Quick update and life plans changed!

Hi family and friends,

The last year in Burkina Faso has been a whirlwind! From three months of training, to doing three months of doing my community study, to four months of 130 degree weather, and then two visits from people in the states! There is now liquid soap and tofu in my market every three days now. They sell out and my auntie who makes it is making great money and her kids are gaining some weight!

Grandpa Wirth is here visiting me for two weeks right now and while he has learned that he may not be as young as he used to be, we have been really enjoying ourselves. He visited my site for a few days and after struggling the first two days came to the same conclusion I did: the kids in my village are amazing. From everything from finding him lost wandering the village because he couldn't find his way back to my huts to teaching them how to whistle he had a great time. I am now having my first 'vacation' experience with staying in some very nice hotels (what a different side of Burkina than the one I have been living for the last year).

I have actually planned my first real vacation since I have gotten here: a trip to Morocco! I will be going with Zach and a wonderful friend from home, Alex (female). We will be traveling all over for the last two weeks of September. I'm excited about seeing the coast, deserts, non-Burkinabe food, and having a little break from life here.

The 'New Katie' with an education focus

So as some of you have heard and gotten a whiff of in my other blog posts, I have been getting very interested in early childhood education. My plan is now to go get my masters in early childhood education / literacy / curriculum development. It is a huge shift from where I was last year at this time (with my life revolving around food security) but I think it is a much better fit. I'm thinking that I am likely to want to go into working with community based education programs (from community based preschools – which is my main project and interest at site – to community based education programs for adults and to literacy programs with elementary school children) and helping elementary school cirriculums be more student centered and include more critical thinking and cultural activities.

The community-based preschool (called a bissongo here) is officially happening! The community of Silmidougou has offered a huge old granary (two rooms – one for classroom and one for storage) and a big permanent hangar to help. The three future teachers, two women and one man, will be going off to a two to three week training next month with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Action Sociale (a branch of the government responsible for social programs and human services) they will be paid by the community every month. The buildings need a lot of repair and the community is taking full responsibility over repairing the hangar and making it meet the requirements of CRS. The granary doesn't have a roof and will be very expensive so I am writing my first grant to ask for money to help with the repairs and also get some extra materials for the classroom (storybooks in local language, puzzles and paint for murals). It is a lot of work but I am hoping that I will be able to get the project funded and then Silmidougou can save some money for future needs of the bissongo.

Well, I will try to be better about posting. Much love to you all!

Michael's Day by Day Impressions of Burkina Faso

I just had my first visitor stay with me for almost a month! These are his thoughts and experiences!

Day 1: Arriving in Ouaga, seeing the skies darken and an utter downpour commence then getting some precious pizza.

Day 2: Taking a camion (bush taxi) to village. Fortunately our camion was livestock free. At one point in the trip the camion broke down and the windshield wipers began moving on their own accord, which was dealt with by restraining them manually (the windshield wipers won) and lifting up the dashboard to twiddle with the rest of the wires there (which somehow worked). Also biking around Ouaga and almost dying a couple of times.

Day 3: Fish pasta, yum (yuck). Then dohlo, the local millet beer, more yum, then bunny slaughtering. Towards the end we didn't know what to do with the head and entrails, Katie suggested seeing if the neightbors want it. I brought it over and offered it to them. They took it and gave me back the pot completely empty. A man excitedly yelling, “I love you,” in a bad Burkinabe accent (he thought he was saying good afternoon).

Day 4: Formation in a smaller village and being treated like an honored guest simply because I am white, lots of photos. Playing some random hip banging game for woman with some random Burkinabe man who dragged me into it.

Day 5: Walking around in the sun and getting dehydrated then spending the afternoon in bed drinking Oral Re hydration Salts.

Day 6: Being offered wives, girlfriends, and fiances. A particularly unattractive and old Burkinabe woman missing several teeth telling me she would give me lots of babies.

Day 7: Big marche day, drinking dohlo, eating attieke with a large amount of rocks.

Day 8: Highway bandits stop and rob two buses (ten kilometers from Katie's site) one of which had a person who had gotten a lot of money digging gold individually. I fucking love Burkina.

Day 9: Sleeping outside lots, getting scared of the wind and running inside. Then being too hot to sleep because it is too hot inside. Weighing babies who peed and pooped everywhere. Working with kids, reading them stories in English (they do not even speak French) which they found utterly fascinating.

Day 10: Making tofu, dust and wind storm without rain. Lots of drinking, took three naps and guilt free.

Day 11: Went to Mane for a crazy marche day with so much stuff (in comparison to Katie's marche). Being abandoned for one and a half hours at a dohlo stand with Burkinabe who gesticulated at me lots. Drink three liters of dohlo. Lots of meetings. Having to ride on the back of a motorcycle while carrying my bike after getting a flat and feeling like I was going to die the entire way.

