site. I am now going into my 3rd week... woohoo!

But, because I've been at site, I have no internet connection (womp womp). In the last few weeks since I've blogged, I swore in (again) as a Peace Corps volunteer, and moved to my site where I'll be living for 2 years, hopefully! It's been chaotic, stressful, amazing, new! I had to say my good bye's and head off to live in a town all by myself (except for the 2 other Peace Corps volunteers, a few Americans doing a health study, and the 3 Japanese volunteers)... so, I'm really not alone haha. It's been really great so far.

Instead of writing a long detailed blog about every single thing that's happened in the last few weeks, I'm just going to put up some pictures. If there's something specific you want to know, either comment on the blog or email me.

“But Mom, the bissap is finished” (8/22/2010)

Yesterday morning, before Katherine and I left for school, our dad asked if we would be around after dinner that evening. We said yes we would be around, we didn’t have any plans, and he was excited and announced he had a surprise for us. This coming from our Burkinabé host dad, we had no idea what to expect, but were really excited.

So after school we ate lunch (hamburgers and chwarma... yum!), and then hurried home for our surprise even though it wasn’t until dinner time. When we got home, our family was preparing a feast. They were making popcorn, crevettes (like shrimp flavored chips, which sound gross but are actually really good), bissap, many chickens, and there were a lot of drinks. At this point, we realized our family was throwing us a fête! We sat around for a few hours and watched them prepare the dinner and the house. They got out the good music, the fancy cups and plates, the new tablecloth, and of course, their party clothes. Katherine and I adjusted to the situation as good Peace Corps volunteers learn how to do, and put on our party clothes too, which happened to be matching green and brown outfits (AKA our mint chocolate chip outfits). Around 8 pm, the party began.

Our dad started with a speech, saying that this party was for us as a going away party. He said he wanted us to know that we will always have a family here, and whenever we pass by, he hopes we will stop by. The doors are always open and there is always room for us, even when there are 9 people living in a 2-bedroom house haha (as it is right now). He said their family learned as much from us and we did from them, and that they appreciated the experience to meet us. The speech was probably one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.

Then, as any good party, came the food. It was a buffet style feast that included salad, two kinds of chicken, couscous, chips, popcorn, and French fries. It was delicious! After dinner, our host dad opened the beers and wine, and then came the dancing. They put on a mix of traditional Burkinabé songs, some French music, and even salsa. They laughed at Katherine and me as we tried to dance. There’s no competing with African women haha. But, it didn’t matter, we danced away the night and had a great time. At the end of the night, my host mom announced that I had found “the rhythm”. For those of you who know me, you know this is not true, and I have never been able to dance well. She insisted it was true, but I think it could have to do with the amount of whiskey she consumed haha.

After we finished the second bottle of red wine and our family wanted to continue dancing, our 4 year old host sister said, “But Mom, the bissap is finished.” She had thought that the wine was bissap! Haha! After a few hours of dancing, eating, drinking, and me finding the rhythm, our host family decided that we “passed” and invited us back for their New Year’s Eve party haha.

This has definitely been one of my favorite and most memorable nights spent here. After living with four different host families across Guinea and Burkina, I had found MY family. A family that I felt comfortable enough with that I had adopted them as my own as well as them adopting me. It was a great night, and made me glad to be here.

“Sometimes Signaling isn’t Enough” (8/20/2010)

As a Peace Corps volunteer in Burkina, I ride my bike… a lot. We go through a few sessions of bike maintenance and bike safety. The most important things are always wear your helmet, and always signal when turning. Since I haven’t been on a bike since I was about 12 when I had a purple sparkly bike, I made sure to always follow the rules and pay attention when I’m biking. After about 2 months here, biking around on dirt roads, I was getting pretty confident on my bike and becoming a pretty good biker. Or so I thought…

A few days ago, after a long day of teaching and classes, I left the school and headed towards a nearby restaurant to celebrate the birthday of a fellow trainee. (Let me preface this by saying that as a part of our training, we have to give a 15 minute presentation in French about a cultural aspect here. I chose to give my presentation on traditional medicine vs. modern medicine in Burkina. After interviewing a few people, I found out that people who practice tradition medicine mainly treat using different parts of plants. Being a biology major, I was really excited about learning about the different types of plants here and what their uses are.) So back to me biking down the road, I was riding near a part of town where there are a lot of trees and plants, and so I was looking at the plants and thinking about what their possible uses are, and trying to remember what they looked like so I could look them up in my traditional medicine book when I got home. I was approaching the turn to the restaurant and signaled like a good biker… or at least I thought I did. So I’m turning left when a moto swerves around me and WHAM! I’m hit! My bike flew to the right, and I flew to the left. I hopped up really quick, made sure my glasses weren’t broken, and then checked out the rest of me. I had some nice scratches on my knees and my hand, but nothing was bleeding too badly. I decided I was ok, and after convincing the other trainees who witnessed my mini accident that I was ok, we continued to the restaurant for the birthday.

I’m there for about an hour or so, and realize that my elbow really hurts and is starting to swell. I decide its time to head home. I ice it and wrap it for the night hoping it would be better in the morning. Well, I woke up in the middle of night with it really hurting and couldn’t fall back asleep. The next morning, my elbow still swollen and in pain, I realized I should call the doctor. Luckily, he happened to be at our training site that day. He takes one look and it and says I need an x-ray immediately. Crap. All I can think about is the other trainee who was recently medically evacuated to South Africa for a similar incident involving his elbow and a bike. I don’t want to be evacuated. I want to swear in with the other trainees.

