Since Markus and I can't claim to be Burkina Faso PCVs anymore (we tried, but we kept getting threatening letters from the US government), this blog is kaput. But never fear. If you just can't get enough of that zany little African town called Titao, check out our replacements' blog: aaronandamyrose.blogspot.com. If you dig my style, Ill be writing at eekgodjilla.blogspot.com. Markus fans, don't fret! He'll be an occasional guest writer. It'll be pretty much the same thing but with considerably fewer black people.

Thanks for reading!

By guest writer Kurt Russell*

Thunder shook the tin roof. As the first drops panged on the metal, Markus's cell phone rang.

“Marku. . .It. . .ylvie. We nee. . .stool sample. . .mediately!” The phone cut out, but Markus knew what he had to do. He had to escape from Titao.

“JILL! Get your stuff! We gotta get our stool samples to Ouaga!” Jill frantically picked up the six cats that seemed to multiply like gremlins.

“What do I do with these?!” she yelled.

“Get rid of 'em!” Markus shouted.

Jill threw the cats in Markus's direction, creating a screaming ball of claws and fur. Markus jumped dramatically to the side to avoid the striped cloud of death that was heading straight for him.

Amy and Aaron, the replacements who were in Titao to see their site, looked at each other. “What's going on?” Amy said. Aaron just shook his head, confused.

The rain was pouring as they ran to their bikes. Markus cursed. “Someone slashed our tires!”

Jill frantically picked up all the bikes. “What do I do with these?!”

“Get rid of 'em!” Markus shouted.

Jill threw the bikes in Aaron's direction, creating a devastating wave of spokes and handlebars. Aaron jumped dramatically to the side.

“LET'S GO, LET'S GO, LET'S GO!” Markus commanded.

The four set out, stool samples in hand, toward the bus station. “Oh no!” Jill shouted. “The road's covered in water! We're trapped!”

“We can do it!” Markus replied as he grabbed Jill's hand and the two of them sloshed their way through the six inches of muddy water. When they got to the other side, they heard screams and turned to see Amy and Aaron wash away. Markus dropped to his knees. “NOOOOO!”

“We have to keep going,” Jill said to Markus as she yanked him to his feet.

A few minutes later they spotted the bus. “Go, go, go!” Markus yelled.

As they got nearer, they had to push their way through a crowd of villagers moaning, “Take us to America!” Women held up their babies and screeched, “Take my baby! Take my baby!” Markus pushed everyone aside, but Jill frantically picked up all the babies.

“What do I do with these?!”

“Get rid of 'em!” Markus shouted.

Jill threw the babies in the villagers' direction, creating a squealy ball of baby. The villagers jumped dramatically to the side.

Jill and Markus climbed into the bus. “Floor it!” Markus yelled at the bus driver. As the bus picked up speed, the driver started panicking. “What is it?” Markus said.

“Look up ahead,” the driver said, nervously.

Markus squinted through the windshield and saw a group of four-year-old bandits who'd set up a toll booth made of twigs. “Damn!”

“I have to stop and pay them,” the driver said.

“Not this time,” Markus growled as he stepped on the driver's foot and the bus crashed through the twig barricade. The four-year-olds jumped dramatically to the side.

“Phew,” Markus exclaimed, sinking into his seat and putting his arm around Jill. As they passed by the Titao sign, he said, “We're out. It's over.”

“But what about getting out of Ouaga?”

“Oh dear God.”

*Note: Inspired by Markus, written by Jill (not actually Kurt Russell)

Something weird happens every time I take transport in Burkina. I sit on a sack full of carrots, struggling to avoid the pointy ends and waving my hands around to keep the carrot-loving fly army at bay. One, two, six hours later the bus shows up. Or rather the ex-bus, considering how many vital bus parts are missing--windows, seats, axles, tires. I push, pull, and bite my way through the crowd to get a seat and we're off. Kind of. We'll get going once the driver feels like it and right now he's more keen on eating, praying, and holding hands with his buddies than driving a rickety old bus. At last we shake, rattle, and roll our way down the scenic dirt roads of Burkina, and I keep my fingers crossed that the bus doesn't run out of gas, break down, or explode. But as soon as I get to where I'm going, I'm so happy to be there that I immediately forget how horrible the experience had been.