Day 12: Played with kids, threw a whistle ball. Met with lots of little chiefs but not 'the chief'.

Day 13: More tofu making and a pretend rain storm getting some sweet Burkinabe tailored pants.

Day 14: Quick trip to Ouaga, walking around the Grand Marche and then a long ass ride in a cramped bush taxi, that stopped for an hour (while still in Ouaga) because they didn't have enough money for gas.

Day 15: Travelling to Banzon alone and somehow not getting lost / killed even though I speak absolutely no French. Waiting for half an hour in a taxi while the driver argued with a gendarme (military) because he was parked illegally. Then riding in a bus that looks like it shouldn't be able to roll and having to get out to cross a stream to make sure the bus wouldn't fall over. Finally, meeting Tyler and spending a night in paradise.

Day 16: Thinking that I am in China with rice paddies. Seeing four hippos in the wild and eating mangoes straight off the tree. Meeting the Burkinabe Jack Sparrow.

Day 17: Having to run to not miss my bus, catching up on e-mails, eating tasteless fried things, drinking with Peace Corps volunteers and eating porc au four.

Day 18: More email and waiting a long time for an expensive dinner (as in nine dollars). Actually being able to use a toilet and a shower = winning

Day 19: Listening to a long repetitive argument with a jeweler, buying a daba (tool of all trades) partying with Peace Corps (which entailed drinking and getting a lap dance). Then going to a dance hall where you can only dance with yourself whilst looking a mirror. Stumbling back to bed and being woken up at 5am because the bus was supposed to leave at 4:30am. The bush taxi's early start was all for naught as we waited for two hours while a gruesome truck crash was cleared, walking to the bus right as the sky began to downpour. Then enjoying a nicely cramped ten hour drive back to Ouaga. Getting pizza again that tasted so much better after a couple of weeks in Burkina.

Day 21: Chillin' at the Peace Corps bureau, then getting Lebanese food at a swanky Burkinabe restaurant. Being accosted by a kid high on rubber cement who was asking for money then getting ice cream at a place that had way too many options.

Day 22: Heading back to Silmidougou on a uneventful bush taxi ride. Being greeted by people who actually knew me and speaking Moore which was nice. Then hunkering down for a rather impressive dust storm.

Day 23: Eating tasty millet and beans, playing with kids then listening to Katie talk to a chief. Then coming back and making our normal: macaroni with nido sauce.

Day 24: Heading back to Mane to get a wonderful t-shirt and complet, playing with kids and waiting for a chief for a while.

Day 25: Marche day and last day in village. Tofu and dohlo and putting up with drunk children (got to love Burkinabe parenting) seeing a pig strapped to the back of a bike and waiting all afternoon again for a chief. Then getting a kick ass boubou.

Day 26: Traveling to Ouaga solo, being overwhelmed by the artisan village and buying some Burkinabe crafts. Biking to a great interview and chilling at the transit house.

Day 27: Kaya, staying at a wonderful auberge run by orphans with air conditioning!! Drinking Nigerian Guiness (not bad) and and bad raisin wine and then going to a very legitimate club to look for Burkinabe dancing with themselves in the mirrors (but alas we were too early in the night). Getting lost in the marche and looking at lots of pagnes.

Day 28: More marche strolling and a final pizza dinner in Ouaga.

Day 29: Last day in Burkina! Having to leave to the airport ridiculously early to make sure I am on the flight.  

Marriages and Preschool

Good evening: Ne zabre!

How is your evening? Zabre kibare

It is fine. Yaa laafi

How is your family? Y zaka ramba?

They are fine. Yaa laafi

I have been terrible about keeping up my blog! I am so sorry. Luckily, that means that I am extremely busy (which Dad always thinks is funny).

Just to set the scene for you: it is about 115 to 120 degrees at around noon every day. Yes, it does cool down at night (thank you Sub-Saharan region!) and it is dry, but it is still quite toasty!Most people take a little 'pause' at 12 to 15 here to sleep and hide from the heat. Gardening projects are wrapping up. Gold miners are starting to look pretty rich. People say rainy season will start any day now (what they mean is in about two months). What is the fun in this season you ask? Well, it is also party season! All the funerals that took place in the past year get celebrated now. All the marriages happen now (I just went to my host brother's wedding yesterday).

So backing up, work wise, life is really good. I have not been working at the local health clinic since they have four full time interns (that are in different health programs to become nurses and midwives). It is hard not having that because it gave me a good morning routine, but now my morning involves mainly running and trying to get little things done at the house.

