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