I feel the same thing happening with my Peace Corps experience. Already the view's getting rosier, which is great. Bring it on. But I don't want to completely forget the bad things. That sounds so pessimistic, but nothing's more obnoxious than listening to someone returning from living in Africa who won't shut up about how cute the kids are and how interesting the culture is and how pretty the language is and how delicious the food is. Yeah right. No PCV goes around all day saying, “I'm so happy to be here! This is just so amazing!” If they do, they should probably cut back on the Larium. Instead we struggle through all the little difficulties and actively try to have a good time, which most people succeed in doing. No one would stay for two long years if they weren't having a good time.

But it's been really hard, and I'm glad I'm leaving. Most of my problems with this place stem from my being a married woman in Africa. It's not culturally appropriate for men to be friends with married women, so after greeting me, they turn to Markus and don't look back. That's the official line, anyway; I think the real reason men don't talk to me is because they're not at all interested in what women have to say. Men and women have very little interaction aside from the obvious, which they do all the time judging by all the tiny, pantsless kids running around, so they don't know how to talk to each other. Even the Burkinabé men working in the Peace Corps bureau--educated men who work with Americans--treat me differently than Markus. After two years the head of Secondary Education still isn't quite sure if my last name is Markus or Fleisch, but he's pretty sure it's Markus.

Not only does Markus have the good luck to have been born male, he also happens to be nice and charming. So after the initial, “You have a penis?! No way! I do too! Let's be best friends” interest died away, the Burkinabé stuck around because they liked him and became even less interested in me. Our neighbor, who is also a teacher at the school, would come up to me and say, “Go tell your husband that he and I are going to go get some beers and leave you and my wife at home.” Instead, Markus and I went out for beers and left him at home. So at least I got to benefit from Markus being nice and charming.

I don't want to forget what it was like to live and work in a village where no matter how many times I corrected people, they always called me Madame Markus because that shaped every aspect of my experience here. Paradoxically, it made me enjoy teaching even more than I would have because I relished hearing my students call me Madame McKay and listening to everything I said--they might not have respected me as a woman, but they sure respected the red pen I wielded. I also really enjoyed teaching because although the digestive system of a cow isn't a lifelong passion of mine, I love biology and I like teaching, especially when I get to do goofy stuff like pretending I'm a crab walking sideways. Teaching was my therapy for the neurosis I developed from the way people who weren't my students treated me.

No transport story's complete without describing the goat that peed on your foot, the baby that vomited on your lap, and the spit from the dude in front of you that flew back through the window and smacked you in the face. So I'll definitely come back with rose colored stories about how much I enjoyed teaching in Burkina, but I'll also tell poop brown/snot green/yellow vomit colored stories of sexism.

For the past few months I've been meaning to get a picture of the cute little Titao sign that says "Au revoir et bonne route" and another sign that has a picture of a giant goat, sheep, and chicken threatening to eat some normal-sized fields. But it was hot and it rained last night so now it's all muddy and my back kind of hurts and my tire's flat and I'm kind of hungry and oh man I ate too much and where'd I put my sweat rag and oh I feel a little sleepy and zzz. So instead here's a picture of a couple of dudes in tiny shirts. Enjoy!

