Still Alive...And Loving the Village Life

Hello, Hello, I'm back after a tour de force of setting up everything at my site and meeting all of the people in my village. My first couple weeks I spent just basically going around and greeting everyone. I even met the chief! We sat outside the "royal compound" and talked. I brought him a bag of kola nuts and he told me to come back when my moore was better. All of the people in my village are really nice so far. Everyone has been very helpful and welcoming. The kids are really curious about me though because I am the first volunteer at my site. There were even kids climbing a tree the other day to try to see into my courtyard to watch me. When I asked them if they watch Burkinabes like that they of course said no, and after I explained that I didn't like that either they left. Village is strange because everyone views you as an oddity so everyone wants to watch you or talk to you all the time. I am really excited about teaching though. I gave my first classes yesterday and the kids seemed to be really nice. It will be hard though to teach over 100 students. All of my classes are large like that so its harder to play games and do group activities.

Wow, I don't even know what to write right now, there's too much to say and I'm exhausted. The transport in Burkina is doable but challenging sometimes. This morning to get out of my village I took a bush taxi to my regional capital, which got two flat tires on the way. The first time they had a spare, but the second time one of the drivers hitched a ride on a passing moto to the next village, got a tire, came back and changed it all within 45 minutes. Then I took a bus to the capital where I am right now.

Peace Corps volunteers have sort of a strange experience in country because when we come into the capital its almost like being in the United States. There are most of the things that you can find at home. But being in village, where there often isn't electricity and most people don't even go to secondary school is a completely different story. The other day for instance my neighbor asked me if it rains in the US. I never realized how much going to school helps form how you think. Its not even that my neighbor is unintelligent, in fact I would say that she is one of the smarter people that I know in village, and she is well respected by the community. It's just that she has no access, for the most part to the outside world. There is no internet, only maybe a few tvs, and no public library. The amount of information that Americans have access to is astounding; you just don't realize it.

For the remainder of my service I will probably send letters to my sister to update my blog because its hard for me to get to good internet to update. So, if you don't hear from me for a while, it's just that I'm in my village. On another note, one of Petra's friends, Heather, is going to have a baby/had a baby, so congratulations to you!