Not so Easy Mac n Cheese

So I am in Ouaga! yay!!

We got here Monday morning and have since indulged in real showers, decent food, and air conditioning..... aaah, Ouaga.... The last few weeks were just a whirlwind of classes I taught, classes for training, and playing a lot of cards to pass the time. We are becoming experts in passing time with the most ridiculous things or by having the most ridiculous conversations. I mean REALLY ridiculous. Like we've sat around seeing how many times you can fold a paper in half until you can't fold anymore (that's 7 times, by the way)... I have learned a bunch of new card games that are popular with the volunteers from the mid-west and west, and I timed some of the games to get an average playing time so we could gauge how many games it would take before it was time for lunch or something. I kid you not when I say ridiculous, but it's pretty interesting and challenging to see how creative you get when passing time. Bodily functions come up more often than you could imagine, but those details are not blog-sensitive, considering I have no idea who is actually reading this...

General work related stuff is that I have done a bunch of practice teaching in classes in Bassi and Gourcy that have all gone OK. Some better than others, but I definitely learned the basics and also learned what works for me. In my last day in Gourcy, at the end of a 2 hour class, I had 15 min left to kill so I just let the kids start asking me questions about me or America or whatever. This was really interesting, because it turned into an hour discussion and they had the greatest questions... Like: Is there AIDS in America? Is there female circumcision in America? Are all American kids rich? What language do they speak? What do they eat? Am I married?... etc... and they had asked me to sing the national anthem, which I did for them. It's kind of funny how stuff like that just doesn't even bother me anymore. I would never sing for a group of American students, but these kids here just sat quietly and intently listened to it... oh, until a kid's cell phone went off in the middle of it (seriously)... but they are so extremely curious about America. Actually, everyone here is. It's really great to talk about America with them, but it's also hard to explain microwaves and fast food to people who literally have to go into the fields to gather millet, grind it down, and cook it for an hour before eating. Laundry machines and computers are also hard to explain.

When I asked the kids what they wanted to do when they finish school/university, they said they want to go to America. I tried to ask why they don't get educated and stay here to help their own people and better the country, they all have the same response. "It's hard here." America is the land of easy money and an easy life. It's true, but it's unfortunate that even the people here don't necessarily want to stay to help out, even if they can. Obviously that is not true for all Burkinabe, but among the students at least, it was almost unanimous...

In Bassi, we said goodbye to our families this past weekend. It was actually a little sad. Not QUITE as hard as leaving all of you in America back in March, but still slightly sad. That little village really grew on me, and regardless of the lack of just about everything, the people there looked out for us and took care of us and just really liked being around us. Last Saturday I decided to cook one of the boxes of mac n cheese (that came in a care package-thx Mom and Dad) for my mother and sisters who prepare food for me every day, do my laundry, etc... the thinking was to do something nice for them and also just share with them one of the best things you can eat in America. But smart as I am, I said I'd prepare it for lunch. Now I know most of you have never been to Africa, but high noon in land-locked Africa is pretty freaking hot, and you cook over an open fire. So I prepared myself to cook mac n cheese by slathering on some sun block, putting on light clothes, and filling my water bottle. OK... ready...so they actually set me up inside one of the huts to be out of the sun, and I cooked in a big pot that is balanced on 2 big rocks over flaming sticks of hay that need to be continually pushed in to keep the fire going. Practically that same as cooking in NJ, right? well, anyway, of course my entire body is now a pool of sweat, but I'm all excited like I am doing something so fabulous and fun for them by cooking a stupid box of mac n cheese. So all drenched in sweat I proudly bring out the hot pot to my mother to try it. She looks inside and sort of chuckles, and starts handing out handfuls of the food to everyone around us.. kids, the grandma (Yabba), and whoever else was curious to see what I was doing. The reaction was a head nod or a blank stare, and then I washed the pot and that was that.

The moral of the story is... nothing is easy here. The end.

This past Sunday was really nice. All of the families of the 5 of us in Bassi gathered at my house to say goodbye and present us with gifts. My family gave me a calabash (a carved out gourd used as a water bowl), a dress made of traditional fabric (looks like a potato sac and it is big enough to fit Mohammed Ali, but a very nice gift regardless), and my Yabba got me a really nice pagne (fabric youwrap around your waist to make a skirt). So it was a really nice little goodbye to them, and I gave some little gifts to Baaba and the other kids in my court, so that by the time the Chief was ready to start gathering people, there were like 10 kids running arounds with stickers plastered all over their faces. Makes for cute pics. Little Baaba told me he wants to come back to America with me, so I'll have to stop off in Bassi and pick him up in 2 yrs.