My big project now that I talked about in my last blog post as well is my critical thinking club! It looks like people in my village want to start up a preschool, which I think is awesome. So I am trying to focus on kids between three and seven (but others still come) and see what kind of things work for them. I have also been trying to find people to work with me to teach the kids – which has been a lot of fun. Did you know that 'if your happy and you know it clap your hands' is in French and Moore? How cool right? Also, when everyone starts saying that I am the 'mother of their children' and when they ask me how are my kids (which I then get irratited because everyone knows I do not have any, they now smile back and say, 'the children of Silmidougou are your children') it can be easy to get excited.

With other volunteers we have started a working group that focuses on early childhood education and childhood literacy. We have a big translation conference coming up to translate stories we collected at our sites to be put into four national languages. There will be ten stories in all the languages, which will then give us a good idea about what people want and what people like! I am super excited about it and people in Silmidougou are really excited to see the books. Our other projects look like they are going to be a book of games and activities, a book of how to make toys, recording songs and other fun things. This is my big project since my community is excited about it and so is Peace Corps. We will be having around ten preschool volunteers coming in June!

I'm still doing a little bit of agriculture – not very much though. I am working with some people on how to do rock lines (which are a very big tool here to reduce water erosion). I also have been working with people that have a big interest in growing soy (Sophie really wants to start making tofu). So that should be fun!

The reason that I am in Ouaga right now (AKA with internet) is because I was just at a conference on women's health and leadership. I brought a lady in my village named Sophie who is really involved in the community and works all the time. It was my first conference and it was awesome. The volunteers running it did a good job. Sophie and the other counterparts learned things about family planning, HIV/AIDS, malaria, leadership, woman’s rights, nutrition and hygiene. It was great and I see it being possible for us to bring back some of the information to Silmidougou.

I had a great visit on Saturday with my host family from training. It was a really good boost for me since they were so impressed with how much Moore I have learned (I did almost all my interactions in Moore) and how much they love me. One of my older host brothers got married which meant there was a good party – no dohlo (local beer) just zoom koom (flour water). We danced a lot. We ate a lot. The kids (who have gotten so much bigger) were so excited to have me back. We practiced writing and math while waiting at the pump for water. It was so wonderful and it was so nice to see them again. I am hoping that I will be able to see them a little more often now!

I had some really funny stories to share but I misplaced the paper, I think I just left it at home. I will look for that and hopefully next time I will be able to talk more about the people I live with in Silmidougou and what we get up to instead of just about work. I am so happy here and while there are a few tough and trying moments, overall without question I have been happy. I don't really know how I could be more happy without having all of you come live with me in Silmidougou (though most of you then wouldn't be too happy!).

Much love to all and hopefully next month I will have some pictures to add and better stories to tell!

The Holiday Season

Ne windiga! (Good afternoon!)

Windig kibare (How is your afternoon?)

Response: Laafi bala (It has been peaceful)

Y zaka ramba?

Response: Laafi (In health)

To those of you I have not communicated with since my last post, I hope the holidays were wonderful and that you are all doing well. Happy 2013!!

I have been overwhelmed with work and life in the past few months which has been terrific! I am busy almost everyday now. I work at the health clinic five mornings a week and have a critical thinking club that meets during the lunch break everyday. I am going running in the morning as well! By the afternoon comes around I am exhausted and happy to just hang out with people in my market.

Hamadou on the alphabet wall!

My new interest has been in early childhood education and critical thinking projects that can go along with that. This is all thanks to Mom sending me a Highlights magazine that is the most loved magazine known to mankind. It is very well-worn but I just received another package from Mom so I have my fingers crossed that there are some new ones in there!

Karim and Asseta having some fun drawing

I've also been collecting stories so that we can translate them into a variety of languages and then are some other people that will illustrating them. The stories though are always incredibly morbid. So far I have collected four from some teenage girls I know. Here is an example of one (it is the most extreme in how depressing it is, but I love it).

The Dangerous Family

By Ramata Ouedraogo, the daughter of Amado and Zenabo Ouedraogo, 15 years old, in 6eme

This is Ramata while she is at work

One morning, a man and a woman went into the wilderness to go look for honey. They left their children at the house. After a bit of time in the wilderness, they found a beehive. They decided that they did not have enough time to take the honey from the hive. So they took the entire beehive and headed home. When they arrived at their house, they gave the house key to the kids and told them, “lock us in the house and throw away the key.” The man and the woman went inside and the kids locked the door with the key and threw it away. After a few minutes, the children heard noises from inside the house. They started laughing because they thought that their parents were happy after eating so much honey. The children were wrong. Actually, the parents had opened up the beehive inside the house. The bees had come out of their hive and attacked the man and the woman. Eventually, the children realized that their parents were trying to get their attention. The children searched everywhere for the key but could not find it. The parents died in the house with the bees.