I head off to Ouagadougou, the capital, with our doctor to get my x-ray. I walk into the Peace Corps med unit when I hear, “Holy crap, Sara!” Who do I know here? I look over, and it’s Phil and Dylan (my fellow volunteers from Guinea)! They were coincidentally in the med unit at the same time as I was! This was a nice little surprise and comfort to see people I know. After quickly saying hi, I was off to the radiologist for my x-ray. I went by myself, which I was a little nervous about. But, I successfully got an x-ray and received the results from the doctor… all in French! This whole thing took about 45 minutes, and I found out that my elbow is fine. I have to wrap it and wear a sling for a few days (so embarrassing!), but after that, I’ll be good as new! Yay!

When I get back to the med unit, I meet back up with Phil and Dylan, who I think felt bad for me, and took me out for some pizza! So, all in all, I got a nice little vacation away from training, some pizza, and got to see my old friends… getting hit by a moto wasn’t so bad after all.

I learned a few lessons from this whole experience. One, there is a reason I haven’t done one physical activity or sport in my 24 years of life… because the one time I do, I get hit my a moto. Two, I now know how to wrap my left arm with only one hand. And three, sometimes signaling just isn’t enough.

Sabou & the Sacred Crocodiles

The last few weeks are the most intense part of our training, practice school. We teach for a few hours each day at a summer school. I have been teaching math and biology. Friday was our last day of practice school! Woohoo! Normally, we have 4 hours of language class on Saturdays, but yesterday, they decided to take us on a little field trip to celebrate our hard work and the end of practice school. They announced that we were going to feed crocodiles…

I really didn’t know what to expect from this. I’ve been to the zoo and paid a quarter to feed the ducks or an occasional camel, but crocodiles were on a whole different level. We arrive at the crocodile place, which was basically a huge lake surrounded by some marshy wetlands and trees. There was a place to eat lunch, and naturally, the touristy shops. The first thing I noticed when stepping off of the bus was that all the workers there had some type of deformity or handicap in their feet. Of course, the first thing I think is that they were attacked by the crocs. This makes me a little nervous, but I follow the group down to the lake.

Now, if this were America (if only I had a dime for every time I said that phrase), there would be a clear separation between us and the crocs, but we walked right up to the edge of the water. I’m looking into this lake when all of a sudden, about 10 feet away from me, I see a croc peak it’s head and eyes up out of the water. It was like something you would see on a movie… a horror movie haha. Now, I’m still a little wary of these crocs, so I step back… behind the rest of the trainees ha. Next thing I know, the man in charge of the crocs heads out into the middle of the lake with a dead chicken died to a string. He starts swinging it around in the water until a croc gets close enough that he can grab it. Yes, I said grab it. A wild croc. With his bare hands. He gets a hold of the tail and starts dragging it out of the water towards us. He puts the croc down in front of us, and announces that we can go touch it now. It started with our brave trainers, and then slowly progressed to some of the trainees. For most of the time, the crocodile would just sit there while all us took our turn touching it. The man in charge of the croc would swing the chicken near its face, presumably to distract it from the thought of eating us haha. Everyone few minutes, the croc would get angry and snap towards someone, or try to head back into the water.

After the novelty and this croc wore off, one of the kids in my group asked jokingly if he could sit on top of a crocodile and ride it. We all laughed, when to our surprise, the man in charge says yes, he can arrange that. He’ll go catch “le vieux” aka “the old one”. We were all shocked as we watched him put the first croc back into the water, then head back into the crocodile infested lake, with the chicken in hand, to catch the old crocodile. A few minutes later, sure enough, he’s dragging out a much larger, older crocodile. He plops it down in front of us, and says we can sit on it. Once again, I’m thinking hell no. All I can picture is me trying to sit on the croc, and that’s the end of my right hand.

After about an hour of so of poking and sitting on the poor crocs, we’re finished and we head up to eat lunch. At this point, the man in charge of the crocodiles tells us their story. First, let me start off my saying that there’s a common joke among Burkinabe that, “50% of them are Muslim, 50% are Christian, but 100% are Animists.” Obviously, the numbers are a little off, but the point is that most people here are animists. Ok, so the croc story. So along time ago, the crocodiles lived about 5 kilometers away from their current town. One day, the founder of the town where the crocodiles currently live, Sabou, caught on fire. Luckily, the crocodiles were around and they saved his life by putting out the fire. After that, the crocs were moved to Sabou, and have lived in the same lake for over 100 years. He said there is a relationship between the crocodiles and the humans. The crocodiles saved the founder’s life, so now the people of the town care for the crocodiles. Every year, they make a sacrifice to the crocodiles to keep them happy. He didn’t say what the sacrifice was, but I would think that it would be a chicken, or other small animal. He said it’s ok to go swimming in the crocodile lake because the crocodiles and humans are friends. (There are 100+ crocs in the lake… this is not a theory I would want to test out!). He also said that during the dry season, the crocodiles will leave the lake and venture out into the town. If you happen to find a crocodile in your house, which apparently is common, you feed it a chicken and it’s good luck for the family.

