World AIDS Day

Since December 1^st was World AIDS day, I decided that my counterpart and I should have a discussion with the community about what AIDS is and how to prevent it. There are so many myths here about HIV and AIDS (that it only comes from Cote d’Ivoire, that only prostitutes can have AIDS, that white people have a cure, etc.) so I thought that dispelling those myths would be a good start.

We picked a Friday market day, which are always super busy since it’s also the day when people don’t go out to work in the fields. We were set up by 9am but since we’re dealing with West African International Time (WAIT), I only had a few women from the women’s association there with me on time. We hung tight and since there were balafons playing, we just had a great time dancing and started to draw a crowd. Of course, the nosortia (white person) always draws a crowd, but especially when she’s dancing. On this day I also had jabi, the patterned black dye on my feet, which my neighbor Alimatou has been working on every night for the past 3 nights. I kept getting compliments from the village women “kofa, deh!” which translates roughly as “pretty, ay!”

We drew a pretty big crowd, about 50 people at one point- young and old, women and men. My counterpart read off the phrases in Gouin and then the chief of the village repeated them in Jula. Then I would pick someone in the crowd who would say whether it was true or false and why. If they were correct, I’d give them either hard soap and or Chinese green tea (both very popular here) and condoms which the young men in the crowd were especially happy about.

After the true or false portion, we discussed what HIV/AIDS is, how you can prevent getting HIV, how you can find out whether or not you’re HIV positive, etc. My counterpart, who works at the health center, explained the difference between a treatment and a cure and really stressed fidelity and regular HIV testing as a means of prevention. I also think we helped to remove some of the stigma of HIV being a disease for only promiscuous women, since it only takes one time with one person, even if it’s with your husband, to become HIV positive.

Afterwards, we all danced to the balafons, even the women carrying babies on their backs! I think they were a little surprised that I could hold my own with the other women dancing to the beat of the balafons. Later when I was buying my vegetables at the market the women kept coming up to me and saying “toubabmuso be se ka donkay, deh!” which is basically the Jula equivalent of “white girl can dance, ay!”

The chief keeps saying that I am his new wife despite my repeated refusals and my reminders that he already has several wives. Nevertheless, I haven’t quite learned to say no to the chief yet since I feel like he is my adopted Bill Cosby-esque grandpa in village so when he asked I ended up dancing with him at the front of the circle. 

All in all, I think it was a pretty good day!

Peace,

Marlow

What is "chalkboard"?

As a Peace Corps volunteer, I am an employee of the U.S. government living abroad. A representative, if you will, of all that America stands for. As taxpayers, I want you to know that I take this role very seriously and I only present the best of what the U.S. has to offer.

Case in point: Jeopardy! I’ve taught over 100 African children how to play this game already. You’re welcome. But seriously, whether it’s learning about HIV/AIDS in my girls club or reviewing for an English test with my collège students, they love it. I tape the double-sided candy-colored papers up on the chalkboard (one side with the category and amount of points and the other side with the answer… like I said, I take this seriously). The grand prize: American candy. Twizzlers, jelly beans, you name it. And the crazy thing is they actually started studying. I don’t think it’s to do well on the test but rather so that their team can win the “Jeopardy! English Review Edition” the day before.

And for a village and ethnic group that I’m told started out as entirely communal, when there is candy (and glory) at stake, these kids get pretty competitive, demanding that I review the points I gave to a team or quietly humming the Jeopardy! theme song when a kid is taking a long time to answer. Okay, okay, so I taught them that. But you can’t really have Jeopardy without the theme song, right?

So maybe I introduced Jeopardy a little for my own benefit, too: to bring a tiny piece of my former American culture to my now very African village life so that I feel at home. It may not be exactly the same thing (I’m the host instead of Alex Trebeck and we skip the boring life story segment in the middle) but I actually think it’s an improved version.

And nothing puts a smile on my face like Adama shooting his hand into the air and then rising, stoic and scholarly-like in true Jeopardy fashion, to say “Wat eeez thee chokebowd?” (Clue in French “L’enseignant écrit sur cet objet pendant la leçon.”) Their team erupts in cheers as he quietly takes his seat, motioning with his hands and saying “la silence” so that everyone quiets down (I’ve explained that Jeopardy is not like a football match, it’s a serious academic quiz show which requires etiquette).I correct his pronunciation before giving them their 1000 points. They’re so close they can almost taste the jelly beans…

Tabaski

Hello world,

I hope all is going well! So much is going on that I thought I’d update you all on life at site. As always, thank you for the packages and mail, they make my day!

This past weekend I celebrated the Muslim holiday of Tabaski in my village. A few days before the party, out of nowhere, there was suddenly a sheep tied to the mango tree in my courtyard. I thought it was just another random thing that happens in this country but then my little neighbor Nadja explained to me what was going on. She came over and pointed to the sheep and said in French, "We're gonna kill him and eat him tomorrow. And he is going to say 'ahhhh ahhh ahhh.'" She then started feeding the sheep some mango leaves, and I couldn't help but think it would be his last meal before he would be sacrificed.

This is the sheep that lived in my courtyard for a few days... and then we ate him.

The morning of Tabaski, I went to the mosque with my neighbors and then afterwards watched as they killed the sheep. It was really sad and I almost started crying, something which they found hysterical. However, I did eat the sheep and it was quite delicious, so I can't say that I really felt bad. We drank tea all day and visited different families in the village. My neighbor and I even got matching Tabaski dresses made!

This is me with my neighbor, Moussa, and his daughter after going to the mosque on Tabaski.

I spent the day after Tabaski with the imam (Muslim priest) from my village and a Muslim missionary who lives in Banfora. He is Pakistani and his wife made us some delicious food!   

As far as work goes, I went from having a relaxed schedule to a relatively hectic schedule in a matter of weeks. Mostly because I am now an English teacher at the new collège, the equivalent of junior high, in my village! There isn’t actually a school building yet, just a few abandoned rooms throughout the village. However, it’s better than the previous alternative in which the kids had to bike or walk 10k to another village to continue their schooling.

I teach 3 days a week to the sixième students, which is kind of like 7^th grade. It’s their first encounter with English which is kind of exciting and it gives me an opportunity to get to know the older students and some of their challenges. It’s surprisingly not as easy as one might think to teach your native language. Since I learned English in a natural way, I don’t know a lot of the rules, I just know when something sounds wrong. Luckily, the director has given me a lot of materials and I’ve devised a pretty interesting syllabus, incorporating debate into the class as well to hone the critical thinking skills which are so often ignored in the Burkinabé education system. I’ve also included a unit on children’s and women’s rights and we might do some Model UN! The kids are really motivated and it’s awesome to hear them correctly pronounce funny-sounding English phrases. Any English teaching materials (songs, books, flash cards, etc.) would be greatly appreciated!