On our last day in Ouahigouya, Markus and I invited our friends to get chicken and beer with us later that night, set out the half empty bottle of gin we planned on making gin and tonics with at the bar, and allowed ourselves to feel a tiny bit nostalgic. At five I asked Markus if the sound I was hearing was thunder, and he said it was just the wind. At quarter to six, Markus stood outside and looked up at the dark clouds. I joined him and asked him what he thought. In uncharacteristically optimistic style, he said he thought they would pass us. At a little after six it suddenly started pouring. I shouted at Markus over the rain that I didn't want to bike through all that mud; Markus shouted back that he was leaving as soon as the rain stopped. At 6:30 the electricity turned off. At 6:31 Markus and I took out our frustrations by snapping at each other. I shined my bike light on the book I was reading, Expat, and he used his cell phone to light the book he was reading, State of Fear, the Michael Crichton book in which he argues (badly) that global warming is a myth. I shouted at Markus asking if he wanted to sit next to me to share my bike light; he shouted no. Cranky as hell, I cursed Ouahigouya and read my book, which was a collection of essays by women living abroad. I was in such a bad mood that I relished the parts when the author struggled with culture shock, weird food, and annoying people and glared at the page during the inevitable cultural assimilation and appreciation. Why couldn't my experience have a happy ending like that? Instead I was sitting in a humid room with rain hammering on the tin roof, mentally shaking my fist at the lights and fan that refused to turn on and daydreaming about how much fun I should have been having on my last night in Ouahigouya. If Peace Corps's supposed to be such a life changing experience, how come I haven't been able to feel sad about leaving Burkina no matter how hard I've tried? I tried to feel it when I taught my last lesson, when I handed back my last test, when I left my last school meeting. But my lesson was about dysentery and my students' last impression of their white science teacher was her repeatedly telling them not to “défequer” outside. My students totally bombed their last test, and I formed my last impression of them while contending with a bunch of pissed off fifth graders. And after the school meeting, the other teachers neglected to tell us when lunch was and ate all the chicken without us, giving us a pity plate of chicken guts when we showed up late. Nope, not sorry about not teaching anymore. Now here in Ouahigouya, I'm saying goodbye to the town where we had our three months of pre-service training. The town where I had all my first Burkinabé meals, including fish heads on rice and goat femur soup. The town that Markus and I escaped to when we were bored with Titao to drink ice cold beers and sleep in air conditioning. And it totally sucks. Instead of chatting with my friends about our first impressions of this place, I'm eating powdered mashed potatoes—the same thing I had for lunch—and tippy tapping out my frustrations. But if nothing else, Burkina's taught me that nothing turns out like you thought it would. I know that if my students had surprised me and Markus with a giant “We'll miss you!” card that they'd all signed, I'd be totally weirded out. And if I'd had the perfect Ouahigouya goodbye, biking down to the bar without people yelling at me from all directions, then receiving excellent service from a smiling, attentive waitress, I'd think something was up. And if something like a ridiculously badly timed thunderstorm hadn't occurred, I'd be looking over my shoulder the whole evening, watching out for someone throwing dirt at me or stealing my iPod. The cynical moral of the story is that everything in this country goes wrong all the time. And that's ok. It wouldn't be nearly as interesting if everything went right.

I wish I could go back to those first few days in Burkina when I thought all the tiny kids running after me as I biked by were shouting “Ça va?! Ça va?!” Caught up in my initial excitement about being in Burkina, I enthusiastically answered them back, “Ça va!” And it really did ça va. It ça vaed pretty damn well because these adorable little black kids were politely asking how I was doing. Then I figured out that what they were really saying was “Nassara! Nassara!” Then it didn't ça va so well anymore. This wasn't the jokey “gringo” I'd heard in Mexico. Or the descriptive “gaijin” I'd heard in Japan. It's true that sometimes “nassara” is jokey as in “Nassara speaks Mooré!” And it was certainly descriptive: Everyone from our faux typey boutique owner to our well-dressed landlord felt the need to remind us that we were, in fact, nassaras. As if we could ever forget. Not with the obnoxious adults yelling “Nassara!” and then laughing with their friends as I bike by, feeling extremely self-conscious and dorky in my bright blue helmet. And not with all the kids shouting “NASSARA! NASSARA!” in their screechy little voices—I got to the point where I actually felt scared when I saw a group of toddlers loitering on the street. This isn't a unique problem, of course. Many volunteers deal by introducing themselves to all the gangs of roving children so that they screech their name instead of nassara. But as it turns out, “Jill” is about as difficult for a Burkinabé to pronounce as “Ouédraogo Fatao de Abdoulaye” is to a new American teacher. Most volunteers just try to ignore it. Easy enough. That is, until you crack and find yourself cursing and giving the finger to a bunch of four-year-olds. And finally there's the rare breed of volunteer who manages to just get over it. These volunteers, also called “third years” or “crazy,” have attained a level of serenity just below nirvana. Recently I tried to convince myself that I've become nassara immune. Sure I flicked off a bunch of kids on the way to the internet café, but I didn't really mean it. And yeah, I noticed when the old lady I passed called me nassara, but it didn't bother me. But then Markus said, “What if we get to America and it turns out everyone there has turned into Burkinabés and yell nassara at us all the time?” Yeah, not so serene anymore.

