Monday, October 24, 2011

Brief Update (aka, I'm Alive)

For those of you who follow my blog, you may have noticed that I haven't written anything new in awhile. Almost 2 months, actually.  Of course a lot has changed within the last 2 months, and eventually --hopefully -- I'll get around to actually typing up some posts about some of the recent (or not so recent) events that I've experienced throughout the months of September and October.  However, this post is only to let you know that yes, I'm alive and well, along with a few other select pieces of information:

1. I'm officially a Peace Corps Volunteer now!  I swore-in on September 22, 2011.
2. After swear-in, I have since moved to site -- my small village of Lanfiera, located along the western border of Burkina Faso near the country of Mali.  Thus, I no longer live with my host family or have trainings or language classes.  I'm in village and I'm on my own!
3. I do not have electricity, running water, Internet access, or other such luxuries near my village.  In fact, my village does not even have a restaurant or a place/person to buy bread or eggs from.  I can only purchase food at my marche, which occurs every 5 days in another village that's about a 10-15 minute bike ride away from my village.  I've been living off of fresh fruits and veggies when I can find them (thank goodness watermelons are in season!), as well as scrounging food off of my neighbors.  Thus, I've been "lucky" to eat lots of to and slimy green sauce with my fellow villagers.
4. My house seems to attract rats.  Yes, rats.  Not mice.  I can deal with little itty bitty mice.  These are rats.  They're huge and crawl up walls and get into all my stuff.  I've set out rat poison, and have found (aka, smelled) dead rats in my house.  I was too grossed out to remove the dead rodents myself that I had to ask a petite (child) to do it for me.  She was only like 6 years old and looked really scared, but she successfully removed the dead rat from my floor and washed the spot on the floor with bleach, and then I gave her a piece of candy as a reward.
5. School has finally started in Burkina.  I've had classes for 3 weeks now, and I teach two different levels of math.  Each of my classes have over 120 students in them, ranging in age from 11 to 21 years old.  I have a chalkboard, chalk, and a sponge to wipe the board off with.  That's it.  Oh, and the textbook that I need to teach the kids with, though none of the kids have this textbook (or any book), anyways.
6. I bought a guitar!  A real one!  It’s blue and black, acoustic, shiny.  It cost me a good portion of my monthly living allowance, and it was an adventure to get it and even more of a hassle to bargain for….story to come at a later date.
7. I got bored one day at site, so I cut my hair.  Okay, not really.  It was just a trim, and I needed it.  All by myself, with the aid of a mirror and scissors, I attempted to give all my layers a little trim and cut off the split-ends.  I think I did an okay job, not that it really matters anyways, since no one in my village “knows” what well-kept, pretty, healthy “American” (and by American I mean “white girl of European descent”) hair should look like and I just wear it up every day anyways cuz it’s so hot here.  Also, while I was tempted to cut my hair short, I figured I’d save that for another day.  Either a day when I am extremely bored in village…or extremely angry and need a stress reliever.  Plus, it’s more fun if there’s a friend there to cut your hair for you and to help partake in all the fun.  A friend also helps ensure that you don’t completely go crazy and do a really bad, uneven, choppy job, or shave your head, unless, of course, that’s what you intend to do!
8. After almost a month at site, I endured the 8-hour roller-coaster bus ride from my village to Ouaga for a meeting with other Peace Corps Volunteers to plan Camp GLOW for middle-school aged girls and boys this upcoming summer.  This 4 day trip to Ouaga is what is allowing me to: actually use my computer for the first time since moving to site (thank you electricity!), check email and update my blog (thank you internet!), shower (really, you can't possibly imagine how much cleaner a real shower gets you compared to a bucket bath), bake brownies (courtesy of the stove in the Peace Corps Transit House), eat Frosty Flakes with cold milk and bananas (it's amazing how comforting and "American" it is to eat cereal and milk not just for breakfast, but for a midnight snack as well...it's kinda like being in college again!), buy oatmeal and a few other "necessities" so I have something to eat in village other than rice and to, sleep on a real mattress (as opposed to my plastic cot at my house) with a fan blowing on my face, speak English with other Americans, skype with family and friends, get my mail (yay for packages filled with goodies from home and letters from 6th grade penpals!), and more.  All in all, it's been a good trip.