Later that night, when I return home to my host family, I ask them about the sacred crocodiles. They assured me that the crocodiles and humans in Sabou live peacefully together. But they also said that the crocodiles know the difference between “good people” and “bad people”, and they only eat the bad people. This led me to believe, that at some point, the crocodiles have in fact attacked a human… or two.

Burkina Faso’s 50th Anniversary (8/5/2010)

Today was the 50th Anniversary of Burkina Faso’s independence (Burkina’s 4th of July). Interestingly enough, they do not celebrate the anniversary today, but in December… December 11th to be exact. Why, you ask? Good question. The calendar of everything in Burkina, as most West African countries, is based on the seasonal calendar. They only have 2 seasons here- the rainy season and the dry season. During the rainy season, people do not go to school, they do not work at regular jobs, they do not attend meetings… all they do is work in the fields. The school year, which runs October through May, occurs during the dry season. When the rains come, it’s all hands on deck. Their independence day falls in the middle of the rainy season, so they designated a new day, in the dry season, to celebrate their independence each year. Anyway, today, in honor of this, we had a small session on the culture of Burkina, and then all of our LCF’s (Language & Cultural Facilitators), sang the national anthem of Burkina.

For those of you who are curious, here is a small summary of the history of Burkina Faso. In 1895, the country, known at that time as Upper Volta, was attached to the French West African colonies, Afrique Occidentale Franҫaise. In 1932, a decree suppressed the territory and divided it between Niger, Mali, and the Ivory Coast. In 1958, a new constitution was adopted and Maurice Yaméogo became the first Chairman of the Republic. In 1960, he signed an agreement to end colonization in Upper Volta, and on August 5th, there was a proclamation of their independence. Between the years of 1960 and today, the republic experienced all types of government systems, including democracy, dictatorship and autocracy. In 1966, the people of Upper Volta were displeased with Yaméogo’s rule, and he, peacefully, dismissed himself. After this, General Sangoulé Lamizana took power, and ruled until 1980 when there was a coup d’etat. Colonel Saye Zerbo seized power with the help of young army officers. In 1982, there was another coup d’etat, conducted by Thomas Sankara who was previously the Minister of Information. Commandant Dr. Jean Baptiste Ouédraogo was in power from 1982-1983. He currently owns a medical practice in the capital, Ouagadougou. The government had Thomas Sankara arrested because of “difference of opinions.” He was released shortly after with the help of Blaise Compaoré. In 1983, through (yet another) coup d’etat, Thomas Sankara and his newly created National Council of the Revolution took power of the country. In 1984, Sankara changed the name of the country, the national anthem, the flag, and anything else associated with the French colonization. Upper Volta became Burkina Faso (translated to “Country of the Upright People”), and their new moto became, “Fatherland and death, we’ll overcome.” In 1987, Thomas Sankara was murdered and Blaise Compaoré came to power. He was then reelected in 1991, 1998, 2005, and (probably)November 2010.

“Le Bissap” (8/1/2010)

One of my most favorite things about West Africa is Bissap. I’ve written about this drink a few times in various blogs and letters, but I’m not sure if I ever took the time to really describe it. The Bissap in Guinea, like most things, was not as good as it is in Burkina. In Guinea, I liked it, but didn’t drink it often. In Burkina, my host mom prepares it for me daily! It’s a great summer drink (or if you’re in Burkina, a year round drink), and really good frozen too! This past weekend, I asked my host mom if she could show me how to prepare it. She was really excited and rushed off to the market to buy the ingredients. I found out that all the ingredients used to make Bissap are available in the US, so I figured I would share my host mom’s recipe (which is much better than most!). Here’s a little taste of Burkina:

Ingredients
1 ½ cups dried hibiscus leaves
A few sprigs of fresh mint leaves
1 liter water
¼ kg of sugar
½ tsp pineapple extract

Directions
Combine water, hibiscus and mint. Boil for 10 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes. Strain. Strain again. Add sugar and mix well. Add pineapple extract. Serve chilled or over ice.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
(PS… sorry about the metric measurements)

Posh Corps

So, we’ve moved for the 5th time since being in this country. It’s getting a little tiring living out of a bag, so I was happy when we finally moved to our current training site. I also received my new host family, which for the count is my 4th host family in West Africa. Like my site, I lucked out. Because there are 80 people in my stage, it was difficult to find 80 new host families in a week. So we’re living with another stagiare for the rest of home stay. Luckily, I got a good roommate!

My new host mom works as a health agent, which I think is kind of like a nurse, and my host dad does the budget for the mayor’s office. They have 2 younger children and 2 extended family members who live here as well. In Burkina, it’s normal for extended family to live together. It is often time younger girls who will do the work for the family, like cleaning, cooking, and laundry. This is especially common in families where the mom works.

Our first night here, the family turned on the TV and started flipping through the channels. Then, they stopped at MTV and watched “Run’s House”. I couldn’t believe it! Then they flipped over to CNN so we could watch the news. At the same time, my host dad was surfing the internet… here, in the house! This never happens! I think we have stepped out of Peace Corps and are now in Posh Corps!

“The Place of Excellent Fruit”

One of the most exciting times of stage is site announcement, which is when you find out your home for the next two years. The trainers drew a huge map of Burkina on the ground with stars marking our future sites. I stood there blind-folded imagining what type of site I will have, and I couldn’t help but think of my little village in Guinea. For those of you who don’t remember, I lived in an extremely small village in a mud hut without electricity or running water. This was pretty much the stereotypical Peace Corps experience. The life there was easy, but I was really hoping to get some amenities in my new site.

