Six Months

As of today I have been here in Burkina for 6 months. That's half a year. It seems that it has gone by very quickly, though there have been weeks that have seemed to drag on and on. It's funny how time works that way. Stagé (our initial 3 months training) seemed to last forever, as it was a grueling process. The past 3 months in Dori have flown by though. I'm finally feeling very much at ease in my community.

I was at a Bar with some friends following a day long exposition put on by JICA (Japanese volunteers). Half of Dori seemed to be there. It took me a good 15 minutes to get from my table to the restroom and back because people kept stopping me to say hello. Maybe it was the beer, but something about that made me feel very good. Upon sitting back down, my friend Issouf said to me, "You know everybody here! You are bien integré". I had to laugh at this because Peace Corps really stresses integration in to our communities, though not necessarily our local bars.
Sidenote: I get stopped in the market, on the street, and at restaurants too.

The aforementioned exposition went very well. I showed up at 7am and got my booth set up. I had information on GEE as well as PC in general. Big thanks to Kait Brown for providing me with materials. Many of the attendees were children, though I was able to meet many adults who were more or less in the dark about what PC is and what we do in Burkina and around the world. It was really nice to be able to explain our work to people. What I found most valuable though, was the opportunity to exchange information with the other organizations in attendance. There are so many community organizations here that it is tough to keep them straight. Through talking to people, and exchanging brochures, I now have a catalouge of people with whom I can potentially collaborate. We wrapped things up around 5:30pm. Needless to say I was exhausted. We are in the "cold" season here, though it is still hot between 10-4. Sitting in the heat all day and talking non-stop really wore me out. Though it was really nice to go home knowing that I had put in a full days work; something I haven't done in 3 months.

I'll be leaving tommorow for Ouaga for another round of training. I'll leave tommorow morning and sessions will start on Tuesday morning and run until Friday. Following this I'll have a few days in Ouaga to relax before heading to Ghana for Christmas. I've heard wonderful things about Ghana. All the volunteers who have visited say it is a trip worth taking. We will depart the 22nd by bus. The trip lasts around 20 hours and I'm not looking forward to it, though I will be in good company. Thankfully bus services to Ghana are climatiseé (air conditioned). We have rooms in a small hostel near the beach, and I am really looking forward to spending Christmas by the ocean.

I'm very excited to see everyone from our GEE group in Ouaga tommorow. I've seen many of them since we got to our sites though there is a handful I haven't heard anything from.

Other stuff...

I went to Bobo Dioulasso (2nd largest city in Burkina) for Thanksgiving round 2. It is about 11 hours away from me and located in the south-west. It is beautiful. Bobo has tree lined streets, hills, and plenty of restaurants and night spots, without the chaos of Ouaga. The food was incredible (traditional Thanksgiving fare). We even had pecan pie. WOW. Everyone ate until they were stuffed and then we went out dancing. I paid mille francs cover to get into one of the dingiest clubs I've ever been in. The place was seriously gross, and this is saying alot. My tolerance for grossness is sky-high after 6 months. We all had a great time though, and once we got to dancing we forgot about the smell. We returned to the apartment we had rented to crash out in the early morning hours. The place was very nice. It was well furnished, with tile floors, beds, and two bathrooms. My head had just barely touched the pillow when I hear a very loud FFFSSHHHHHHHHHH!!!! coming from the room next door. Someone had gone into the bathroom to wash up before bed and a pipe burst, spraying extremely hot steam all over the place. The entire bathroom was filled with steam, and you couldn't see 2 feet in front of you. I decided to take action and got low, and searched for the shut off. I came out soaking wet, having obtained nothing except a mildly burned arm. We eventually called the house guard and he stood outside the door, which was still billowing steam. He looked at it for several minutes before giving a shrug that said, "whaddaya gonna do"? He went outside and shut off the water, and everyone calmed down and slept. I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't take a hot shower in the morning. I suppose it is only right that the pipe burst, it just wouldn't feel like Burkina without some small mishap.

Much love to the volunteers in the south west and cascades who made it all possible.

So while I thought my Giardia had subsided, I was terribly wrong. Sometime last week I came down with a fever. I also experienced some other not so pleasant symptoms that I'll leave to the imagination.

Like most sequels, this one was far worse than the original. It was the same story as the first, only moreso. It's the classic Hollywood formula: "They liked the killer robot in the first movie, so in the sequel, we'll give them TWO killer robots!" However, this sequel made up for it's lack of originality with more explosions and profanity. After several nights of sprinting to my latrine at some horrible hour I finally gave in and had a kid run to the pharmacy and buy me some anti-biotics. It is incredible how quick my recovery was. For an entire week I was sluggish, feverish, and just plain grumpy; and now I feel like a new person.

I also received several care packages, four to be exact. One of which contained an Italian Salami and a wheel of Fontina Cheese. Does life get any better? I submit that it does not. Big thanks to Mrs. Marocco for that. Also among the care packages were bags of M&Ms, mixed nuts, and Mary Jane candy, which I am now healthy enough to enjoy!

On to Thanksgiving...

I made the 50k trip to Bani in a white windowless van that seemed to exist outside of the time-space continuum. As soon as the back door closed the driver hit the gas, gunned it to 88mph, and had me to Bani in what seemed like an instant. I swear the guy had a flux-capacitor hidden somewhere in there.

Upon arriving in Bani, I found Reneé, a former volunteer, sitting in front of a perfectly delicious looking Turkey (then uncooked), nursing a cut hand. He explained to me that his colleague, James, had bought a Turkey in a village west of Ouagadougou. They put the thing, alive, in Reneés bathroom for the night. Sensing it's imminent demise, the turkey freaked out and trashed the bathroom. Apparently the thing wasn't toilet trained. The next morning, James arrived and strapped the Turkey to his motorcycle for the 4 hour ride to Bani. By the time they arrived, they were more than happy to show it the chopping block.
Reneé, having little (zero) experience in killing turkeys, managed to botch the job. He slightly injured the already cranky turkey, and in the process sliced his thumb open. The turkey wrestled itself free from his bloody grasp and ran to the other edge of the courtyard where it paced, and stared back grimly. Reneé sat down and returned the glare. This looks like a job for...SOMEONE ELSE! Namely some Burkinabé kids. They killed, defeatherd, and gutted they turkey in no time.

We built a sort of oven out of a giant iron pot surrounded by mud brick. We lit charcoal around the base and let it heat up. A bit of salt, vinegar, water, and spices in the bottom of the pot and we were cooking. After several hours the bird was ready. It turned out incredibly well.
I contributed some mashed potatos, and we even had pumpkin pie for dessert. It wasn't easy, but then again, nothing here is. All in all a very satisfying Thanksgiving.