Village

Hello faithful blog readers. Thanks to those of you who have been reading my blog and sorry for not updating recently. Things have been getting busier and busier here. Last weekend I stayed at the house of one of my friends who is in the girls empowerment and education program. Because they primarily work with small villages during their service, they train in outlying villages, while we stay in the city. We rode our bikes for about 45 minutes along a dirt road (literally in the middle of nowhere) to get there. The only other people we saw along the way were also on bicycles or had a donkey/cart (the latter is surprisingly popular here, it's sort of the Burkinabe version of a pickup truck for most people). The sky was very cloudy when we left the city, and we were lucky to make it inside my friend's mud hut (in her host family's compound) just as it started to rain. We greeted her many host family members (and onlookers from the rest of the village).

Greeting is very important in Burkina. It sort of reminds me of the friendliness of the Midwest, but even more so. Not only do you say hi, how are you, but also you typically ask about the status of one's health, home, and family. Even if someone is very sick they will say that they are in good health because people try to maintain an optimistic attitude about the future.

After eating dinner we sat outside (with some of stagaires who had come to visit the village) and watched the heat lightning as it had stopped raining. Whenever one of the PC people would turn on a flashlight the locals would tell us that we would be struck by lightning. I'm not sure what the rationale for this is, but maybe they know that a lightning blot forms from the sky and the earth and then meets in between. When it started to rain again we went back inside my friend's mud hut to sleep. The one good thing about the rainy season here is that when it rains it actually cools down, thus sleeping inside wasn't too bad. Normally sleeping inside here is a very hot proposition. Although other stagaires typically sleep outside in their family's courtyards, my family shares a courtyard with two other families, so I don't feel as comfortable doing that. Aside from the goat who was pushing on the screen door trying to get out of the rain and my friend getting sick in the middle of the night (luckily she made it outside to throw up-thanks Yaneth!), sleeping on the floor wasn't too bad. I had brought my sleeping pad with me, which has been very useful so far. (If any future PC volunteers are reading this trying to decide what to bring to West Africa, I definitely recommend a sleeping pad for staying with other volunteers and sleeping outside in your courtyard.)

The next morning we woke up at 6 and ate breakfast with Yaneth's host dad. He speaks Fulefulde, French, some English, and Moore. We talked with him in French about Burkina, the US, farming, and other things. He was shocked that I only wanted to drink water with my breakfast, not taking tea or coffee.

After breakfast we came back to the city to go to the pool, although I went to the market and did my laundry instead (the latter I'll save for another entry).