Other than that, I’m still continuing my girls club for the primary school girls once a week and I’m thinking about replicating the same club for the sixième girls in my English class. We’ve recently covered HIV/AIDS and yesterday the midwife came in from the health center to talk about the dangers of early pregnancy and about the different contraceptives that are available in Jula. It took about half an hour just for the girls to say on their own what sex was. In this culture, people don’t talk about sex out of shame. However, this leads to some serious problems later on when girls get pregnant and don’t know what happened. Many girls in my village get married young and therefore have children young and in all cases it cuts their education short. The girls were able to submit questions anonymously which helped them to open up a lot and I gave American goodies (chocolate chip cookies) to the girls who answered the really tough questions. I think the girls learned a lot from the session and I’m hoping it might make a difference.

In this picture, the midwife is showing the girls the different kinds of contraceptives available and explaining in Jula.

In non-work-related news, I have a puppy! His name is Benji and he was given to me by one of the men who works at the CSPS. He’s great company but he is also a handful right now. He would appreciate anything in future packages as well!

It’s harvesting season which means most of the village is out in the fields harvesting corn, rice, and cotton. I was able to go to the fields and harvest rice with my neighbors which was a pretty fun time. I'd love to put more pictures up of all of this stuff in the blog but the Internet is just too slow so check out my Facebook! 

Thank you for all of your support!

Peace,

Marlow

A Day in the Life

It’s hard to believe that I’ve already been at site for a month. I still don’t understand the passing of time here, where it seems to fly by yet at the same time I feel like I’ve lived in this culture for years. I’m slowly picking up little West African habits, like sucking my teeth when I think something is bad or saying “deh?” at the end of my sentences.

When I’m away from site I start to miss my village friends; drinking tea with Moussa and Alima, laughing with Kaba, and just asking Kaitiessi about her day. Every once in a while I feel overwhelmed with gratitude for these people who have made me feel so at home in such a short period of time.

Although my days vary, I thought I’d give you a little insight into what I actually do each day as a Peace Corps volunteer.

MORNING:

I wake up around 6am to the sounds of babies (or goats, I never know for sure) crying or corn being pounded by the women. After making myself breakfast (oatmeal with peanut butter and honey with tea), I sit on my hangar and listen to the sounds of the village waking up. The sun starts to peek out from behind the thatched roofs and the palm trees. I water my garden and sweep my hangar. George normally comes to sit on my lap and keep me company, too. If it’s not a school day, the children will hang out on my hangar and draw pictures for me in chalk.

Twice a week, Odil comes over to tutor me in Goin and Jula. Normally, we walk around the village and greet people as I point at things and then write down their corresponding words in my new languages.

NOON:

I’ll normally do one tour of some part of the village each day just to greet people, since that’s so important in this culture. Sometimes I’ll sit with a family in their courtyard and be offered dolo (millet beer) or beans as I ask them about their children and their work before going on my way. It’s great to hear everyone say “Wihaba” after me because they want to say hello.

I’ll visit my neighbor Yakouba at his kiosk to get some nescafe with sweetened condensed milk and bread before saying hello to Kaitiessi, the president of the women’s association. We can sit for hours not really saying much at all but just enjoying each other’s company.

AFTERNOON:

Once a week, I have my girls club so I’m teaching in front of a class about HIV/AIDS, self-esteem, and the importance of staying in school. During the afternoons, I drink tea with the health workers or I hang out with the women on the paved road selling beignets. I’ll fetch water on my bike with the neighborhood kids if I’m running low or go to the fields with Moussa if I’m feeling really ambitious. The cotton is almost ready for harvesting so I’m excited for that!

EVENING:

My nights are nice and cool right now. I’ll make myself dinner by candlelight and read. Afterwards, little Nadja comes over and asks me if I’m coming to drink tea with her family tonight. I walk the firefly-lit path over to Moussa’s courtyard and we drink tea under the sky full of stars. Moussa calls the moon “village electricity”. We talk about everything, what life is like in America, how the earth orbits the sun, and the status of women. Around 10pm, I can’t keep my eyes open anymore and so I tell Moussa “mi mulan… mi kan gala”, “I’m tired, I’m going to bed.”  

As you can see from a normal day, my life here is slowly developing a routine and I’m really starting to appreciate each moment. It’s such a rare experience not only to befriend people halfway around the world but also to learn to live like them. I feel like all of the little successes of integration have so much more meaning just because they’re so challenging. Small things like learning to pump my own water or understanding what someone says in Jula feel like huge accomplishments.

That’s not to say that life here isn’t difficult at all. I’m basically the representative for an entire country and an entire culture which is often misunderstood or glamourized here and I find that one of my greatest challenges is trying to accurately explain or dispel myths about what it means to be American to villagers. I’m also never sure if someone is genuinely interested in being my friend or if they just want to get something from the “toubabmuso” (white woman). Overall, the wonderful moments far outweigh the difficult moments.  

My girls club has been really successful already and I find that being with the girls almost always makes me feel like I’m doing productive and meaningful work here. The girls learn a lot and it’s really fun, normally culminating in a game of red rover. I gave all of the girls matching fabric headbands and it’s cute to see them all wearing them in unity on the day of our girls’ club meetings. Last week, they talked about their futures and what they wanted to be when they grow up. It was a great activity to have the girls draw what their lives will look like when they are thirty years old since it’s something many of the girls had never thought about until now. They drew their husbands, their children going to school, and themselves as teachers, mayors, and doctors. The provincial director for girls’ education even came from Banfora to talk with the girls about the importance of continuing their educations. To hear the girls’ dreams was really powerful. They talked about wanting to only have a few children so that they could all go to school and of becoming government employees so that they could take care of the families. I can’t stress how much educating a girl can influence generations to come and it makes me feel like I really can make a difference with young people while I am here.

With that in mind, I’ve come to Ouaga for a few days for a Camp GLOW (girls/guys leading our world) meeting to help organize a countrywide camp that will be held next summer. I am the financial secretary so I’ll be in charge of fundraising and applying for grants (totaling around $10,000 USD) at one of the four locations for the camps. It really is an amazing opportunity for these girls and boys from all over Burkina to develop leadership skills and to effect positive change in their own communities. There will be an opportunity to donate online so I’ll keep you posted!