So, back to the Burkina map. The trainers led us one by one to our future sites, still blind folded. I was trying to determine how far I walked to guess where my site would be, and peak out the side of my blind fold to see who my future neighbors would be. Then, the grand reveal! My future site is …

“The Place of Excellent Fruit”!

At this point I would tell you the name of my town, but because of security reasons, we are not allowed to publish this. But, my new site could not be more different (in a good way) from my site in Guinea. I live in a decent size town, and will have 2 sitemates (other Peace Corps volunteers in the same town as me). I live in the part of the country where it rains a lot, so the climate is much cooler and everything is green. Also, as the name would suggest, there is fruit everyday, for the entire year… oranges, bananas, mangoes! Yum! And exciting news, I not only have electricity, but running water! I have an entire bathroom, including a working toilet and shower! Yayy! When you walk into my house, there is a large salon (like a living room and kitchen combined). Then, there is my room and a guest room (Mom & Dad get ready!)

In my town, there is everything I could need. I have a small daily market, and a huge market every Saturday. There are boutiques that sell everything from cold drinks to yogurt to toilet paper. Like I said, everything I need haha.

When I was there, an older woman adopted me as her child then fed me dinner. She brought out catepillars and rice... welcome to Burkina haha.

There are 3 high schools in my town. I will be working at the Lycee Municipal, which is the small high school for students who live in my town. Unfortunately, because it’s smaller, there are less resources available. I will be teaching biology, math and english. My sitemate will be teaching at the other high school, Lycee Provinicial, which is a huge school for students who live in surrounding areas. His school just got a grant to purchase their first 10 computers, so he will be teaching IT there.

In the region that my site is in, there are also a lot of great things. There are waterfalls, lakes with hippo tours, and huge mountains for hiking. And, I only live one hour from a huge city. So, all in all, I think I got a great site! I’m so excited about living there.

A small side note: This is not related to my site, but is really exciting. Burkina has the largest elephant population in West Africa! One of the volunteers in my group is living down in the eastern part of the country, which is literally on a wildlife preserve. He was in a taxi driving to his site, when the taxi stopped and he didn’t know why. He looked up and there was a herd of elephants crossing the road!

New Contact Info

So for the time being, I have cell phone reception, and would really love phone calls :) I know it's rather expensive to call Africa haha, but I believe skype is rather cheap. Talk to my parents to find out how to use it! Anyway, here's my new info:

Phone Number: (226- Country Code) 74 29 03 18

Skype: sara.burroughs1

I'm 4 hours ahead (of PA time).

An All Too Familiar Situation…

Training in Ouahigouya was going along pretty well. We were in the process of peer teaching and learning French. I was supposed to begin my local language training, Jula, this week. Then… I found myself in an all too familiar situation.

We (all the stagiares) were called to a community meeting, which normally would not be alarming, but in this case, they started off taking roll… of all 100 people. Then, the Safety & Security Officer of Peace Corps/Burkina Faso walked in and said he had an important announcement. I knew nothing good was coming. They announced that a warden message from the state department was issued for Burkina. You can read the message below:


U.S. Embassy Ouagadougou issued the following Warden Message on June 7:

The U.S. Embassy in Ouagadougou is issuing this Warden Message to update U.S. citizens resident in Burkina Faso on the security situation in northern Burkina Faso. This is a further update to the information relayed on June 5, 2010.

The U.S. Embassy has information that Al Qa’ida in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) plans to kidnap an unspecified group of U.S. citizens working on a humanitarian project in a village located in northeastern Burkina Faso near the Mali-Niger-Burkina Faso borders. In addition, the U.S. Embassy has declared the area north of the road stretching from Djibo to Dori off limits to official government travelers unless prior authorization for such travel is expressly given. U.S. citizens are strongly urged to avoid travel to this region.



They continued on to say that we would be evacuated from Ouahigouya to the capital, Ouagadougou immediately. EVACUATED?!?!?!? Again?? Yes! I know! This is a little too much for me (and Ali & Zach, the other Guinea evacuee’s who are with me here) to handle. We all started crying. This says a lot considering that all three of us went through this once before and never cried. It sucks.

We were locked down in a secure place in Ouahigouya for the night… without any of our things. We left straight from training so the most useful (… or useless) thing I had with me was my French Dictionary and a bottle of sunscreen. Damn. So for the next four days I (nor none of the other stagiares) had deodorant, soap, or a toothbrush. It was a long … and smelly 3 hour bus ride to the capital. The Peace Corps drivers were supposed to go around to all of our houses to collect our belongings. I hoped all my things would make it to me, but was prepared for nothing to make it. I’m happy to announce that all my things made it!

I am now living safely and comfortably in a hotel in Ouagadougou for an unknown amount of time. They say that we will continue our training here this week, which looks hopeful for the stagiares. The Peace Corps/Burkina Faso staff and Country Director are highly qualified and competant. They are devoted to our safety and I feel secure in placing my security in their hands. This threat only affects a small region of Burkina Faso, which, obviously, is off limits to all Peace Corps volunteers. I’m hoping this will only be a small bump in the road, and we will be able to continue training as scheduled.

On a brighter note… the staff is throwing us a 4th of July party tomorrow! There will be swimming, hamburgers and cake… a real American holiday hahah. I am looking forward to this!