So now on to happier things, the holiday season!

Christmas was wonderful and spent in Silmidougou. With three pounds of pork tenderloin for four dollars on Christmas Eve we ate well and celebrated the holidays. On Christmas, my Uncle Boureima (who is Muslim) gave Zach and me a chicken. So Zach got to kill and gut a chicken while I washed dishes. It was a pretty quiet day, but it ended up being a three day long celebration with one day of every Christian in my village being very drunk. It was a lot of fun, but I really did miss Christmas with the family – my first one without Mom, Dad and Luke - so that was a little sad (guess I have officially left the nest).

A Merry Christmas meal!!!

Zach doing a great job cooking the pork!

New Years was a fun event in Kaya. I was with Zach and Jason where we ate some great chili from home (thanks Mom!) and drank an assortment of liquors. Thanks to those two boys, I stayed up until midnight, the villageois in me is unwilling to be up after sundown.

I then had a bunch of Peace Corps visits to my site. The first was to help Zach move out of his site and so I am now fostering his two cats (it looks like he will be PC/Burkina's first nursery school volunteer and still be in our region). The second was a very nice visit from my PC Medical Officer, Jean-Luc, who knows Mom and Dad well from when we lived in Tanzania so it was fun to catch up with him. Along with Jean-Luc came Dr. Barry Simon the director of PC Health Services from Washington, DC. We had a nice lunch in Kaya and got to show off my site. The third visit was from Siaka, the man that ran our cross-cultural and language sessions in PST, came for just an hour but it was not to chat with him and him to also get to see my village.

One of my foster kitties, her name is Probot

In case you have not heard, Burkina is going to the World Cup! I watched all the games in village and was the only girl in the crowd. I brought my Burkina flag to each game. Second in Africa!!

The chief's brother and me ready for the Africa Cup final!

The last holiday that has taken place is the biggest and most exciting: naaba fete! This holiday in celebration of my chief and all the former chiefs took place for over a week. He had all of the large government officials come to village, there were dance-offs, competing dance parties until 6am, animal sacrifices, traditional dancers, a man on stilts, and all kinds of fun things! It was a great time for me since I got to dress up a bit and gave one of my rabbits to the chief. He gave me two thumbs up, which for the regal man he is, was quite awesome! I really enjoyed it and I will hopefully be adding some more photos on facebook soon if you want to check them out!

Zach, my chief, and me

The traditional dancers

The last note for this post is a bunny update! I left you all hanging on a terribly sad note last time so I think it is good to give you some new information. I got back from in-service training to find myself with three new baby bunnies, two that are white and one that is almost all black. They are now almost as large as the adults! While this was a big plus there have been some failures since then. The first being that after another litter came to life, a few dogs broke in and ate my male and the new litter. I later found one of the new babies still alive but his leg is broken – I think more because he has an abusive mother than dogs attacking him. I then gave my white female to my chief as a present for his party, which was a big win. The next day, Zach got to kill his first bunny when I realized just how terrible this mother was being (she pulls out her babies' hairs and steals their food). While Zach was cleaning her up I gave myself a pedicure (thanks Grandma for the stones!) and sang, “Ding, Dong the Witch is Dead” (which is the only part of that song I know). She was delicious! The four bunnies that are still around have gotten much fatter since their mom is gone, so I'm thinking I am going to come up with a party right before rainy season to eat them all! I really want my garden!

You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

Ne windiga! (Good afternoon!)

Response: Windig kibare (How is your afternoon?)

Response: Laafi bala (It has been peaceful)

So for my second blog post in Ouagadougou for training I am going to talk more about my wonderful home! Recently, home has been extremely dry and very hot during the day. Everything has become brown and all of the crops have been harvested, which means that the landscape has changed drastically. Luckily, we have just started 'winter' so it is cool at night. I am not sure how people deal with their hot season here, I think everything must just stop.

When I left Silmidougou people had just finished the harvest and were starting to do some construction on houses and making bricks. It has been very interesting to watch, but I am certain all the houses get rebuilt every few years since their bricks are never cooked so the rain tears them down. Everyone in the community seems to be extremely pleased with how the harvest came out this year and said that this is extremely rare (I thought there was no rain, I was very, very concerned for the community's ability to feed itself this year – silly me).

My housing situation has been great. I have my two houses and I have gotten some repairs done so it is starting to be very comfortable! I am hoping soon I can paint the walls and that will add a whole new layer of fun! As of right now I have the lyrics of Amazing Grace making a full tour of my wall – look up the whole thing, I only know the first verse, it goes on forever! I also have quite a few 'friends'. I have mice, lizards, carpenter bees and termites in my house. Luckily the termites seem to be leaving which is a relief since they were starting to have an extreme effect on my sleeping since they can fall into my mosquito net. I would wake up literally covered in dead termites – it is a gross way to wake up. It has been great but it sure is a change in living conditions! I guess the house pets will be much better than the heat my friends in metal roofed houses will be in during hot season!