Well, this post has turned out to be quite long, even though I feel like I can never truly express all of my emotions accurately with words when I try to talk about my experiences here! As always, thank you for all of your love and support.

Peace,

Marlow

Settling in...

Hey everyone!

It's officially been two weeks since I got to site and already things are going really well...

I've met with the women's association who was already making soap and anti-mosquito cream and we talked about selling the soap to pay for things that the women want, like to repair the old women's center and to fix the broken water pumps in the village. I think that allowing the women to have their own central place would be a step in the right direction in my village, where already I've witnessed the women be kicked out of the central meeting room by the market because the men needed to have a meeting. The water situation is also a problem, since many of the pumps are broken and the women have to walk very long distances for water. The women are really motivated and I think we can secure a grant for the initial start-up costs so that they can start selling!

I've also started a girls club with the CM2 girls (ages 10-14) from the two primary schools which will be meeting once a week to talk about HIV/AIDS, early pregnancy, the importance of continuing your education, and women's rights. Many of the girls in my village get married at a very young age and therefore never get the chance to go to high school. This age group is really important because it's the year they take the exam to continue on to high school. I think that awareness of gender roles is an area where I can really make a contribution in my community, since the difference between the workload of men and the workload of women is so drastic.

Since I observed a lot of malnutrition in my village, I've been talking with the midwife at the health center to do sensibilisations on nutrition for the mothers once a week while they're waiting to have their babies weighed. We already planted four moringa trees at the health center to be used during these presentations, since adding the leaves to porridge and sauces adds many vitamins and minerals lacking in their diets.

Other than that, I've been speaking a lot of Jula and Gouin and even got a tutor. Every night, I have tea with my neighbors who are kind of like my adopted family. I'm quickly becoming good friends with the president of the women's association as well. The chief gave me a village name, Wihaba, which means "what God has given". It's nice to have some independence and create my own schedule. I even had time to start my garden of tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumbers with a sunflower border. I got to go to the fields with my neighbor and see how they grow corn, sesame, and cotton.

I've been eating really well since my market is filled with delicious vegetables. I've been able to perfect my pesto thanks to my basil bush and even made foccacia bread. This morning I biked 20k into Banfora to check my email and plan the session for my girls group on Thursday. I'm still adjusting to life as a volunteer since training was so different, but it's slowly starting to feel like home.

I hope everyone is doing well, thank you for the letters and the support! They make my day. I have a lot of free time to respond now so keep them coming! My signal is not very good at site, but if you send me a text saying when you'd like to skype I can get into Banfora and make it happen. Miss and love all of you!

Peace,
Marlow

Swear In and Affectation!

A ni sogoma! (Good morning, for you non-Julaphones). I thought I’d give you all a quick update on what I’ve been up to since swearing in and becoming a “real” Peace Corps volunteer…

Our swear-in ceremony coincided with the 50^th anniversary of the Peace Corps so it was a huge celebration complete with a fair and lots of publicity. I even got to give an interview in French on national TV and radio! To see the video that was sent to Washington covering the event, go here. The biggest rap star in Burkina, Floby, even wrote a song about the Peace Corps for us. During our swearing in ceremony, the U.S. ambassador to Burkina Faso had us raise our right hands and take the oath of office. There’s only one oath for all federal employees so it’s the same one Obama fudged at his swearing in.

So after swearing to uphold the constitution of the United States and defend against all enemies foreign and domestic (I’m not kidding, that’s in there), we were greeted by the first lady of Burkina Faso and spent a few more days in Ouaga to buy things for our new homes.

Yesterday, we were “affectated” (I’m not sure if there is an English word for that), which basically means we are on our own. Some of us are already at our sites and some of us, myself included, are staying at hotels in our provincial capitals picking up a few last minute items (aka lounging at the pool) before Peace Corps takes us to our sites tomorrow.

I’m excited and anxious to begin my service and have no idea what to expect. Having no expectations up until this point has been the best way to go and I hope I continue to be pleasantly surprised. It’s hard to leave the very close friends I have made here who are now scattered all over the country, but I know that they are only a phone call away and that I will see them in three months at in-service training.

My beautiful site makes the whole moving process a lot easier. My neighbor and I rode in on our bus yesterday through the sugarcane hills and palm trees and remembered that we won the lottery when it comes to regions. Even more important, my village is very motivated and happy to have me, and when I need to escape Banfora is only a short bike ride away and has everything I need. Everyone is friendly and helpful and actually talks to me in Jula. I’ve got a lot of great Peace Corps neighbors nearby, too.

So what’s next? Well, for the first three months, my main task is to get integrated into my community. I will be conducting an “etude de milieu”, or a needs assessment. Basically, I’m talking to people to learn about my community and what its development priorities are and building relationships at the same time. Before we can engage in any substantial projects, we have to be integrated (so that people have a reason to listen to us) and we have to build relationships (so that our projects continue even after we’re gone). All of this socializing doesn’t amount to what Americans would consider “work,” but I think it’s crucial to my effectiveness as a volunteer and my personal happiness. I have two whole years in my village, so there’s no rush to jump into projects right away.

I will also be spending a lot of time with my Jula tutor in village so that I will be able to give sensibilizations on various topics in the local language of my community. This is extremely important since a significant portion of my village, especially women, doesn’t speak French. Really, only the government employees who work at the health center and the primary school speak French fluently. I have a great counterpart who works at the health center who is related to the village chief and who I can bounce ideas off of and have introduce me to important people.

I hope all is going well in the good old U.S. of A! Keep the letters coming and let me know if you want to skype at any point since I’ll be riding into Banfora at least once a week to visit the market and check my email. Love and miss you all!

I'd Like to Give the World a Coke...

Picture this… Four Christian village leaders and a nun coming to eat at the home of the president of the Muslim’s on the Muslim holy day celebrating the end of Ramadan. After serving them food and conversing, the president of the Muslims brings out a Coke for everyone.

No, it’s not a Coke commercial. This is the reality of religious tolerance in Burkina Faso and I think the whole world could learn a little something from it.

Surprisingly, a country with 160 different local languages, several different ethnic groups, and a 50/50 split of Muslims and Christians manages to live up to its hype as “the land of upright and honorable people”. I’ve concluded that they really just love a good party and more religions means more parties, with the Christians celebrating the Muslim holidays and the Muslims celebrating the Christian holidays. And you can’t forget traditional animist beliefs which pervade both of these major religions in Burkina.