This blog has tried to be funny because lots of people have said that humor is the best medicine (probably Mark Twain, but I'm not sure and am too lazy to look it up). I think Jill and I have made a few people laugh and anybody who really knows us knows that we are both sarcastic, dry-humored people. Our marriage occasionally becomes the target of this difficult-to-interpret-over-the-internet-style of humor. If you like to make fun of people and the only person in the room is your spouse, guess who's getting made fun of?I wanted to write this blog to let people know that Jill and I, despite my bad grammar, are better than ever. In fact, I invite anybody reading this blog to come with their spouse and try two years in the stinkiest, sweatiest, diseasiest, place in the world. Try staying up with your spouse as they are vomiting and running to the latrine every five minutes. Try sweating constantly and still trying to make yourself look appealing. Try supporting your spouse when people are rude to you, but you can't complain because picking on the white people is part of the culture. Try dealing with people who literally call your spouse “thing there.” Most marriages aren't strong enough to make it. Jill has already mentioned the statistic; here we are, two years later, no divorce. Actually, Jill and I are really looking forward to re-starting our lives in America. Buying a car, renting an apartment, finding jobs, applying to grad school, cutting open monkey brains, brewing beer. (Second to last is mostly Jill, but that last one is mostly me; Jill does love the end product though—that's right, I married a woman who likes beer more than wine, how many of you can say that?) So if we post a blog that is critical of the other person, know that we are being sarcastic and there's no need to question our devotion to each other. In fact, it's down right insulting, thus the creation of this post to clear up any misunderstandings our previous posts may have caused and future posts might create. The Africa offer still stands. Any takers . . . ?

One of the worries running through volunteers' heads at the end of their service after “Will I be able to get a job?!” and “Oh God, I hope I don't end up living with my parents again!” is “Will I be replaced?” Technically you can be replaced as long as you're not the third volunteer at a site. But since there are a ridiculous amount of young, eager, unemployed college grads applying to the Peace Corps crying, “Send me to Africa!” in reality, the rules can be bent a little. In Titao, for instance, there was a volunteer a few years ago named Tom. All I know about Tom is that he was well liked at the school and that he left one memento for people to remember him by: a really bad picture of himself with a mullet. The volunteer after Tom was a woman named Anne, who was apparently a feisty one. She left after several months because she pissed off the principal. Hearing this story, we were a bit wary of our principal, who is himself a feisty one. But he has turned out to be a nice man as long as you're not a punk ass student who mouths off during class (I'm looking at you, Hamidou). Since Anne and the principal had a conflict, the Peace Corps waited a few years before sending another volunteer to Titao. Enter Jill and Markus. Despite being the third (and fourth) volunteers in Titao, because there was a gap of a few years between us and our predecessors, we were considered the new first (and second) volunteers. Two years later, enter Amy and Aaron, our replacements. Before actually meeting Amy and Aaron, we knew them by reputation. Which is to say, we knew the most important thing about them to Burkinabé and Peace Corps Volunteers alike: They're married. Since they're the only married couple in the new group of volunteers, we knew that they were destined for Titao.