One thing that has been cracking me up in village (and everywhere in my region) recently has been that all the kids here yell 'bye, bye' when I come up to them. At first I was impressed they knew how to say goodbye but now I know that they believe it is a salutation, so now I start singing 'you say goodbye and I say hello'. Maybe one day I will try to teach them the difference between hello (and teach them the word) and bye, bye, but as of right now it is a great source of entertainment for me.

Tabaski was wonderful. I spent the morning in village, Asseta took me to pray and then hung out for some of the festivities. Sadly, unlike my Tabaski story in Dakar (look for the blog post about it if you want to hear about that wild experience) where my host family was able to kill a goat for each family member, including the children, my entire community in Silmidougou killed roughly three goats. Everyone was still so excited and everyone looked beautiful but it was harsh reminder of the poverty that is a part of my community.

Thanksgiving ended up being a lot of fun. Zach and Mariko came up to celebrate and help with cooking. I had invited a few of my close friends in village to come 'fete' with us, of course this quickly meant that everybody in my community wanted to be invited and so I quickly realized that there had to be quite a bit of food! I bought four dollars worth of potatoes (which was WAY too much for 50 people – if that tells you anything about how cheap food is here), four ducks, six papayas from Omar, two dollars worth of rice, and four dollars worth of bread. Everything I can find in village to make mashed potatoes, stuffing, papaya salad, rice pudding and roasted duck! I had fifty people arrive and eat lots of food. There were kids everywhere and the only thing that upset people was that I didn't have local beer ready for them (it was a market day so I just told them that if they wanted to drink they could use their money and drink all they wanted, but they could eat all they wanted at my house). It was a lot of fun and a lot of food. I sure missed the family dinner at the Segelhorst's but it came close, since we were smiling, laughing and drinking wine (from a box, so not quite the same, but close)! I am so thankful to have a wonderful community and a great job here in Burkina while also having such a loving family (and loving friends) just on the other side of the ocean.

Bunny Drama

On a different note, I just realized that I may not have brought up my bunny situation recently. So you all knew about baby Stew. One day Zach came down from Kaya with fencing so that I could keep him outside. The next morning I went into my kitchen and found him with a stroke – he couldn't move an entire side of his body. After a few hours he was looking a bit better and was moving a bit. That evening I went into my courtyard and found him dead. Luckily, Zach was around and gave him to Remi (the son of my neighbor, the former Peace Corps counterpart). The next morning Remi walked into my courtyard with the box Zach had given him (that last time I had seen it, held a dead bunny). I was so grossed out because I thought there was a day old bunny in the box! Thankfully Remi had eatten it the night before so there was no problem. I also sent around some 'funny' notes to friends and family about the death of Stew. Here are a few of the best: Stew woke up floppy, by noon was hoppy, then was dead.

Since I was bitter about putting up this fencing in my courtyard, I asked Zach to bring me down a starter pair to start my own bunny farm! Smart decision right? After about a month of my new pair I had my bunny expert, Norm (an education volunteer from my swearing in class), come for a visit and tell me what to fix. His directions were simple: get a male, right now you have two females. After he left I felt somewhat defeated since I had now been feeding bunnies for two full months with no bunny meat! Zach, kindly brought me an actual male rabbit (that is now named Stew). He started building a big bunny hole that was at least five feet deep – that was as far as my stick could follow, but it was likely even larger – but from what I could tell was not getting it on with the ladies to produce offspring (if you want those details I will email you, not appropriate to write about that on this). A few days before Thanksgiving, Zach decided that these bunnies needed to start having babies and he was going to help that happen, I finally agreed that if he didn't think the females were pregnant he could help Stew catch them and get him in at least the right direction for some baby making. He picked up Big Mama
(the one we thought was the male in the first round) and realized that she was extremely pregnant. A few days later Big Mama was going wild because the hole had collapsed (which at this moment we think means that her babies were lost in the destruction because she has still not had babies. I'm now pretty at peace that I will NEVER have baby bunnies. Someday, I hope the news on the bunny front will be better...

So I am going to talk really quickly about some of my favorite people in my community that I see often and make my life at site so much better!