Since my host family is Muslim and my host father is president of the Muslims in our training village, I’ve been especially privy to Muslim beliefs here. I was fortunate enough to experience Ramadan with them, the annual month of fasting that Muslims undertake each year as one of the five pillars of Islam. During Ramadan, my family did not eat while the sun was up. As soon as the sun set, they would eat their first meal of the day and then we’d get ready to leave for mosque. I would wear a long dress and a scarf to cover my face, shoulders, and neck. (Unfortunately, this doesn’t hide the fact that I’m white so I just end up looking like an extra weird Muslim nasara.)

At the mosque, everyone is positioned outside facing the front of the building. It is a white building with one archway entrance and two large columns on either side with a crescent moon and star at the top of each column. The prayer starts just after sunset so the backdrop is a picturesque dark blue sky lit up by the moon and the stars.

Before the praying, they bring out a giant loudspeaker with a microphone and chant the call to prayer into it. They repeat a phrase in Arabic over and over again which means “may peace be with you.” In fact, this is what you are supposed to say to all Muslims upon greeting them. (Next time you think that Islam isn’t a peaceful religion think about that). The men have mats on the concrete floor right in front of the mosque while the women sit in a row behind the men on the ground. Verses of the Koran were read in Arabic by a man in the front as we sequentially put our hands on our knees while standing up, dropped to the floor and put our heads on the ground in front of us, and then stood back up. I was simultaneously frustrated that because I’m a girl I automatically get second-rate seats and thankful that I could mimic what the men were doing from behind, since I’m an Islam novice and had no idea what I was supposed to be doing at any given moment.

At the end of Ramadan, my courtyard held a big party and most of the village attended. My family killed many of its chickens to make soup, shredded coconut to make little cakes, and made fresh ginger and hibiscus juice. I got to help make the hibiscus juice, which involves boiling dried hibiscus leaves and then adding sugar and mint leaves before letting it cool.

It was a fun game watching the kids corner the chickens in the courtyard and then tie them up. I would have loved to avenge the french fries I lost to those pesky animals one morning but, unfortunately, women aren’t allowed to kill chickens in this culture. I did, however, get to look on with gratitude as my host dad killed a chicken. He explained that we had to face East while killing a chicken just like we have to face East towards Mecca while praying. Personally, I don’t think these awful creatures deserve such consideration. I much prefer to see them saran wrapped or in the frozen aisle.

It felt a lot like Christmas, with all of the kids getting new clothes and running around annoying their mothers who were trying to cook. Some things are universal, like little kids making their brothers or sisters cry and men sitting off in a corner talking about man stuff.

The first guests to show up were the Christian leaders in the village. They brought Fanta as a gift and ate what my family had prepared. And yes, my host father really did bring out Cokes for everyone. I started humming the jingle “I’d like to give the world a Coke…” to the amusement of some nearby nasaras who also thought this was a perfect commercial opportunity. But the funny thing was this wasn’t a commercial, it was real life. Somehow, religion had brought people together instead of dividing them. I wondered how the Burkinabe, many of whom suffer from extreme poverty and little to no education, had learned how to regard religion as such an integral part of their lives while simultaneously respecting the beliefs of others. 

Thoughts on Being a Type-A American in a Developing Country

“You may not control all the events that happen to you but you can decide not to be reduced by them. Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud. Do not complain. Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking.” –Maya Angelou

Sometimes we turn to each other during sessions and joke, “Hey, remember that time we joined the Peace Corps? What the HELL were we thinking?” We laugh, especially when we have giardia and a flat bike tire on that same day. In essence, Peace Corps training is a sick masochistic fantasy world where your limits are constantly tested. You lose all control over your own life- your chosen language of communication, your schedule, and, at some point, your bowel movements. Once the simultaneous diarrhea and vomiting start, you have no choice but to resign yourself to it. (After all, you apparently aren’t a real volunteer until you poop your pants. Check). This is tough on us Americans because there is so much in the states that allows us to feel like we have control: schedules, rules, order, logic, Imodium. But it turns out that all those values which we think are just inherent to living life are actually not all that important elsewhere.  Allow me to explain…

First of all, time doesn’t have the same importance in Burkina. There isn’t even a word for “late” in Jula. The best we can say is that someone was “not fast.” Time is not some other-worldly God that we obey, it is something  that the Burkinabe can manipulate at their discretion to the annoyance of any and all nasaras in the vicinity. It doesn’t really matter what time the bus leaves. It will go when it goes. Ça va aller.

Logic and order are not valued here. This is especially counter-intuitive and frustrating for nasaras like me. Here I was thinking that we should always be trying to increase efficiency and have things just make sense. I guess I never questioned why this was important to me. And why would I question it? In America, everyone else thought that these things were important too so I never had to explain myself.

But this is the best part about living in another culture- you learn so much more about your own culture and in doing so you realize that your way of thinking and doing things is a) not the only way and b) maybe not even the best way. If you never experience a culture different from your own, you miss out on these insights. And, in my humble opinion, I think that this might be the fundamental cause of most problems in the world. If we never bother to consider why people in other cultures behave differently, we never question our beliefs, our traditions, our thinking. It’s as if it never occurred to us that there are reasons why other people behave differently.

It’s easy to notice how the Burkinabe behave differently, but discovering the reasons underlying those behavioral differences is a lot more nuanced and revealing. Like when you are waiting 2 hours for a bus to come, it’s pretty easy to understand that time isn’t highly regarded here. But as you spend more time around the Burkinabe, you’ll find that it’s more offensive to not greet someone you pass than it is to be late for something. And it takes you a lot longer to get somewhere when you have to say good morning to everyone in your family first, then proceed to ask how their family is doing (even though you’re in their family and know what’s going on... duh) and then say good morning to every single person you pass on your bike and ask about their family and their work. I’m learning to do this although I don’t think it will ever feel normal for me, since I come from a culture where not only do you not say hello to someone you pass (especially not a stranger), you instead try to divert your eyes and ignore them. Can you imagine saying hello to every person you passed in the grocery store or on the street? Can you imagine pulling up to a drive thru and having to have 5 minutes of small talk before placing your order? As an American we just want the essentials, namely getting our cheeseburger. Greetings just aren’t necessary for that transaction to occur.