When we arrived in the Paris airport on our way back to Burkina after Patrick and Connie's wedding, we immediately spotted the large group of clean, excited looking white people with matching ribbons on their backpacks setting them apart as Peace Corps. After introducing ourselves as Burkina volunteers, we were swarmed. Many of the new group apologized for being so curious, but we enjoyed answering all their questions—it's quite an ego trip being surrounded by people who are dying to know all the minor details of your life. We were curious too and asked several people where the married couple was, despite knowing from experience how annoying it is to be stuck with the label “the married couple.” Soon a friendly blue-eyed dude and his friendly blue-eyed wife sat in front of us and said, “We're the married couple.” We shouted, “You're going to Titao!” and babbled all about the grill guy Moussa, who makes the best chickens in town; my students coming by the house because they didn't quite understand what a flower was; the great Friday marché, which has people coming from as far as Ghana; that time Markus had amoebas and E. coli at the same time (that was so gross); and that weird, huge spider Markus got squirted by when he stomped on it before they had a chance to say “What's a Titao?” After clearing up the confusion, Markus and I rambled on and on about how great Titao is while watching our replacements get more and more excited about the next two years. But Peace Corps likes to play hard to get, which is why it took Markus and me over a year to get through the application process—“Won't you please just let us go to Africa to teach children math and science, please, please, PLEASE?!” So Markus and I weren't too surprised when our boss implied that the couple might not actually go to Titao. We were pretty bummed at the idea because when we paused in our Titao pitch to take a breath, Amy and Aaron managed to get a word in and turned out to be charming people who we liked a lot. After all, he cooks! She teaches biology! What's not to like? But we're pleased to find out that they will in fact be replacing us in Titao. Being the kind-of-sort-of first (and second) volunteers in Titao, Markus and I haven't experienced Replacement Syndrome, which is when the villagers let the new volunteer know what the old volunteer was really like. Sometimes this means the new volunteer sees people crossing themselves and forking the evil eye whenever the old volunteer's name is mentioned. More often, this means the new volunteer is told that their predecessor had better French/local language/cooking/teaching ability/all around awesomeness than they do. This is just the villagers' way of expressing appreciation for the old volunteer. Complimenting people to their faces is just not done in Burkina. I've heard three, maybe four compliments about my work in two years. Those compliments plus the compliments I've given myself—I've actually patted myself on the back—and the nice things I hope people will say about us after we're gone have kept me going. So, cheers to Amy and Aaron for being brave/stupid enough to take on the challenge of teaching the hoards of Titaoramba* and I hope they have as interesting and fulfilling a time as we did.*Mooré for “Titao people.”

Growing up, I've moved from one political stereotype to another. The first stereotype was Texas, where I was the most liberal of my friends by far thanks to my family—when I asked future political scientist Amy what the difference between republicans and democrats is, she said “Republicans are bad and democrats are good.” I spent much of my time having heated debates with other high schoolers, grumbling about the constitutionality of prayer circles at a public school, and mocking the fundamentalist girl in my biology class who did her final project on evolution and how it's wrong.

But before I got pushed too far to the left and started wearing a Dennis Kucinich button, I went to college in Washington, where instead of kickers in cowboy hats, there were hippies playing hacky sack. Now I was one of the most centrist of my friends. I just didn't agree with the people who believed organized religion is the worst thing to happen to this country, said they wanted to move to Canada after 9/11, and threw their Nalgenes away in disgust when animal rights activists pointed out that the company makes cages for animals used in experiments.

When I joined the Peace Corps, I thought it would be more of the same. The University of Puget Sound is the number one small school in alumni joining the Peace Corps (the number one large school is the University of Washington). In many ways the political environment in the Peace Corps was the same as it was in Washington. But even though it sometimes felt like my only opportunity for political debate was with Obama supporters who called me conservative for supporting Clinton, it was soon clear that Peace Corps Volunteers are much more diverse than they seem.

Living in a foreign country, especially Africa, affects everyone's outlook. Many volunteers become more conservative and patriotic. It's easy to say that America should send more money to Africa to fight AIDS and malaria, build schools, and feed the hungry when you're in America. But when you're in Africa, you see the hoards of white Land Cruisers covered in NGO stickers driving down the washed away dirt roads covered in trash, past the naked kids with bloated stomachs, and the adults in raggedy clothes selling peanuts for a living or just sitting around, not able to read because they dropped out of school at 12. Where does all the money go? The cynical answer is that most of it's going into government officals' pockets and the rest isn't making a difference.

It's very hard not to become cynical about development work. It's also very hard not to appreciate America. I was reading an article about the effects of Katrina and couldn't muster up the sympathy I was supposed to feel looking at bleek black and white photos of trailers with cars parked next to them. That would look like a mansion to a family of ten living in a tiny mud hut with a donkey instead of a car. I'm about to go back to America, and my main money concern is what size apartment we can afford, not if I can afford to buy a sack of rice to feed my family.

Living in a place that changes your perspectives so much gives volunteers a more sophisticated political outlook. Among the volunteers who manage not to become cynical, some become very motivated to do development work but have much more realistic, scaled-down goals than they had before coming here. For me, the experience has helped me get a better grasp on international politics. I love listening to the contrast between new volunteers' often naive, optimistic perspective and old volunteers' cynical outlook. Add to that the opinions of volunteers who are about to start a third year in Burkina. They're just as cynical as the rest of us, but they've managed to think of things in a more positive way while acknowledging the things that suck. Listening to all the different perspectives has done the debating for me.