In other news, this whole situation, obviously, reminded me of Guinea. So, I would like to announce that they, peacefully, held their primary presidential elections yesterday. There were 2 front runners chosen and the main elections are scheduled for a month from now. Hopefully these continue without any problems… inshallah.

Les Blanches!

So, I’ve been here for about two weeks now, and training is really starting to pick up. We’re starting peer teaching next week, where we prepare one lesson and give different parts and varying lengths to our peers. My topic is “The Importance of Superior Vegetables”, whi ch is a pretty easy lesson. I plan on bringing in different items made from plant parts. For example, tô, which is a staple meal here made from corn, or bissap, which is a drink made from hibiscus flowers (and is really good!).
In other news, the new stagiares arrived today. This makes our stage the largest Burkina Faso has ever seen, and is single handedly doubling the total number of volunteers in country. For those of you confused about this, we (secondary education volunteers) arrived 2 weeks prior to the rest of the sectors because our training is longer. The new stagiares work in the following sectors: girls education and empowerment, health, and small enterprise development. This brings the grand total of stagiares to about 80! This is a lot of white people running around one small Burkinabe city. This will seriously affect their economy here for a few months. I’m really glad I came first with the smaller group because it’s much easier to be introduced to a new country with only 22 people, rather than 60. We had a nice amount of time to get to know each other, and to discover our way around Ouahigouya.
So, very similar to Guinea, small children here are get really excited about white people. They chase after us on our bikes, wave, and yell “Bonjour!”. The word here for white person is Nasara, so this is something I hear quite often, and actually respond to ha. In this culture, it is not dispectable to call someone a name refering to their skin color/race. It is actually more of a compliment. I was fully prepared for this, but one thing I never heard in Guinea are children calling me “Le Blanche” (The White). It was a little bizarre at first, but then I found it kind of funny… I’m sure this will stop being funny soon though ha. I have a stagiare who lives directly next door to me, so in the morning I wait in front of her compound with my bike so we can ride to school together. Well, last week, a few of the neighborhood little kids started to notice this weird white person standing out there. One kid was scared and ran away, but the others were intrigued. After they realized I was harmless, they started to like me. Now, in the morning while I wait, these kids line up, salute me, and yell at the same time, “Bonjour, Le Blanche!” (Good morning, the white!).

The Red Dust Storm

So, the most amazing/crazy/bizarre thing happened today. We were sitting in a panel discussion talking about the importance of women’s education in Burkina when we noticed the sky started turning dark. It looked like the sky before a thunderstorm, so I assumed it meant rain. I was super excited about this because when it rains, which isn’t very often here, it cools the temperatures down a lot! The next thing I know, the sky turned reddish-orange. I’m not talking a light orange sky like we sometimes have in America. I’m talking burnt-sienna (thanks crayola), and then the wind started to pick up and we were in a full fledge dust storm! We had to go inside the building because there was dust everywhere. We couldn’t breathe or see through all the dust! This lasted about 30 minutes or so, then the sky started to clear and the storm stopped. I left my bedroom window open that day, and when I returned home after school my entire room was covered in a red layer of dust. All my books, clothes, and bed were covered. That’s the last time I leave my window open for the Harmattan!

The Land of the Upright People

I landed in Burkina, my new home for the new two years, about a week and a half ago. It’s been crazy, busy, and exciting starting Peace Corps all over again. We had our staging (a Peace Corps orientation) in Philadelphia and it only lasted about 5 hours. It was almost the exact same set up as last time. We discussed the goals and purposes of Peace Corps, our anxieties and anticipations, and did a few awkward ice breakers. For those of you who do not know, Peace Corps has three main goals, which they base a volunteers service upon. They are:
1. Filling the need of trained people to interested countries
2. Teaching other countries about America and it’s people
3. Teaching Americans about other countries
These are just summarized in my own words, but I’m sure you get the point. The main focus of the goals in cross-cultural exchange. This is an important part of a volunteer’s service. This allows us to integrate into communities and successfully do our job here. Integration is also a key factor in our safety here. If we can successfully integrate into our communities and become a respected member, life here will be much easier, and funner, for a two year service.
After staging, we headed off to Burkina. The entire trip took about one whole day, and was successfully completed without any problems. We were greated in Ouagadougou Airport by our new country director, Shannon, and a few members of the Peace Corps/Burkina Faso Staff. Shannon handed us a short itinerary for the next few days, which I didn’t really look at too much. It wasn’t until later that night I noticed the cover of it said “Bienvenue! Welcome to “the land of the upright people!”. Almost two weeks later, I still don’t know the story behind this, or why Burkina was named that. It would have made my service much more diifficult had I came to a country where the people were pre-homo erectus! Hah!
Anyway, our first few days in Burkina, we stayed in a pretty sweet hotel. They had AC, and served us ice cream for lunch! This is huge in Africa. We had a lot of introductory sessions, and met a lot of the new staff. We also started the huge task of vaccinating everyone. Thanks to my time in Guinea, I already had all but 2 shots. Woohoo! Everyone else will be receiving about 15. Burkina has the same language requirements as Guinea, which means by the end of the three months of training, everyone must test at an intermediate-high level in French. As you all remember, last year, I knew no French and tested at a level of novice-low (the lowest level there is). Apparently all my hard work paid off because I tested this time at Intermediate-High on the first test! This means that I will be taking review and practice sessions of French for the first four weeks, which is when we receive the name of the site where we will live. At this point, I will stop taking French and begin taking classes in the local language at my site, which is called Jula. I’m pretty excited about this, and proud of myself for remembering that much French! This is a huge weight off my shoulders.
After our days in Ouagadougou, we went to the city where we will be living for our training for the next few months, called Ouahgouya. This town is also pretty nice. It has internet connection (although it’s slow and doesn’t work very well… it’s still internet!), electricity everyday, and a hotel with a pool.
Last week, I moved in with my host family, the Traore’s. My experience with them so far is much different than in Guinea! My family in Guinea, the Fofana’s was more of what I would consider a traditional African family. There were a lot of children, and my host mother stayed home most of the time and did house work, while my father went to work. My new family is not like that at all. My host parents just got married last year, so they are still a young couple, and don’t have any children yet. Although my host mom did tell me she wants to have at have 10 haha. My father works at pretty big bank that is in 6 west african countries and France, and my mother does small loans for the market women (at least that’s the best understanding I had of her work with my not so great French). They both work a lot, so I’m usually home with my 2 cousins that are staying here, Aissatou and Rashidatou. I think my parents are pretty well off though because we have satellite TV and I have a fan in my room, so I’m not complaining haha.
Another thing I’m rather excited about are the bikes. Now in Guinea, my bike was broken for the entire time I was there. I rode it once for about 5 minutes, then got a flat tire and pushed it back home. Now, in Burkina, there are brand spankin’ new bikes for everyone! I was a little nervous at first about having to rely so heavily on biking as my main mode of transportation, but now I’m getting used to it. I bike everywhere. I live about 2-3 miles from our training center so I bike to and from school everyday, as well as lunch, and anywhere else I have to do. It’s nice and relaxing… when it’s not 100°F and I’m sweating my butt off.