Our logistical Peace Corps tech guy who is Burkinabe and who spent some time in New York City said it best when he said that Americans “flee” when someone says hello to them. “Pourquoi tu fuis?” I’d have to agree. I couldn’t help but picture him standing in the subway and trying to ask for help in the little English that he knows, meanwhile lugging his 3 huge suitcases (he said he looked like Eddie Murphy in the movie Coming to America) with New Yorkers purposely avoiding him. And you’re thinking “well yeah, they’re New Yorkers, of course they’re assholes”, but I couldn’t help but be a little embarrassed of my culture when he told me this story. Why are we so petrified of a little human interaction? I can think of times when I saw someone walking towards me on campus and would purposely play with my cell phone to avoid having to speak to them. And I’m still trying to figure out why this is the case…

I think that maintaining social connections might be more important in Burkina because when you need help your neighbors are the first people that you turn to. In America, we have this sink or swim attitude that people should be independent and fend for themselves. And maybe we become too independent and we forget that we’re social creatures and that we need human interaction. I’m not sure yet if this attitude is a weakness or a strength, though I think it may be either depending on the situation. But maybe America can learn something from Burkina in this respect.

With that said, there’s a lot that I would like Burkina to learn from America for my own sake and for my own sanity. For instance, there is no such thing as a line here- everyone just pushes up to the front. This injustice frustrates me to no end. And no one sits in their assigned seat even though there is an assigned seat written on your bus ticket. So maybe America is doing something right, after all. Next time you’re standing in a line complaining about how long it is, be grateful that you have a line to complain about in the first place. The rest of us have to push past sweaty men with body odor who just arrived even though we’ve been standing there for a whole hour.

In situations like these, the American in me wants to scream. Sometimes it does scream. Literally. And very loudly. Like when I start yelling in English at a bus station in West Africa where no understands a word I’m saying. After venting, I follow Maya Angelou’s advice and change my own thinking…  

Specifically, I adopt the Burkinabe “ça va aller” philosophy. There’s a reason that this is the name of my blog. It literally translates to “that is going to go” in French, but it means that everything will be fine. People say this when I can’t communicate something in Jula (like when I said in Jula “I am dead” instead of “I am finished”), when a bus breaks down, when someone is sick, etc. In Jula, they say “A bena bi,” or literally, “It’s going to be” to signify the same thing. And when you put it that way, it doesn’t seem like there’s much I can do to change things even if I wanted to. So I turn to the person next to me and say ça va aller and laugh. Eventually, we get to where we need to be. Maybe not on time, but we’re there.

Site Visit

Bonjour!

Right now I am using the wifi at a beautiful pool in Banfora eating salt and vinegar pringles and babybel cheese. My site is only about an hour bikeride (or 20 minute bush taxi ride) from Banfora where I can find cheese and cold drinks and cyber cafes and hotels and restaurants, including one called McDonald. I'm slowly but surely uploading pictures to my flickr but they're all on my facebook so you can view them there, too!

I got to see the house that I will be living in for the next 2 years as well as the cat that I will be living with! His name is George and he is the cat of the volunteer who I am replacing. My house is already decorated and ready to go, with a nice outdoor patio area with a hangar and bamboo shades that I can let down if it gets too sunny. I have a HUGE courtyard with my own mango tree, papaya tree, basil bush, small banana tree, and lots of room to plant tomatoes and other vegetables as well.

My town is surrounded by rolling green hills and there is also a lake within walking distance from my house. It is very small with only around 2000 residents but they are all very motivated. I was able to meet with a few of the women in the women's association that the volunteer I am replacing started. They make liquid and hard soap and neem creem (anti-mosquito cream) and sell it for a profit. I will be continuing her work with the women's group, her work doing health workshops on malaria and family planning, and her girls' clubs. I also hope to start a savings and credit program with the women's group so that they can have more power within their families. I will also start tutoring the CM2 girls since I recently found that very few of them passed the exam after primary school to continue on to middle school. As I mentioned earlier, there is an NGO who works with my town that pays for each girl who passes this exam to continue on to high school. I was able to meet the secretary of this organization in Banfora yesterday. I will also be working with the nutrition team at the health center in my town to organize a program where women can keep track of the weight of their babies and attend nutrition workshops.

I went around village with my homologue, or counterpart, who works at the health center. He introduced me to the chief and the chief of development in my village and I was able to visit both of the schools and the health center. I am excited to be replacing a volunteer who has done a lot already and who has given me a few ideas about what to do moving forward. I also think that I have the best of both worlds, since I have a small, manageable village where it will be easier to measure progress and integrate but I am only 20 minutes away from probably the best tourist town in Burkina. I can't wait to move in at the end of September after I have officially sworn in as a volunteer!

I will have a different address where you can send me packages once I move in and I will update that on my blog. I will also put up a wish list of things that I would like for you to send me! As always, I love receiving letters and calls, too!

Hope everything is well!

-Marlow

Site Announcement!

The day all we stagiares had been waiting for since the beginning of training came and went last week when the staff brought out a huge map of Burkina Faso and called us up one by one to announce where we will each be living for the next 2 years! Everyone placed a picture of their face where there village is located while they read a description of it.

I will be living in a BEAUTIFUL village in Southwest Burkina within biking distance from Banfora, known for its waterfalls and lush sugarcane fields and palm trees. I lucked out to be living in easily the most beautiful town in Burkina. Although I can’t tell you the name of my village for safety and security reasons, I can give you the description they read about my village…

The name of my village means “behind the river of the giant lion” and is half Muslim and half Christian. It is a small village with only 2,000 inhabitants and 1 primary school. But, an NGO that already works in this village pays for any girl who passes the primary school exam to go through high school so there is a wealth of opportunities to promote girls education in a meaningful way. There is also a dedicated women’s group who engages in income generating activities such as soap making and neem cream and they are highly motivated to start other projects as well. I have my own private courtyard but no electricity or running water. The market is every 5 days but since I am only an hour bike ride away from Banfora, I can also go to their daily market. My regional capital is Bobo-Dioulasso, the cultural capital of Burkina.

I couldn’t be happier with my AMAZING site. You can see pictures of my host family and other photos from training so far on the right hand side of this page where my Flickr link is. Pictures of my village and house will be up soon!

In other news, we’re in the thick of rainy season now, so every other day or so we get a heavy rainfall preceded by a sandstorm which kicks up all of the red clay dirt. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to already be in my house, where I can listen to my iPod and write and read and sing and generally relax and bask in the American ideal of privacy for a few hours. When the rain stops, my host mom will bring me heated bucket water to take a bucket bath and I’ll wrap myself in a pagne (the fabric you buy here) and enjoy the (relatively) cool weather that the rain brings. Other times, like when I’m stuck at a restaurant with other volunteers when the rain comes, I’ll hang around and drink and talk with them for an hour or two or three, or in one case four, until the rain subsides. In any case, the rain brings a welcome interruption to the heat here and I enjoy every second of it.