In high school and college I was an active participant in political debates. In the Peace Corps I've listenened more than I've debated. It seems like the issues are much more complicated here than they were back home. Or maybe I've become more mature—instead of “Gun control good, prayer in school bad” it's “If all the ex-pats left, would Africa be able to handle it? Would it be morally wrong to leave or is it condescending to think Africans need white help?” Um, good? For now I'm content with watching other people duke it out before figuring out what I think.

Jill loves grammar. Whenever I write a post, Jill looks over it for grammar problems and generally there are tons. It begins with capitalization. She'll read the title and if an extraneous “Of” is capitalized she'll throw the computer and stomp around the room like a t-rex on speed. And that's just the title! Once she starts reading the heart Of the post, she'll hold her horses at every cliché and find a tried and true replacement. I try my most hardest and think of everything my high school teachers taught me, but I always come up short. Even if I think I've put a comma in the right place, Jill likes to move it and say “GEHHHHH” while doing it. Don't even get her started on the incorrect use of “Jill and I.” Jill has LITERALLY picked me up and thrown me on the muddy street for that error. She LITERALLY has smoke coming out of her ears when she does it too. Sometimes it seems, Jill marches to the beat of her own drummer. I'll admit, after Jill looks over my posts, they usually come out better. It's like taking a butter cookie and turning it into an oreo and then a glass of milk magically appears, mmmmmm... The editing process leaves Jill exhausted and very angry, but time heals all wounds, and soon her Incorrect Grammar Anger Center in the brain gets flooded with oxytocin, and all is well between Jill and I. *Grammar errors and clichés brought to you by Markus** **And not corrected by JillEditor's note: Markus is not actually an idiot, and I've never thrown a computer.

One of the Unsolved Mysteries of Burkina Faso is Shotgun Guy. Shotgun Guy sits in shotgun in cabs in Ouaga. He doesn't pump gas, he doesn't wash the windows, he doesn't check under the hood, he doesn't collect cab fares, he doesn't even talk much. All he does is sit in shotgun. Where is he going? What is his purpose? Why does he like sitting in shotgun so much? These are questions that demand answers.

I've often sat in the back of cabs staring at the back of Shotgun Guy's head, trying to figure out the mystery. Maybe there's a Shotgun Guy Depot where all the cabs go every morning to be assigned that day's Shotgun Guy. Not all cabs have Shotgun Guys. Maybe Shotgun Guys are rewards for the best cab drivers. Instead of a trophy they get a Shotgun Guy. Maybe there's a Taxi Institute that has done studies showing that the presence of a Shotgun Guy significantly increases the amount of passengers a cab picks up. People think, "Hey, that cab's good enough for that guy sitting in shotgun, so it's probably good enough for me!"

I don't expect to ever figure out the purpose of Shotgun Guy. It'll just be another Unsolved Mystery of Burkina Faso.

By guest writer Jill McKay

I've been meaning to write a proper blog post for approximately eleven months, but it's so hard. The last time I sat down to write, I was distracted by some shiny tin foil I saw hanging from a tree. And the time before that, I got really hungry and got up to make some popcorn and when I sat back down my fingers were too greasy to type. And the time before that, I couldn't think of anything to write so I went and got a beer instead and one beer turned into three and when I got back I really had to pee and couldn't remember what it was I'd been doing. So that's why I haven't written.

Here's what's up with me. I got back from San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. I had a really nice time at Patrick and Connie's wedding. I really enjoyed the beer part. I also liked the food part. It was fun speaking German again, despite all the “ouis” and “d'accords” that snuck into my speech. Jill wanted to speak to my Austrian relatives herself, so she'd ask me, “Markus, how do I say 'I like your sweater'?” and I'd tell her “Ich bin ein Affe” and she'd say “I am a monkey” in German and everyone would laugh and she'd look very pleased with herself, old trilingual Jill. It's our last month in Burkina, so I've been doing all of my favorite things, including buying souvenirs for people and haggling the seller down from the nassara price, having my clothes butchered by tailors who don't know how to use measuring tape, and eating all the delicious goat meat I can shove in my mouth and drinking all the tasteless Burkinabé lagers I can chug. I don't know if I can handle America, where everything costs the nassara price no matter how much you try to haggle and the meat comes from some giant animal called a “cow” and the beer comes in strange, dark colors. Jill assures me I'll be ok, but I'm not so sure. Well, that's all the writing I can muster for now. Hope you've enjoyed it! PS-I love Jill and hereby promise to make her all the chocolate chip cookies she wants whenever she wants when we get back to America.