Halloween is coming up, and the volunteers in the Sourou Valley with me are probably going to get together for a little celebration.  Before I know it, it will be Thanksgiving (another feast is planned for the volunteers in my region, hopefully equipped with as close as we get to the American equivalents of turkey, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, pie, etc.), and then it's Christmas!  Wow, is it really almost Holiday Season?  Back home, it's cold out.  It could potentially snow any day now.  Ironically, here in Burkina Faso, we're in the middle of a mini hot season: daytime temps are over 100, nighttime temps maybe drop to 85-90 degrees.  Not good sleeping weather. Just sweating weather.  Ew.  But, supposedly after this mini hot season, it should be cool season here and actually pretty nice.  As in, at night, I'll probably want a blanket or even a long-sleeve shirt!  At least, that's what vetern volunteers keep telling us is coming and how we can look forward to the weather soon, along with GOOD veggies, like green beans, potatoes, and lettuce.  I can't wait!  Really, there's only so much you can do with onions and eggplant before it gets old and you get lazy and decide that it's just easier to eat to and slimy green sauce like the rest of the villagers.

Also, I've decided it's now time to update my contact info and wish lists.  I've been here long enough now that I have a better understanding of where to find things and what things are good to send me, if you so desire to send me a package.  To be honest, packages aren't necessary.  Letters are just fine, if not better, actually.  Plus, letters are significantly cheaper for you! When it comes down to it, there's not much I really need here, or even want anymore, because so many things just aren't practical and these "American goodies" prevent me from being able to fully integrate into Burkinabe culture and live like my villagers.  If I desire something and look hard enough, I can usually find it somewhere...eventually.  It might take a month or two, but eventually I'll come across whatever special ingredient I was desiring, like cocoa powder, for example.  I REALLY wanted to make brownies a few months ago during Stage when we spent a night in Ouaga.  I had a stove and all the ingredients...except cocoa powder.  So I went to the "Americanish" stores in Ouaga...but none of them had cocoa powder or chocolate baking squares or anything like that.  Sad.  No brownies.  So next time I talked to my mom, I told her that she could include some Hershey's baking cocoa in my next package (which she did, by the way).  Ironically, a few weeks later, I was back in Ouaga, went to Marina Market to eat some cheese and ice cream, and lo and behold, they now have TWO different kinds of baking cocoa on the shelf!  Of course.  This is Africa.  This is how things work here.  You have to wait a LONG time for things, whether it's for people to arrive for a meeting, church to be over (gotta love 4-hour long Mass services in local languages), or a certain type of food to appear in a store.  They don't stock things consistently here, and there's no guarantee that a store will ever have anything, even if it's had it every other time you've been there.  Anyways, case in point, like I was saying, I have everything here that I need to survive, and mainly I just have wants, but not even strong wants anymore, and if I want it bad enough I can either buy it and/or search for it.  I just might come across it...sooner or later. So please refer to my updated contact info and wish lists, before you send me anything.  Well, okay, you don’t have to.  Really, you can send me anything you want, if you’re willing to spend the money to ship it here, and I won’t object.  I love chocolate.  I’ve inhaled whole bags of beef jerky in one sitting (this also serves as a reason for you to not send me stuff!  Aka I’ll just eat it all, and then get sick…).  And I certainly love when I get good hair care products or things that make me smell good.  But they’re not necessary.  They’re very nice, but just know that you don’t need to send me packages.  I’ll survive without Snicker bars, mint gum, gossip magazines, and deodorant.  I might not smell good, but I’ll survive.  As the Burkinabe constantly say to me when I express any needs/wants/concerns (such as the rat problem with my house), “Ca va aller.”  Literally “It will go,” but more like “This is how the world is and it’ll all work out eventually…deal with it and be happy.”  Ca va aller.  And so, until the next time I have internet, ca va aller.