Life here is simple and beautiful and every day brings new and exciting adventures. I’m always learning new words, like the Jula word for butt- “bobara.” I learned that “bo” means poop and “bara” means bucket, so you can put the two together and figure it out. Or the fact that in Jula they have a word for the nonsense language of drunk people. If only English had such a word… As you can see, Jula is a really intuitive and amazing language.

For this week, I’m staying in a hotel in Ouaga and meeting our counterparts for a workshop and then heading to our respective sites to see our new houses!

And, in what has turned out to be the hardest part of training, I’m slowly learning the culture. My family is teaching me how to cultivate the fields and how to make tô. I play soccer every once in a while with some other volunteers and some Burkinabe on a dirt field. At first they seemed really concerned that girls would want to play, but now they just run us over like everyone else. I do laundry with my younger sister and have conversations about life in America with my younger brother and the Burkinabe friends I’ve made here. I’ll be doing model tutoring with 5 children who have been assigned to me so I’ll be teaching French and life skills like hygiene, anti-malarial, and sex education to girls and boys who are in CM1 and CM2, basically the equivalent of 5^th and 6^th grade. 

I’ve gotten into a routine and this has just become my normal life day to day, so sometimes it’s hard to find the funny experiences that would stand out to everyone at home. Enjoy the pictures!

Miss and love you all!

I Have 2 Mommy's! (and other tales of my progressive Burkinabe family)

Hello world!

I can’t believe I’ve been in Burkina for 3 weeks… it feels like so much longer!

First of all, I have been living with my amazing host family. My family is Muslim and polygamous, so I have TWO host mommy’s. Not only is my family Muslim, my host father is actually president of the Muslims in my village so he wields a lot of power. Needless to say, my family is pretty well-off compared to the rest of the host families… we have electricity but no running water. Villagers come to my house with chickens for my father so that he may give them religious advice and pray for them. And boy do they pray. 5 times a day and no less.

I have 4 brothers and sisters (I think, there are always random children around) and two girls that live with us which they call “bonnes” who do the housework. My youngest sister Djamilatou is 12 and does literally everything around my house. Especially for the nasara, me, who is incapable of even the simplest of tasks. It is completely acceptable here to have children run errands for you and although I felt bad at first, I’ve come to accept it. Djamila will take me to the tailor to have a dress made so that I get a fair price and she will run and get me cold water sachets as well. Who knew the fruits of child labor could be so sweet! (kidding)

As soon as I can put up pictures you will be able to see my room, which is blue and decked out with posters of Avril Lavigne and European football players, including the Arsenal team (sorry, Dad). I have my own separate house in the courtyard which is made of mud and brick. Inside I have my own water filter and the latrine that I use to take bucket baths is right next to my house, as well.

Since placing high enough in French to swear-in in September, I have started learning Jula while continuing French for an hour each week. Jula is the language spoken in the Western part of Burkina near Bobo-Dioulasso. So right now, in my head is a mix of French, English, Mooré (which most of my host family speaks), and Jula (which one of my host mommy’s speaks). Or as I like to call the linguistic concoction, Frangularé. Forgive me if my English is slacking.

Almost immediately after we got to our host families we went on a demystification trip to visit a current volunteer to see what they do. I went to a larger town in the Northeast with a few other trainees and we helped to weigh babies at the CSPS (local health center) which was a lot of fun. Basically, the mothers hang their baby up in a diaper-like contraption onto what looks like a meat hook and I write down the baby’s weight in kilograms. They keep track of their baby’s weight once a month when they come in to get formula, vaccinations, etc. So demyst was a good opportunity to get to see some of what a volunteer does and what volunteer life will be like after I swear in in September.

As for my daily life right now during training, I’ll give you a rundown. Most days I am awake by 5am to the sound of my rooster, who sets off the babies, who sets off the donkeys, who sets off the goats, etc. I sleep outside in my bug hut to keep cool because my house traps heat due to the metal roof. After taking a bucket bath, I meet up with another trainee who lives next door and we ride our bikes about 15 minutes to the training center. We have class all day, everything from technical classes about what we’ll be doing as non-formal education volunteers (life skills, tutoring, sex education, etc.) to language classes to medical classes about how to keep healthy. It helps that a lot of the classes are in the community, for instance drinking tea and practicing with some Jula speakers. We finish at around 5pm and then I grab a coke with another volunteer before heading home to study, eat dinner, read, and pass out at around 8pm. Sometimes I’ll play with my host brother and sister for a while. We listen to Akon and play a Burkinabé game similar to Sorry. Or I have some pretty hilarious convos with my host mom about life in the US (really, my family doesn’t cultivate ANYTHING). I’ve also shared with the neighborhood kids only the best of American culture, like the card game “bullshit” (or “tu as menti”, aka “you lied”, the more PG version) and frisbee.

Overall the good days are really good and the bad days are pretty bad. Some days I would really like some control over my own life, but I know that training is the hardest part and soon I will have more freedom than I know what to do with. 

Nasara!

Bon soir!

Good news first... I scored advanced high on my language placement exam which is well above what is required in French to swear in so I will be starting with local language right away! There are 160 different local languages in Burkina and we will not know which language we need until we find out where our sites are in July, but for now I am learning Moore (pronounced moor-ray). Practicing in the marche (market) has been fun because the Burkinabe are always surprised when a nasara (re: foreigner/white person) can speak Moore.

And more good news! Our stage got brand new Trek bikes. As soon as I can I will take a picture of what I will be riding around on for the next 2 years!

We've been waking up for breakfast at 6:30am and doing orientation training activities until around 5pm everyday. By the end of the day we're pretty tired and we're responsible to go out to get food on our own. So far, I love Burkinabe food. Most dishes are rice with a sauce (tomato, leaf, or, my favorite, peanut) with a meat in it (chicken, beef or fish). We've also tried to (pronounced toe), a blob of polenta-like consistency that you dip into sauce. I'm not a huge fan, but maybe it will grow on me.