Asseta – is my aunt in village. She has been through the equivalent of 5^th grade but speaks more French than any other woman in my village. She runs a boutique and a food stand. Her husband buys gold from the miners in the region and sells it in Ouaga. Her two biological daughters are 'bandits' that are always having fun and getting into trouble. Her eldest daughter is starting 1^st grade (the first year of school), however the teacher left the school so she won't be going to school this year. I am hoping to partner with the school so the kids do not have to repeat after paying for the school year! Asseta also has taken in kids from our village and neighboring villages. These are kids that are working for their school fees or young women whose husbands have left them (one of them just had her baby on Monday – cannot wait to see that girl!!). Asseta has been really good about making sure I get fed and that if I need anything she finds someone to help.

Madi – he works full time at his dad's boutique. He had just 5^th grade but his dad said that he is not allowed to go to school anymore. It kills me to see such a smart boy working 15 hour days instead of going to school. He sometimes acts like he is my older brother and takes good care of me. One day, he saw me walking down the street trying to hold seven guavas and a bunch of other things from the market and he ran out of his boutique and put all of my things in a plastic bag. He charges my phone for free – which I really appreciate – and sells pasta and tomato sauce! I am really hoping that I can do some one-on-one studying so that he can keep using his brain. He also has a puppy named Bubby (almost all dogs in Burkina are named Bubby) who I play with. He thinks I am pretty silly but I think he appreciates it.

Work, work, work

Ne windiga! (Good afternoon!)

Response: Windig kibare (How is your afternoon?)

I am now in Ouagadougou at my In-Service Training! This means that I have successfully survived my first three months at site! It is really exciting to be able to think about all that has happened in the last few months and know that after this IST that I will be going 'home' instead of last time I finished at training with Peace Corps. The last time I had training I was pretty nervous about going to site but I already miss Silmidougou so much. I have been calling Asseta, Bouriema, and Douada every day to see how everyone is doing and just to remind them how much I miss them! There has already been a birth since I left, so the whole world is going to be different in two weeks when I get back.

So I know a few of my blog posts have already been about work related things but I feel like now I should fill you in all things you have already heard about!

I am spending every Wednesday and Thursday morning at my local health clinic. Wednesday is 'malnutrition day' so we weigh babies, take arm measurements, and have pregnant women whose weight has dropped come in. We then give them food stuffs (I've been trying to see how we can make this more sustainable) for them to take home with them that should boost up their weight quite a bit. The majeur is really wonderful and has been great to talk to about health issues in the area and projects they want. We just got a new midwife who is wonderful. She is so dynamic and hard working. I love working with them and they are really great.

I went one day to visit the midwife just to quickly say hello after the medical staffs at all medical facilities across the country went on strike. She was looking very busy with a very large line of pregnant women waiting to get the prenatal checkup. When she saw me she got a huge grin on her face and she asked me to help her out. Not quite realizing what I was about to get myself into I agreed and wandered into her office. Luckily, I ended up just filling out the information of the women (e.g. their basic information, and then whatever she had me write down), but I was very surprised by a lot of the information I learned. Most of the women were at least twenty, which was a relief, since most men in my village have told me that frankly, I am too old for them to be interested in (I am twenty-two, which I think is pretty young, but it sure makes my life a lot easier at site). I also learned that in my village female genital mutilation is almost one hundred percent. I guess on the bright side it is almost only first degree however, we did have a young women that had third degree excision (the midwife had me look at it, since it is so extreme – I got pretty light headed and had to keep my cool). We had a Fulani women come in that had had a miscarriage that morning and did not understand what had happened and that the baby had been lost. All in all, it was an exhausting and overwhelming few hours and I have officially decided that being a midwife is not a job I would like to have.

I have been helping a lot in people's fields. I worked with my counterpart in weeding his bean field and then later in the season went back to harvest them. It was very hot so I made a rule that I will not work between 10-2 since I get very dehydrated and also get very badly sunburned! Harvesting the beans made me realize just how much insects ruin the harvest. It means that there is a lot I can work on doing with people in my village but it is so hard to see people only get what the bugs leave for them. I also harvested millet in my village. I have worked on the fields of my counterpart's dad and also the president of the group that is hosting me in my village. It was really interesting to see what people find more comfortable. They cut down the stalks of the millet not just so that people can bring it back for their animals, but also because they really prefer to bend over to harvest rather than harvesting while it is at head right.

For my community study, I have been doing some interviews with people in my community. These are to help me get an idea about what has already taken place in the community, where the level of understanding of different topics is, and what they would like to see take place. The majority of them so far has been with Dominique's family (the man that grows mangoes). When I discussed with him and his family if they would be willing he was very welcoming about the whole thing. When I came back, he gave me a rooster! I, obviously, did not know what to do with it, so Moussa tied it to one of my bunny huts and said that would be fine. The rooster, later in the day broke the line and was running around. At dusk he jumped on my roof and went to bed. Sadly, his sleep schedule and my sleep schedule are a little off – mainly, I do not like waking up at 3 am and then hear him yell for the next three hours. He was gone by the time I woke up in the morning and I have seen him twice since then. I am pretty pleased he disappeared because he was obnoxious but I do feel bad that Dominique did not just keep him. It is nice having so many wonderful people in my community, but sometimes I am not very good at receiving the gifts they give me.

