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!).