Right now we're very sheltered in a hotel in Ouaga, the capital, playing frisbee and hanging out with other Americans speaking English and eating French fries. However, tomorrow we will be traveling to a village south of Ouaga called Sapone (sap-o-nay) to be adopted into our HOST FAMILIES! (They are famous for their hats, google it!) I could not be more excited (and nervous) to finally start adapting to life in Burkina. I am glad that I have my French so I will be able to communicate with my family and I hope to get a lot of Moore practice in. There will no doubt be a lot of fun stories to tell once we arrive and training really gets underway.

We have already had a few cross cultural sessions so that we will be able to interact with our host families. Some interesting facts about Burkinabe culture that I picked up:

• you never address an issue with someone directly... you seek out a third party to go talk to that person
• if you ever invite someone to eat or to get a beer it means that you'll be paying for them
• silence in conversations is totally normal and not awkward at all
• before you get up off of a seat you knock on it
• using your left hand for most things is forbidden because it is reserved for the bathroom
• women can't show knees and it's offensive to Muslims to show the bottom of your feet as well

We've also spent time learning more about our assignments and what we'll be doing in the education sector in Burkina. Most of our training is community based and practical, meaning that we will be participating in model school with real students and learning in the community as opposed to solely in the classroom.

Last but not least we've been learning about malaria and diarrhea and all that good medical stuff. And we've had several vaccines as well. Today we had to practice doing our own malaria slides by pricking our finger and properly smearing our blood samples onto a glass slide in case we ever need to bring blood samples to the medical office. For anyone who knows my fear of needles and blood this was tricky for me. Surprisingly, my slide was amazing.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to update next because we will be in a pretty small village, but please keep in touch via letters or cell phone if you'd like to hear from me!

Peace,
Marlow

Ouaga!

Hello world!

We arrived in Ouagadougou (Ouaga) on Saturday and we've been staying at a hotel with AC and showers and WIFI! And we had lasagna and pizza for dinner respectively. AND there are kittens here. Needless to say, life is good.

On the plane from Brussels to Ouaga we looked out the window to see red earth below with flecks of silver that were the roofs of houses. The first thing I noticed when I got off of the plane was the HEAT. It was over 100 degrees when we landed and very humid. It started pouring shortly after we were bused to the hotel and the country director told us that rain is a sign of good luck! Right before it rains it is really windy and there is a huge dust storm. It’s a really nice break from the heat.

Yesterday we had lunch at the country directors house: yassa poulet and bissap, a yummy drink made of hibiscus juice, mint, vanilla, and sugar. We also had chocolate chip cookies and a kind of yogurt with millet in it. We also visited the marché and I got to practice some of my Moore and French.

We are now technically "trainees" and today we had our bike fitting, our medical interview, and our first LANGUAGE PLACEMENT interview! Thank you Dr. Allen- the man giving me the test said that I spoke beaux français and that I didn’t sound like I learned French in America. J On Thursday we will be moving to a small village south of Ouaga and will have our adoption ceremony with our new host families who we will be living with!

My new phone number is 226.77.27.03.09. It is free for me to receive calls and if you use the skype app or skype from a computer to call me it is apparently very cheap for you as well! Keep in mind I am 4 hours ahead and often go to bed pretty early (around 10pm my time) and wake up with the first call to prayer (around 5am my time).

We have received our training schedules and we will be swearing in on September 22. Almost every day for the next 4 months besides Sundays is packed with cross cultural, language, medical, safety, and technical training. I also found out that the day we swear in there will be a festival celebrating the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps!

Miss and love all of you and can't wait to hear from you! I will upload pics soon!

Peace,
Marlow

Last post from the US!

Just wanted to let everyone know that all is well here in Philly! An emotional day but also very exciting. Staging was a lot of ice breakers and getting to know the rest of our group, discussing our concerns, fears, hopes, dreams, blah blah blah. All I can say is I hope Burkina is ready for the amazing group of volunteers headed your way. We used our $140 debit cards (all for one night of food!) courtesy of the U.S. government to get some pizza and beer for our last dinner. There's about 50 of us heading out, mostly education and a few agriculture volunteers as well.

Silly overachiever me volunteered to be one of our group leaders through our travels so I'm responsible for distributing everyones passports tomorrow :-O So I'm going to get some much needed rest and I will update as soon as I can once I get to Ouagadougou.

Thanks to everyone for all of the good wishes sent my way!

Peace,
Marlow

Staging Info!

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind between graduating, packing up my apartment and trying to stuff all of my belongings into my bedroom at my parents house, saying my goodbyes to everyone, and getting all of the last minute things I need for Burkina. I'll be heading out to Maine tomorrow to have one last hurrah with the wonderful boyfriend and his family for a few days and then back home to hang with my family and finish packing!

On June 9th, I will be flying out to Philly in the morning to meet with the rest of my stage, aka the group of people who I will go through my 3 months of training with. I'm super excited to meet everyone in my group- they seem like really awesome people and they're from all over. It looks like we will have a day filled with paperwork followed by our last night in the good ol' US of A. I should mention that philly cheesesteak arrangements have already been made via our Facebook group.

Friday June 10th we will visit the clinic to get some last minute shots before we head to the airport. Then we fly into New York on Friday evening and through Brussels to arrive in Ouagadougou on Saturday afternoon.

I'll update when I'm in Philly!

Peace,
Marlow

P.S. Now you can subscribe on the right hand side of my blog to receive my posts by email automatically :) Just enter your email address and click submit!

Sailing away from the safe harbor...

Lately, the idea of leaving for 2 years hits me at the strangest times. Whenever I see someone, I wonder if this will be the last time I see them for 2 years.

My mundane activites are no exception to this feeling. I was excited the other day when I noticed that the new season of Louie starts in June. Suddenly, it hit me. Everything, even a television show, is an investment that I am unable to commit to. It's a sign that my life as of now is temporary. (As an aside, will someone keep me updated on Louie while I'm away?) I should mention that, more importantly, I'd like to know about any weddings, babies, grad school acceptances, college football news (unless its bad news... go canes!), world news (anything after June 6th will be relevant, I promise), etc. 

As part of the leaving process, I've realized how integral the idea of permanence is to the human condition. Our established routines, modes des vies, customs, daily activities, relationships, and environments come to define us. In many ways, this stability brings us some of life's greatest joys. However, like any concrete definition, it also limits us in many ways. Only when we break this cycle of permanence and routine are we able to redefine ourselves, reconnect with others, appreciate, learn, experience, and truly live. Moreover, it is only by abandoning this permanence that we learn to rely on our own inner permanence which is unaffected by external factors; an inner peace which serves to instill calm even in the most tense situations.

