It’s been a while, eh?

Training is over and I’ve made it to site (see following post) and I have not shared a single word.

There have been the obvious challenges of the rarity of Internet and the minimal electricity, but

that is no excuse and I duly apologize. A lot has happened over the past four months, I don’t

even know where to begin or really to end. There isn’t really the time or space for all of that

nonsense and I know you all have to get on with your lives in that far off place called America.

Anywho, here is a brief summary of what I have been up to and a few ramblings of the highlights

of training.

After a week in country we were brought to our training site and deposited with our host

families. My family consisted of two yabbas (grandmothers), Madeline (mother), Alphonse

(father), and my six host brothers Serge, Abu, Claver, Wilfried, Ives and Bertrent (aged 22, 19,

15, 10, 5, and 3 respectively – maybe, ages here are questionable). My four older brothers spoke

French and the rest were without. Wilfried became my ultimate partner in crime and my instant

new best friend; I do not know what I would do with out him. All 35 Education volunteers were

placed in the same village and the 12 Agriculture volunteers were in a village about 20km away.

Our group is unique in the fact that we have no married couples and only one person over the

age of 25, an interesting dynamic, but we are all so close and seem to get along wonderfully.

Monday through Friday we had training from 8 – 5 and Saturdays 8 – 12:30, so all of our time

was basically planned out for us. Sessions were broken up into language lessons, learning about

the Burkinabé education system, practicing teaching, cultural standards, and other random Peace

Corps rules and regulations.

Here’s a list of some of the highlights, I promise I’ll do better with blog posts in the future, bare

with me…

=My first night with my host family they took me to the closest bar. Another volunteer,

Marisol, came with her host brother and we ended up dancing the night away. It was a very

interesting dynamic as kids were drinking beer and girls and boys dont dance together but with eachother.

=I brought a deck of Uno cards and the minute I taught Wilfried to play we had to play every

night. He never quite caught onto the rules of the special cards, but we did use them to

practice English and Mooré colors and numbers

=The Fourth of July we got the afternoon off and food delivered from Ouaga to celebrate. We

danced the night away at the Belle Vie – our favorite restaurant in town, with cold drink,

salad and brochettes.

=One night my host family told me there was a celebration for the Chef of the Village. There

was lot’s of dancing and drinking going on at one of my neighbors and these masked men on stilts showed up and were running around. My host dad actually handed my baby brother

to one of the men – he immediately started crying and all the women began berating my

father. As the sun set the festivities began to move down the road with men on motos

cruising by and popping wheelies. My friends Emily, Alaina and I joined the procession

running around with children, dancing with the traditional dancers and shying away from the

motos cruising by. The Chef himself was traveling along at a snails pace in his vehicle and

would periodically stop to let the dancers perform. At one point we were invited to join and

everyone circled around us as we danced away.

= Stage music video; coming to africa cant change me that much! Nothing like a good rendition of Bycicle Race by Queen when all we do is ride around on bikes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVHr4dXPZzM

v My host family was located in a tiny village outside of the village where we had training.

There were about nine of us that lived out there

v Stage Prom – that’s right even in the Peace Corps we have prom, at least our stage did.

Dates were asked in wonderful ways, couples wore matching pagnes and we frolicked until

the wee hours of midnight. We even had a talent show, where people displayed their musical

and dancing talent. And don’t you worry, we crowned a wonderful prom king and queen.

= My friends discovered a cave! Which supposedly has a genie and a friendly snake in it. Unfortunately if you fart it will close for three days. One person told us that it goes on for 11km while another said it was a mere couple caverns. We obviously searched for the other entrance to no prevail. Another person told us that the cave was created by a giant porcupine. I love the legends here. Ill talk ,ore about beliefs and traditions in a future blog but Im currently on a French keyboard and its driving me bonkers

=What happens when you ask a friend to go for a morning bike adventure? Why an eight hour

bike ride of course. A friend and I decided to bike out one morning to see what we could see.

We passed through several small villages, stopped for lunch and were feeling good. Minor

detail to remember that however far you go out you do need to come back. We really lucked

out with everything – there were plenty of places for us to stop and purchase water, it wasn’t

too hot and it didn’t rain. Let’s just say I wasn’t talking to anyone for the last two hours and

I did not want to bike home once we got back to the training center. Ultimately an excellent

adventure and a great way to see the Burkina landscape.

=On one of my last days there was a funeral. During the day the men prepared the burial

site and the women gathered under a tree and played calabash drums. That night, as is the

animist tradition (local religion), there was a mask dance. People formed a circle in the

dark and figures dressed up in these huge outfits that made them look like Gila monsters

with animal masks wandered around, swaying to and fro. We were told that there were five

different masks and only one would come out at a time. We asked the significance, but we

were told we were not allowed to discuss it there.

I have so much more to share but i am going to stop there for now. My next post is already typed so it will better formed. I hope all is well on the home front and I would love to hear updates from all