Site Visit

Last week we went to our counterpart workshop in the capital city, I ate pizza and ice cream and shopped in a supermarket. It was like being in America. Now I am having America withdrawal. Oh well, I'll get over it. We started by taking public transportation from our training city to the capital. Because both are large, we were able to take a bus run by a big company here in Burkina. We then spent three days in Ouagadougou (the capital of BF in case you were wondering, and quite possibly the coolest sounding capital city anywhere). We had a conference at our hotel where we met our counterparts and discussed the details of our sites and what should be expected of us. My counterpart is another PC (stands for the French equivalent of physics and chemistry) teacher at my school. He will be my first line resource to learn about my community and how to do my job properly. After being in the capital I traveled to my site.

Now for an aside, just because people keep asking me. As much as I would love to name the location on this webpage, you'll notice that I will almost never give the names of places where I or other volunteers are in BF. This is mainly a safety and security issue with the PC, and with me too. You never know who is reading your blog, so I've chosen to omit that information.

I will say that I had quite the bush taxi ride to get there. But what is a bush taxi and how exactly does it operate? (Good question Mom!) Bush taxis are typically passenger vans that run between smaller cities and villages. They are typically operated by a single owner. They tend to keep regular hours, or as timely as you can get in the village (which can actually be very punctual or very late, just like the US it depends on the person), and they operate on specific days, sometimes everyday, or maybe only on market days. When discussing bush taxis the most interesting thing that comes up is the cargo. Anything goes. Goats, chickens, other people's babies sitting on your lap, people handcuffed to the backseat by the gendarme sitting in the front (as happened in my bush taxi last week, but which is very rare...in fact I'm still not quite sure what was going on with that). The goats can be really annoying because they usually tie their legs together so they don't run around on the roof, which causes them to moan for the whole ride. I've also heard stories of them peeing on people's heads, but I don't know of anyone who this has happened to.

Once at my site I went around my village and met all of the public officials and took a tour of my school. I'll be teaching at a lycee (a high school), with over 800 students. They just added upper grade levels and will administer the BAC for the first time next year. There is also a new science lab, which is essentially an empty room at the moment because they have not yet equipped it, however I did not get to see inside, so I don't know what it's really like. I also saw the house I'll be living in. It has two bedrooms, a living room, and a big courtyard. It also has a latrine and shower area outside. I don't have electricity right now, but my village does have it at certain hours of the day, so I may get it during my two years of service.

After visiting my village for one night I went to stay with another volunteer which involved biking 30 km and almost passing out from heat stroke, Africa is HOT! After two days I returned to our training village. I'd like to be more detailed here, but unfortunately my hour is about to run out at the internet cafe. I will say that model school started this week, and it seems like it will be a lot of fun. More on that next time.