I've been inspired by this Mark Twain quote that was in a 21st birthday card from my aunt:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the tradewinds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

I think this quote was actually written for me since I'm from the safest harbor there is, the Safety Harbor.  

Luckily, I've been too busy this last semester to let that the fact that I'm leaving for 2 years in a little over a month really sink in. I've been putting in time at the Rat which will be destroyed this summer (devastating), finalizing my law school plans, and finishing up classes (go figure).

I've made a few big purchases (my favorite being a Bug Hut which will allow me to sleep outside under the stars!), but my overall packing philosophy has been to take it easy. I'm feeling really comfortable with my French as of late (thank you Dr. Allen!) and have started studying some Moore, one of the local languages I'm likely to need. I forgot how much I love learning new languages! One of the best words I've learned in Moore is how to say "swagger". Now I just need to learn the verb for "to invent" and I'll have some great Burkinabe UM t-shirts for everyone ;)

In closing, leaving is both serious and lighthearted at the same time. While there is something fresh and liberating about leaving everything behind and boarding a plane with only a duffel bag and a backpack to start a new life, there is also something very final and absolute about it. Either way, whether I'm ready or not, in 1 month I will be boarding a plane to Africa. Leaving. I like the way that sounds...

Life is calling. How far will you go?

Apparently, pretty far. Burkina Faso, West Africa, to be exact. It's official: I have been invited to serve in the Peace Corps for a girls' education and empowerment project leaving on June 6th! (That's a little over 3 months away for those at home counting).

My invitation materials, including a letter on White House letterhead with a Barack Obama stock signature. Nice.

On June 6th, not even a month after graduating college, I will be leaving my home in Americaland for 27 months. I will fly to Philadelphia for "staging" where I will meet the rest of my training group and then we will travel together to Burkina Faso to begin 3 months of language, cultural, and technical training. After we complete training, we will be officially sworn in as Peace Corps volunteers and begin our 2 years of service. I'm eager to get started on this adventure!

There's been a lot leading up to this point and, more often than not, the journey is the best part, so I'll start at the beginning. Serving in the Peace Corps has always been appealing to me but I didn't seriously consider applying until after I spent a summer doing human rights work in Ghana, West Africa (find all of the mushy details here). After an amazing summer living with a host family and working on issues as varied as female genital mutilation and mining pollution, I decided that the Peace Corps provided the perfect post-graduation opportunity for me. The Peace Corps experience offers me the chance to perfect my French and learn at least one other local language, immerse myself in another culture for two years, make a small but positive difference in a community, and thrive in a challenging environment. Let's be honest, not many people get a job this exciting right after graduation.

So I began my application in May of last year. The details of my application process can be found at the timeline page at the top of this blog. In the midst of applying to the Peace Corps, I was also studying for and taking the LSAT and applying to law schools. I know that joining the Peace Corps and going to law school seem like polar opposite career paths and in many ways they are. As excited as I am about law school and starting my career, I'm not ready to settle down with law school just yet. I've been in this relationship with school my whole life- it's all I've ever known. My senior year specifically has witnessed a drop in my academic motivations as I feel more and more of a disconnect between the theorizing that takes place in the air-conditioned ivory towers of academia and the reality to which I so desperately seek to apply the theories. (As an aside, I seriously wonder sometimes if my philosophy classes are held in the highest floor of Ashe to make the discipline as physically ungrounded as it is metaphorically). I'm not ready to settle down with my childhood/high school/college sweetheart yet. I need my fling with the Peace Corps first. I also realized that serving in the Peace Corps and going to law school are not mutually exclusive goals. Most law schools allow 2 year deferrals for Peace Corps volunteers. After being admitted to several schools in the top 14, I've narrowed it down to a few schools that I'll be visiting this semester and, hopefully, I'll settle on a school that fits me best. I'll keep you posted!

My assignment is in the youth and community development sector in the girls' education and empowerment program (see the "My Assignment" tab above for more details!). In giving my recruiter my preferences for my assignment, I looked back on the volunteer experiences which have been most meaningful to me. Mentoring homeless youth ages 14-17 with an organization in Miami has been extremely rewarding, as was my volunteer experience at the Volunteers of America Children's Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania. I'm eager to use my experiences and education to really excel in this assignment and to help teach my community about the benefits of educating and empowering girls and women.

I'm hoping that my Peace Corps experience will help solidify my reasons for wanting to attend law school in the first place. After all, school for school's sake seems to be meaningless and a waste of money. I know what you're thinking- "But Marlow, you majored in philosophy?"- but that's another story for a different post. Law school isn't just the "next step" after college and it's important to know why you're going. I hope that the Peace Corps experience will give me that answer.

And then there's the non-tangible reasons. I'm young and I want to have fun and make a difference while I still can. There are so many moments now when I miss my Ghanaian home and how simple life was. I know there is so much more than the superficial things we try to fill our lives with here in the states and I found that when those things were missing from my life, I felt truly free and happy.

I want my generation to know that the pursuit of monetary success is not your only option. We are quickly becoming a generation of sell-outs. We stand to learn from previous generations, namely from those baby boomers in the 1960's who sought to positively impact their worlds, not just their own wallets. We have it better than 95% of people on this planet and I think we owe at least a little something back.

Lastly, it's the 50 year anniversary of the Peace Corps in March, 2011! So really there's no better time to do it. And John F. Kennedy wants me to:

So what's next? Well, I will be spending the rest of my remaining time in the states researching my new second home, packing (where to begin?), sending an aspiration statement to the Burkina Faso government, applying for my U.S. government passport, and spending some quality time with loved ones. Luckily, Peace Corps volunteers get some great discounts on travel gear (50% off North Face, sweet) and the Peace Corps has provided me with a reading list and lots of information on Burkina Faso. Right now, my overwhelming excitement is overriding any nervousness that I feel. I can't wait to embark on this new adventure!

To all of you who provided me with support throughout the application process- I mean it when I say that I cannot thank you enough. As hard it was to exercise patience and flexibility during the application process, I know that it was good practice since the emotional rollercoaster ride of my 2 years of service will demand those skills from me even more. I'd also like to thank Sharlee Crews, Karla Fuentes, Viveckenand Chunoo for writing me wonderful letters of recommendation.

For those currently going through the application process, I have provided an "Application Timeline" page at the top of my blog that may be helpful. My only advice is to be patient, as hard as it may seem sometimes, and remember why you are joining the Peace Corps in the first place.

That's all for now. I'll keep you posted!

Peace,

Marlow