Some students that live in Silmidougou but go to school in Mane (since they are above the sixth grade, so they bike over ten kilometers to school every day) asked me to start a club on Saturdays with them. They brought up that they wanted to learn English, so the first day we met I brought Obama's victory speech (I wrote the entire speech out by hand so I can use other parts of it again later). Only two boys came the first day but they did an awesome job and really impressed me with how hard they worked to figure out who the speaker was. The next time we discussed what other types of topics we would like to discuss based on what kind of careers people want. At first no one said anything but quickly they got really excited about what they could be. There are some that want to join the military, another wants to be a soccer player, some want to teach history, one wants to do scientific research, and others want to work for the government. We then decided what they would be interested in so each week we will rotate with different topics from geography and science to public health and public speaking. It should be a lot of fun, sadly at this moment the club is on hold because the director of the middle school will not let us use the facility in Silmidougou. Hopefully, I can work with the elementary school and use their classroom since these students were so excited and came even on the day they were told they were not allowed to meet on the school grounds.

While in Kaya, Zach and I met with “Projet victoire sur la malnutrition”. The director of the project is a naturalized American citizen from Mali and works hard. He was really excited to hear that we want to work with them. Their work is an amazing collaboration between a lot of the biggest development groups in Burkina. They do everything from agriculture technical workshops to distributing food supplies to health centers. I'm really looking forward to seeing what projects I can help them with and seeing their projects in my region grow.

So that is all for this post. I am hoping to get another few out in the next week or so. Much love and write me a letter if you have the chance – the internet does not seem like a good form of contact for me.

Letters to Mom and Dad

September 11, 2012 Letter #1

Hey Mom and Dad!

                So just to start this out I am so sorry for being so terrible about writing!  I have not been good about writing since I cannot seem to find a good time to do it.  It’ll get better—I promise!

                I’m sitting in my courtyard with five of my normal kids.  Remi is about 7 and the only one I think that goes to school.  He lives right next door and is the son of the old counterpart (he did all three of the health volunteers).  I’m also sitting with my dear new baby bunny.  I just gave him some milk. He is so cute but I’m attempting to not get too attached because I feel like he will die on me.  Right now he has free reign of my kitchen.  He doesn’t cause much of a mess but if he will be around for a while I may need to get him better/more realistic living quarters.  I feel like he will poop a lot—though I have to clean up gecko poop everyday anyways.  Feeding him milk is adorable but a lot of work.  He doesn’t drink out of the bowl but he likes licking me so I dribble it on the arm—he is starting to learn the spoon technique thankfully  A farmer that I work with/may start working with who is growing mangoes in his field gave him to me.  Mousa (my counterpart) was just as confused when I got handed a baby bunny instead of a bunny ready to be eatenl

                So Mousa has been great.  He comes to my house around 8 AM every day and we do things between then and noon and then he is back at 15:00-19:00.  He is really nice and very quiet.  He is getting better about talking and asking me questions but he is awesome about showing me cool things and introducing me to incredible people.  He is extremely Muslim—his sisters are pretty much the only ones I’ve seen that wear the all black flowery garb though luckily they don’t cover their faces.  He is the only one of his siblings that isn’t married and he is the oldest boy—having a hard time understanding that.  He spent about seven years working on cocoa and cotton plantations.  My favorite line from him so far is when we were talking about the fact that once a week they play a movie after the marche.  I asked him if he ever watched them and he replied that he used to but doesn’t anymore.   I then asked why –because he doesn’t talk too much—and he said that movies like that make him question too much and he becomes too much of a rebel.  A rebel??  From watching a movie once a week?  You gotta wonder . . .  We get along well and he is surely one of the fastest walkers and bikers in the village—which means that we go just above a snail’s pace when going places.

                So each time I do the bike ride up to Silmidougou I shock myself with how beautiful it is and how uphill it is!  It is fairly flat for the first 3 km out to Mane proper though part of the road is washed away.  The hills then start and go up a Kili-like slope (maybe a little steeper).  When that starts to tire you out is when the “Mountain of Silmidougou”  appears.  I am getting pretty good about getting up it but it is very steep.  It then falls into a valley-esque village of Silmidougou!  It is about 30 minute run from my house to the base of the “mountain” and back.  So most of the time I am going past it and running further!

                Well, today is marche day so I should probably go there for a bit.  I’m on the search for people I can maybe do some income generating and basic accounting with!

