Gobble Gobble!! (That's not French, That's Turkey)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!!! Boy am I sad to be missing Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday!!!!! What a bummer... BUT I am travelling to Ouaga to celebrate with other volunteers, so I can only hope that it will be a memorable turkey day (or goat or sheep day). And I fully plan on making my famous pumpkin cheesecake, if all ingredients can be found! I was just reading up some holiday travel news on Yahoo, and I don't really miss the traffic tie-ups associated with the holidays, though.
So THERE!

Since my last entry, all is going just fine. The elections are over, and most of the buzz associated with it has stopped, too. Even though Burkina is a Democratic nation since its independence, it seems that this year was genuinely the first year that the elections were held in a (seemingly) just and fair manner, where there was actually a race. Then again, the President before elections is still the President, and you wouldn't have even known there were 11 other candidates besides him because of all his propaganda. And I think he won something like 83% of the votes, so as fair as it was, it was pretty sure that he was going to win anyway. But it is good for the country that so many people voted and other candidates were allowed to speak openly and honestly about what they think is wrong with the current President. Interesting to hear people's political views. It is also evident that politicians are politicians no matter where you are in the world. Disappointing.

School is still going relatively smoothly. This past week I changed up the pace a little with the kids by playing math games with them. I lined them up outside in two LONG lines (57 kids total), and I had flashcards with pretty basic math problems on them. Kids here have major difficulty with positive and negative numbers, so I focused on that. So the two kids at the head of each line went head to head, and you couldn't come into class until you answered a correct answer. They got a kick out of it, and it was fun to do something other than drone on in class for two hours. That is my problem. I hate being serious, and in class if I am not serious they will walk all over me because I have two strikes against me already - female and white. But the games are fun and I think they respect me trying to do something outside of their norm, so I am going to try and change up classes once in a while to have some fun. Plus I get the 'surveillant' (disciplinarian) to help me keep control of them, so that is helpful.

Last weekend was chock full of fun stuff, too. I went fishing with a friend on Saturday at the most relaxing place I could have ever dreamed up. It was in a big stream about 10 km from Padema, and with the trees, and lack of people, and sportive fishing, it was such a great day! My fishing pole was basically a tree branch shaved down, with fishing line attached by a rubber elastic piece and hook on the end. With a hand made axe, we dug in the mud for our bait - earthworms - stuck them on the hooks and started fishing. I caught a BIG fish in the first two minutes and then nothing else for the rest of the day, but it was honestly one of the most relaxing days in this country. Aside from it being beautiful, there were hardly any people around and that is probably why it was relaxing. For one day at least, I could do something without people staring at me constantly. We also got a little canoe ride across the stream to the other side to change spots 2 times. That's when I thought of my Mom warning me about catching River Blindness before I came here.... hahahah! Don't worry, Mom! I can still see OK.. at least out of one eye anyway.

Sunday I went with the family of my 12 yr old best friend, Aguira, to their cotton fields to harvest cotton with them. She came to get me around 9 am, and we went on foot from my house. I had a small backpack with water, a little food, hat, camera, bug spray, etc... all the stuff you'd equip yourself with for a little hiking trip I guess... and Aguira had nothing but the clothes she was wearing and a baby (not hers) attached to her back by a cloth. We walked the equivalent of probably 1-2 miles, and finally caught up with her family. They had food and water and stuff in the fields, so I didn't feel TOO high maintenance... so we got to work right away just pulling the cotton out of it's flowers and stuffing it in a sack and working our way through the millions of plants they had planted during the rainy season. I worked until about 12, and then... because of the heat and also because I had to prepare lessons for school... I headed home. It was kind of fun for me because I have never in my life seen a cotton plant, but I don't think I would love it so much if it was all I did every day for like 2 months, and the entire welfare of the family depended upon how much cotton your fields produce. Good experience, though, and I plan on going back to help harvest again. When I got home, Aguira and I split a watermelon (they can be found everywhere now and are deeeeelicious!) and I sent one home with her for her family, too.

Cotton is everywhere now because everyone is harvesting and getting ready to sell it and get some cash. There are huge piles of it just sitting by the roadsides waiting for pickup from Bobo. Everytime I pass by them I think about snow and how much I would love to go skiing. I have the urge to go jump in the cotton piles and start a snowball fight. Then I think about taking everyone's cotton and making cotton snowmen in the middle of the night so they all wake up to a winter wonderland of cotton. Then I come back to reality and realize that I would be the only one who got amusement out of that. Oh, and maybe the other American who lives near me. OK, I'm losing my mind maybe a little... or maybe I am just a little sad because Oct-Nov-Dec is my favorite time of year with Fall and the holidays and then the snow.... it's only HOT and HOTTER here. boring!

Alrighty, this seems like a good spot to wrap things up before someone sends a psychiatrist to Padema looking for me.
I'm sending big holiday wishes to everyone. so Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

love,
Poko

...gobble.... *sniffle*.... gobble....