The 11th Hour

I cannot believe this time is here again. I'm leaving on Monday... only 4 days away!! The time is dwindling fast. Today was my last day of work, and now I have a busy weekend of goodbye's and packing. Although I must say, I am significantly more prepared this year than last year (my Dad is thanking me for this haha).

Last year, I did not pack one thing until the day before I left. I sat in my room for 6 hours with Hannah and Gab trying to figure how do you pack for a 2 year trip to Africa?!? Well, it didn't go too well because my poor Dad was woken up by a sobbing me at 1am asking him to help me pack. All he said was, "I was only half sleeping because I knew this was going to happen." Hahah.. thank god for that man or I would have had a nervous breakdown and ended up going to Guinea with nothing (although I must admit, i was quite upset when he took out all 30 lbs of my snacks, homemade popcorn, and drink mixes hahah). So this year, he informed me about 3 weeks ago to start packing because he didn't want a repeat of last year. I took his advice, and now I'm all packed with 4 days and 20 lbs to spare :) Much less stressful and no tears!

Other than packing, I've been enjoying all things American. This includes lots of margaritas, french fries, and hamburgers. I've been using the excuse that I'm going to Africa to eat and drink whatever I want haha. It's been wonderful.

I've found out a little bit more information about my training group. I'm leaving on June 7 with 21 other people who are all education volunteers. I know there are science and IT volunteers, but I'm not sure what other types there are. About 2 weeks after we leave, another group of about 60 volunteers, including health, small enterprise development, and girls empowerment, will be joining us in Burkina (including Ali!). This will be a huge group.. about 80 in total, compared to my 17 from Guinea.

I'm trying to go into this situation open-minded, but it's hard for me to not compare every aspect of this situation to Guinea. I loved my group (G-18) last year, and I wish they were all joining me in Burkina Faso. I've already been through staging and pre-service training once, so I know what to expect... kind of. I'm looking forward to it, but also dreading it. I know the trainers will pull out the dreaded flip charts and markers. And of course, we will do skits... these are the parts I would prefer if I could skip haha. But on the other hand, I'm excited to meet the new group and learn about Burkina. I'm, surprisingly, even looking forward to my new host family (although, I doubt they could compare to the wonderful Fofana family).

Well, I must get back to packing up my bedroom, but 4 days.. OMG! I look forward to getting everyone's letters haha. But no seriously, please mail me letters!!

Welcome Book

Here is the link for the Welcome Book that Peace Corps sends out. It has a ton of good info if anyone's interested :

http://www.peacecorps.gov/welcomebooks/bfwb686.pdf

Peace Corps Round 2

As many of you may know, after much thought, I decided to re-enroll in Peace Corps. This was a big decision. Did I want to go through PST (pre-service training) all over again? Did I want to commit to 2 years... a year after I originally wanted to? Was I ready to go back to Africa? And I decided, hell yes! I'm ready and I'm excited!

In October, when I got evacauted, I felt lost, depressed, and stressed out. I wasn't sure if I should continue with Peace Corps then, or come home and figure something out. I decided not to continue with Peace Corps in October because of all those reasons. I was unprepared to jump into another country, and wasn't ready to put in the work that's involved in that type of change. So, I think I made the best decision for me at that point.