                                                                                                                                Much love, Katie

                                                                                                                                September 14, 2012

Hey Mom and Dad,

                So the kids just walked in with a baby bird they stoned to death.  Sometimes they really gross me out.  They tied a string around its leg so they can fling it around at people and they are taking off all its feathers and stuffing them in their ears.  Ugh, kids here are so gross when they want to be.  There is one girl that lives with the dohlo (beer) family who is about 15 years old and I love her.  Her name is Saphie and she takes care of her family’s goats and is the only one at her house who plays with their adorable puppy.  She is going to school so I am hoping I can get to know her better as her French gets better.

                The bunny is alive and well, though I have decided I’m going to eat him for Thanksgiving.  He should be fat by then, he poops will be bigger, he will be less cute and there will be fewer greens for him to eat.  Right now still feeding him by spoon all day long.  He is so cute.

                So Moussa and I are going to the pyramids to go t meet up with the banana man.  He wanted more info on how to make compost since he has been told that compost is a much more effective for trees than chemical fertilizer.  It is nice to have a convert who just needs to learn how to do something.  The book Lisa’s mom gave me is really  useful since Moussa can get brought up to speed so he can help with the discussions as well!  Hopefully it goes well—we will see.  I also think that the book showed him lots of ways that other communities have made changes so it gave him a little bit of inspiration—which is always good to have!

                The bike ride to Kaya is pretty killer.  It is 40 km away which is pretty far in general but the last 10 kim or so is all up hill (same thing on the way back funnily enough).  So I’m definitely getting tougher by doing it but the first trip almost killed me!  I’m going again on Monday so hopefully this time will be better.  The first time I biked with Zach both ways which meant we were really going fast!  Going to go at Katie pace next time.  I think I will be ready for the Wirth bike trip to Harper’s Ferry when I get back!  I’m still excited about this hike you came up with!!  How far is it?  How long is it supposed to take?  Editor’s note:  I think she is talking about the Incan trail to Macchu PIchu.  I’m still running 40 minutes a day but now that I have the bunny and Moussa comes at 8 AM I’m not sure how I can increase my time.  May just try going faster and then time can be found so I can go on a longer run!  It is nice going running again.  Sadly, unlike both of you when you were PCTs and PCVs, my tolerance has dropped significantly.  I’m telling myself that it is because  I need to be more hydrated.  Hopefully in the end I will be able to drink more than two beers again!  (For those of you who read this and haven’t lived in Africa, each beer is 22 oz.)

                                                                                                                                                September 26, 2012

                Things have been busy here!  Leaving Zach to drop these off at the Kaya post office!  Much love and miss you.  I am already excited to have you guys come see this place!

                                                                                                                                                September 26, 2012 Letter #2

Hey Mom and Dad,

                I am sitting at one of my two favorite boutiques while waiting for a storm to come and pass by.  Today has been a “busy” day.  I had an entire two things on my schedule!  I had my APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director) come and check on me.  It was great seeing him—he’s a very nice guy.  It’s funny because I’m by the time you get this letter you will have met APCD George in DC!!  He brought me juice that I think I will open up when Zach drops by Sunday with my new bunnies.  He seemed impressed with how I know so many people in my community and that I am so happy here.  I also had a meeign with the “youth group”.  It is all males between 20-35 years old.  I was really nervous about it but I think it went well.  There were a lot of faces in the crowd that I knew so that helped a lot and people wanted to talk about the goals and projects they want to do.  The only thing that really, really shocked me from the meeting was the number of youth that work in gold mines.   Most make their own shafts and work independently.  They are the youth by far with the most money but it is a dangerous job.  I’m still trying to figure out what kind of projects I can do with them.  I think it may be on accounting and saving money so that they can pay for all those tools and things that they want for their work.

                                                                                                                                                September 28, 2012

Hey you guys!

                So I just got done with a trip to a former lake/barrage.  It is sad to think that a source of water for the community is gone now and the closest body of water to Silmidougou proper.  Though it has made the land available to a Peul community that has lived there for ten years—now fixing up the lake (emptying out the dirt that has filled it up)  would mean they would get relocated,   something I’m not sure is right for the Mossi project.  Everyone talks about how the new barrage is starting to fill up as well.  Talking to Moussa—my homologue—he seemed surprised at the idea of mitigating the water problems of the future by starting to empty it now.  It may be a tough thing for the community to think about but I think they all actually know the consequences of not dealing with it—so they may be willing to be proactive about the barrage they have now.  We will see.

                I was just told that my country director will be visiting on Wednesday!  I’m kind of excited because I love my site but nervous because there are no projects as of right now. I’ll let you know how that goes.

                Well, that’s all for now.  Miss you!