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!