Now, I'm much more prepared mentally and ready to get out of here and back to Africa! I'm only 3 weeks away from starting Peace Corps Round 2 in Burkina Faso, West Africa! I'm excited because this country is still in West Africa and a french speaking country. I'm also really excited... and lucky, because not only will 2 of my fellow Guinea evacs will be in my training group with me, but 2 transferred there after evacuation, so I'm heading in with a nice little support network. This time around, I will be teaching science though, instead of math. This is a very vague description, which (I'm assuming) could either be physics, chem, or bio (or all three), which makes it difficult to prepare for what's to come.

It's a weird feeling going back into Peace Corps this year because I've already done it. I've been through the entire thing last year. I feel like I'm simply moving to Burkina Faso, rather than heading into this great unknown. With that being said, I've never been to Burkina Faso, so I'm basing most of my opinions on Guinea, so it will still be an adventure. I already bought almost everything I needed last year, so this year was much easier on the wallet. I also know what types of things to bring, and what things I'll never use.

Although, I don't have much to buy this year (thank god!), I still have alot to do. I'm busy filling out paperwork, digging out my suitcases from Guinea (yes, I just unpacked them), and trying to pack up all of my stuff. This is a huge task, but I've made some good headway so far!

I've got a little bit of information about Burkina Faso and staging. Staging, which will be held in Philadelphia, is basically a fast 2 day orientation of Peace Corps and a time to get shots. I'm hoping I already got the necessary ones last year, and won't have to get them again. After that, we're heading off to JFK airport where we'll fly to Charles de Gaulle, France, then to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso! I don't have much info about what to expect once I arrive in Burkina, but I'll post updates when i get more info.

That's it for now:) Thanks for following me on Peace Corps Round 2

Around Africa & the Middle East

After alot of thinking while I was in Mali, I decided to end my Peace Corps adventures (for the time being..), and head back to the states. But, before I came back, Ali (another volunteer) and I, planned a nice 2 week trip throughout Asia, inlcuding Thailand, Malaysia, and India. We had plans to ride elephants in Thailand and drink tea in India, but unfortunately, we never made it there. Due to some lack of planning and good research on our part, we failed to realize we needed visas for parts of the trip. But, we were Peace Corps volunteers, and despite our short time actually being volunteers, we did learn a few important things that made the rest of the trip a success. These included not giving up, even when you're in the United Arab Emirates, with no plans or no knowledge of the surrounding area; being patient and having the ability to chat with just about anyone, trust us.. this one got us far.. it got us into the ONLY 7 star hotel for FREE!; and finally appreciating the world around us.

So, back to Mali. We left Mali, stopped in Morocco for a layover, and would later continue to Dubai. We had a 7 hour layover in the Casablanca airport, which as it turns out, is one place I've always wanted to visit. So, we're exhausted and resting at the airport when one of the airline attendants start to chat with us. We quickly find out that not only do we have enough time to get out of the airport and do a little sight seeing, but we also do not need a visa :) so.. of course we book it out of the airport as fast as we can! We head towards the row of taxis to find out how much it would cost to take us somewhere, and where is exactly is the best somewhere to see in Casablance when we only have a few hours. After a few minutes of arguing (we quickly learned that they do not bargain for prices there), we find a nice gentlemen who agrees to take us to the "Grand Mosque". We have no idea what that is or where we're going, but the next thing you know, we see skyscrapers, billboards, cars.. nice cars, and MCDONALDS! After living in West Africa for 4 months, we think we've just walked into heaven haha. After driving for a few minutes, the taxi drive explains that not only is he a taxi driver, but a local tour guide (how convenient), and for only $10 more, he'll take us on a tour of all of Casablanca. We quickly agree and we're off! We saw some amazing things, like the local market, parks and monuments, the Grand Mosque (see video), and of course our last stop.. McDonalds. Casablanca was exactly how I dreamed it.. full of vibrant colors, great food, and unique nic-nacs. After 4 hours of touring, the taxi driver/tour guide takes us back to the airport and we're off to our next stop, Dubai.

After a 7 hour flight on one of the most luxuriest flights I've ever taken (once again, this could be exaggerated since we just came from Africa), we landed at midnight in the Dubai Airport in the United Arab Emirates. We find our bags and hump them out to the nearest taxi. We were so impressed by the taxis here.. they had seatbelts, licensed drivers, we weren't packed in like sardines, and there were no chicken/goats attached to the roof. The driver takes off, and we're starring out into what looks like America, taking in the scenes, and we don't even notice that we have no plans past the taxi. We had one contact in Dubai, but remember, it was at least 2am at this point, so trying to contact him was pointless. We ask the driver to take us to the nearest, CHEAPEST hotel, and he says he the knows the perfect place. We pull up to a gorgeous hotel, which we realize immediately that this is no cheap hotel, but we're exhausted so we decide to just stay here for one night. (Rememeber.. we had planned to ony be in Dubai for one day to get our visas in order, then continue on our way through Asia.) We walk into our rooms, and there are slippers, robes, RUNNING WATER, and the most comfortable beds I've ever slept in! The next day, feeling completely rejuvenated, we figure out a new game plan, and extend our stay at this wonderful hotel for one more night. We decided to stay and explore Dubai for the next week and a half. That day, we collected information booklets, and talk to local tour guides who gave us advice on what to see while we were there. We find a tour company that's offering a special if you book 3 trips, so we chose to go on the Desert Safari, the River Dinner Cruise, and the Hatta Mountain Tour, then we go off to enjoy the night. We quickly found out that 1.) it is illegal to sell/buy alcohol unless you are at a bar and 2.) women there do not drink. These things ended up working out in our favor because most bars offered discounts and free drinks for women. We head up to the roof of our hotel, which at night, turns into a club/restaurant. We drink our free champagne, ate appetizers, and enjoyed the hooka. The next thing we know, we're dancing the night away with local Emirates. Needless to say, we have a wonderful time.

