Almost there...

Hello, hello, from Burkina Faso! Swear in is at the end of this week, during which we will finally become volunteers! The PC has a big ceremony where we all dress up in traditional outfits and our host families come, and everyone just has an all around good time (or so I'm told, seeing that I haven't actually done this yet). I just picked up my outfit from the tailor last week, so I'm all ready to get fully suited out in Burkinabe garb. This week we have a lot of down time to prepare for going to site and to move out of our home stay houses.

Last week model school ended and they had a big ceremony for the students. Burkinabe really like to have ceremonies to celebrate things, with speeches and performances (if its a kids activity). The kids here really like to lip synch pop songs and dance. So, a representative from each class did just that. It fun to see the students having such a good time. The top three students in each class also got prizes. They received a pencil bow with a ruler, compass, eraser, etc. and a cahier (a notebook) or textbook. It was really exciting to see some of the students getting these materials because they are expensive to buy and not everyone can afford a nice new pencil box, and moreover, they had studied hard.

Other than that I've just been taking it easy for the past few days, attending a few sessions and language classes (Moore just isn't going to learn itself), and other than that just enjoying the laid back lifestyle of Burkina Faso. Also, not to have too much of an MTV moment here, but shout out to Petra for sending me an awesome box full of America (yes that sentence is grammatically correct), including the fantastic new Harry Potter book (yeah HP!) which I have already finished after not leaving the house yesterday. I had to explain the whole HP phenomenone to my host family though; they were a little bit confused as to why I wanted to read an 800 page book in two days.

And Mom, thanks for the great question about how people get water here in Burkina. This is something that I've been wanting to write about for a while. So, most people get their water from pumps or wells. In the cities some families might have a tap in their coutryard if they are lucky enough. My host family happens to have a well. They use the well water for washing clothes and other things which don't require potable water. For clean drinking water they have a guy who comes to the house with a huge barrel thing on wheels full of water (sorry the name of it is in French, so just saying what it's actually called does't really give the full image). They keep this water in a clean, giant plastic garbage can like thing out in the shed next to their house. This is the water that they drink so they don't get sick. My host Mom says that it comes from a tap in the city. (I filter all of the water they give me because my system is still extra sensitive to any diseases and parasites here, and because the PC tells me to and gave me the filter... there's basically no reason not to and with all of the diseases I could catch, I rather enjoy doing it). Right now is the rainy season so water is plentiful once again, but during the dry season it can often be difficult to find water, especially in the northern part of the country where wells and pumps will run dry. This gets back to my mom's original question, which was if they had any containers to collect rain water. I haven't seen anything like this yet, but I also haven't spent a lot of time in the villages. Mostly people just use the water that is replenished in their wells and pumps (groundwater in this case). Sometimes my host mom might stick a bucket underneath the runoff of the tin roof to catch a little bit of extra water for laundry or other household tasks.

As the global climate continues to change, water will become an increasingly important issue in Sahelian Burkina Faso. I've even heard some talk that many people expect the desert to extend down further South into Burkina. In the US most people don't think about water scarcity because they just turn on their tap and it's just there, but in Burkina, water matters to everyone, all the time. Some days when I first arrived here, at the end of the dry season, it was harder for my host mom to find water. She would have to go out and search the neighborhood for the guy who brings water to our house. Even for people in the cities it's possible to run out if all of the wells and pumps go dry. Ironically Burkinabe probably use way less water than Americans do. Bathing out of a bucket instead of taking a shower considerably cuts down on usage. Also there are no washing machines or dishwashers or lawns to water.

Writing this has made me really thirsty. I'm going to find a refreshingly cold drink (one of my last before I go to village-no electricity=no fridges=no ice cold drinks). And one last things, thanks to all of you who have been reading my blog, Mom, Petra, Toni, and everyone else! And thanks Mrs. Cromwell for the beautiful card that you sent me!