The remainder of this message was written 2 days after the first half because of an unfortunate event that almost had me committing murder, but I have no intention of causing an international incident, so I cooled off and came to another cyber center. Here's the thing... I had finished putting my whole blog together 2 days ago, and I had finished porrofreading it and wording it exactly as I wanted it, and it was just perfect...and the other volunteers had just showed up to get me for dinner. So I hit the 'upload to blog site' button. Being that I am Africa and I was in a crappy cyber center, this was taking a long time of course. The guy working there was all up in my business the whole time I was there just because he loves talking to Nassara... and that's fine with me, except when he decided to try and "help" the upload go faster. Sparing the details and keeping me from getting angry again, the short story is that he ended up erasing more than half of what I had just spent 2 hours composing. I was really annoyed. And I forgot some of the stuff I had written, so I will move on....

Continuing with life here in the Big Apple, we got sworn in as official volunteers yesterday!! The ceremony was at the US Embassy with the PC Director, the US Ambassador, all of our teachers, some of the community members from our villages (my dad, the Chief, came), a ton of other volunteers, and some Burkinabe press - TV and newspapers. There was probably something like 150-200 people in all. SO, before taking the oath, the Director talks a bit, and then they had chosen a few of us trainees to make speeches in French and also in 4 of the local languages we have been learning. Guess who ended up doing the one in Julah?? Yes, it was I.
I had prepared my speech in Bassi one day when I physically could feel myself turning crazy from the boredom. I was with my fellow volunteers playing cards and hanging out, and I decided that would be a good time to work on my speech. But I was doing it at the time as an absolute joke because, like I said, I was going crazy! So it began with a really cheesy commencement speech-type opening like "My friends, we have come far!! We began as a group of 15 and now the 13 strongest go on to continue working here..." and then I asked someone for any African saying they had heard. Someone said this: "A log in the river will never be a crocodile" --well wouldn't ya know, that became the speech. With the input of the others, we continued to make a speech about how if the log tries hard by growing a nose, a tail, having animatronic crocodile features installed, and pretending to swim, the crocodiles will accept him as one of their own and invite him to all the crocodile parties... and this should relate to Americans integrating into Burkinabe society. Well, this had us Americans laughing for a good 20 in (it was funnier in the moment and also in French), and i read it to my Julah teacher to translate it for the speech (as a joke) and he literally just went nuts over it, and long story short (sort of), that became the 2 minute speech I made in a language I don't understand in front if the Ambassador, a TV crew, and a bunch of Burkinabe who DID understand me. They laughed a lot, and it ended up being a hit, actually. After the ceremony, I was interviewed by 3 press people, so it's possible that I am in the papers today. We're all definitely on TV, but I don't think you can get that channel in the states. Really, I am just turning into an international celebrity... First Emmie and Keith's TV wedding last year, and now this.....I've been perfecting my autograph for when I get stopped in the streets.

This past week in Ouaga has been a lot of review of PC policies, evaluating our training months, and just relaxing a bit all together before separating again for who knows how long. Our group of 13 is pretty sad to leave each other because we are really all over the country. My nearest volunteer neighbor in Padema isn't far, but my nearest neighbor from my training group is at least 3 hrs away. We spent a lot of time with current volunteers this week, too, which was also a lot of fun. It's interesting to see how jaded some people become after being here for an extended period of time. For instance, this one girl had a pet dog here that she did not like and was travelling with one day to another village. To get past one village along the way, she had to buy a chicken that would be sacrificed to a river with crocodiles in it, in order to pass the border. - (perfectly normal) - She did not have enough money on her, so after negotiating with the guy, she decided to throw her dog into the river. Well, the dog got pulled under the water rather immediately, and that was the end of that relationship. She told this story with no emotion whatsoever for the lost pet. I know I am not as animal-friendly as I was when I left America at this point in time, but if I ever blog with a story of this nature, someone let me know it is time to come home.

OH, I finally met the girl I am replacing, and she gave me the new mailing address in Bobo, which you all can start using immediately to send all those letters that must be piling up in your houses waiting to be sent (HINT, HINT):

Stephanie Servetz, PCV
Corps de la Paix
BP 1065
Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso
West Africa

I am still working on getting the cell phone, but I heard from a current volunteer that he happens to have a phone he no longer uses and he'll give it to me... so once that gets to me, probably in a month, I will post the number.

For those of you asking what you can send, here are a few ideas:
magazines
newspaper articles
anything to read or pass time for the next few months
mac n cheese :)
drink mixes, like iced tea, lemonade, crystal light, gatorade, etc...
gum
pens, pencils, school stuff for kids
pictures of you, of us, of anything fun

Send me life and weather updates.. it must be really nice now in NJ.

Still missing you all like crazy. Visitors welcome anytime!!! I am going to think of some fun trips for next year, and if anyone is down for any, I would be happy as a clam to have you in Africa with me.

I leave for Bobo tomorrow, and I start my official 2 yrs in the village of Padema on Monday!! That means blogging and general contact will again be limited to the couple times a month I can travel to Bobo.

OK, if you've made it this far you're a trooper.

Wish me luck!!! This time it's all on my own....