The next day, while lounging at the rooftop pool of our hotel, we decide, we no longer can afford this place, so we found a cheaper hotel a few blocks away where we stayed for the rest of the trip. The next few days, we saw the tallest tower in the world, the largest mall in the world, and the only indoor skiing place in the world, and wait for the day of our first tour.. the Desert Safari. Ok, so the Desert Safari. At approximately 4pm, the tour company comes to our hotel to pick us up, and we really have no idea what's in store for us. We head down the highway, past all the towering, futuristic skyscrapers, and the next you know, the tour guide veers off the highway into the desert. We're talking real desert, past camels, and sand dunes! We meet up with a few other vehicles in the middle of the desert, then we're off on the dune tour. The SUV's would drive fast up and down the sand dunes (see video). It felt like we were on a ride. The cars would fly down huges dunes with sand covering the whole car like a sand wave. A few minutes later, we stop the cars and everyone gets out. We were at the place for the dinner show. We go on camel rides, ride four-wheelers through the desert, and go sandboarding until the show started. There were twirlers and belly dancers (see videos). After the show, there was a huge of American food and traditional Emirate food, which was all delicious, and after that, we headed back to our hotel for a good nights sleep.

A few days later, was our second tour, the River Dinner Cruise. Once again, the tour guide picked us up from our hotel, and we headed off to pick up a few other people in Dubai for the tour. Well, this driver got lost on the way to the hotels and we drove around in circles for at least 30 minutes! The other people in the car, (obviously not the patient Peace Corps type haha), we screaming at the driver and cursing that they wanted their money back! Ali and I chucked in the front, and felt bad for the innocent driver, but eventually, we found the hotel and made it to the boats with no other problems. We sailed down the river and into the Persian Gulf, and ate a great tradition Emirate buffet. There were about 15 other dinner boats that sailed at the same time, and we all went in a line. At the boats were covered with lights, so all you could see was the outlines of all the boats across the water.

Our final tour was the Hatta Mountain Tour. Once again, Peace Corps lessons paid off during this trip. The tour guide came to pick us up pretty early in the morning. We were half asleep, not used to being up early, when the driver drops us off at another hotel and tells us to wait here so he can go "fix" the car and he will return as soon as possible. We really have no clue what's going on, but agree and wait at the hotel. We're waiting.. and waiting.. and about 30 minutes past when the driver finally shows back up. We get back into the car, and then he tells us, he was unable to switch cars, so we have to reschedule the mountain tour to the afternoon, BUT he has the car now and is willing to drop us off and pick us up anywhere in Dubai. I ask if there's anywhere we can swim at for a few hours, and he nods and says he knows the perfect place. We're driving for about 15 minutes (still no clue where we're actually going), when the driver pulls up to a security guard, gets out, shows his ID, and then we enter. We enter the ONLY 7 star hotel in the world! The only way to get in is to be a guest there (which costs $3000 a night!!!), or be a member. The driver explains that he is a member because he is a tour guide and people often tour this place, but he's never been able to enjoy the beach because he works 7 days a week. We look out over the bridge, and ... hello paradise! The driver drops us off and says he'll be back in a few hours to pick us up for the Hatta Mountain Tour. We were greeted by waiters with water, beach towels, ice, and snacks. The water was the warmest and cleanest water I've ever been in (nothing like the good old Jersey shore haha). We enjoy our few hours in heaven, and then we're off to the tour. We drive for about an hour outside of Dubai, and then we stop at a checkpoint and show our ID's.. little did we know, we were leaving the United Arab Emirates, and now were in Oman! The tour guide told us all abou the history of Dubai and the UAE, about the beautiful, red clay mountains, about the Emirate people and their culture. We ended the tour at an oasis, which at the time was quite low because according to our tour guide, it only rains 1-2 days a year there! (Interesting Fact learned from the driver.. all of their drinking water is desalinated from ocean water, so they don't have to import water!)

Although we didn't get to go on our original trip, we had a blast! I saw things I never thought I would ever see in my life and met some amazing people! But, our trip was officially over, and I was headed back to America.

Our flight left Dubai, and we headed to Moscow, Russia where we had a 12 hour layover. Now, I just left Africa and Dubai (which was way hotter than Africa!), and so the warmest clothes I had was jeans, a tee-shirt, and sandals. We get to the Moscow airport and were greeted by SNOW! Yes, snow. The Russians are covered in fur hats, coates, and boots, and looking at Ali and I like we're idiots. We were freezing hah. After this way too long layover, I boarded by flight to Washington DC. I arrived, parted ways with Ali, and took my 15 minute flight to Philadelphia where I was warmly greeted by my Dad, Jessie, and Gab. It was a warm welcoming full of good food and good people! I was glad to be back in America :)


VIDEOS BELOW ARE IN THE FOLLOWING ORDER:
1. THE DESERT SAFARI IN DUBAI
2. THE GRAND MOSQUE IN CASABLANCA
3. THE TWIRLERS AT THE NIGHT SHOW IN DUBAI