Burkina is very hard to like sometimes. Regardless of how well integrated you are in your community, how well you speak the local language, how much your students' critical thinking skills have improved, as soon as you go somewhere people don't know you, you're just another white person. Since I'm a white person in Africa, I've been yelled at by children and adults, I've had touristy souvenirs shoved in my face so aggressively I have to push them out of the way so I can pass, men have grabbed me while I'm on my bike and through taxi windows, I've been laughed at, I've been stolen from. The way white people are treated is not going to change. The best a volunteer can do is try and ignore it and not let it get to you.

For two years I've had my blinders on, I've rationalized people's actions, and I've tried not to generalize one person's bad behavior to everyone. But yesterday, when I biked past a group of men doing road work and had dirt purposefully thrown at me, all my hard earned defenses against harassment broke down. Why would anyone throw dirt at a stranger? That's just awful no matter what country you're in and what race you are. Seeing that I was upset, Markus went back to the group of men, who just yelled and laughed at him. We sat down at the bar where we were meeting some friends, and I had a clear view of the road workers, who stared and laughed at me while I struggled not to cry. It didn't take long, though, before I had my emotions under control and was able to pay attention to the conversation.

It's my last month in Burkina, and I'd like very much to enjoy myself as I say goodbye to my home of two years, but things like this just make me happy to leave this place. It's hard, at the end of your service, not to instill every little experience with more meaning than it deserves. Just like it's hard not to feel incredibly silly when you catch yourself thinking, “Oh, poor little white me. I have so much money and opportunity and I'm being harassed by Africans.” But some behaviors just can't be excused by such major issues as slavery, colonialism, and poverty. Some behaviors are just people being assholes. Realizing that those men are just jerks and observing how quickly I squashed my feelings of self-pity made me feel much better about myself. Living in Burkina has made me much more resilient, which makes all the bad treatment I've experienced worth it.

I'm close to finishing the second step in my life plan. Yes, I'm so Type Anal that I have a four step life plan. Step 1. College. Step 2. Peace Corps. Step 3. Grad school. Step 4. Moderately successful career teaching at a university and researching monkey brains and leech neurons. (And of course I have extensive to do lists for each step. To Do: Publish paradigm-shifting article in Science. Remember to compliment Markus's new beer.) However, things haven't gone completely according to my plan. I didn't expect that Peace Corps would take four years—one year to apply, two years to actually do it, and one year to quit speaking Franglais and making weird Burkinabé gestures and sounds. And I definitely didn't expect that I'd pick up a pesky husband along the way who'd follow me across the world like a puppy with a passport. When I decided to do Peace Corps with Markus, some people warned me not to. They said that I'd miss out on the full experience and that we'd get divorced just like 70% of the other dumbass couples who think diarrhea, sweat stains, and copious amounts of vomit is a good start to a happy, long-lasting marriage. I'll never know if I would have had a better or worse time if I'd come as a single volunteer. Instead of guys hitting on me, I deal with guys ignoring me—the moral of the story seems to be that guys are annoying. But I do feel that after going through all this craziness—some good, some bad, some really fucking weird—we can handle the rest. The water bill's ridiculously expensive because Markus refuses to give up his daily bubble bath, but at least we have water. Markus and Joel have been hard at work playing video games and talking about their facial hair all week, but at least Markus isn't out marrying his second, third, or fourth wife. Jill Jr. poured sea monkeys into Markus's new batch of beer, but at least we can afford to buy her pants. I don't know how closely real life will follow my life plan. The trend in neuroscience seems to be to make a career-derailing decision and accidentally discover something huge. Neuroscientists' success stories are like nerdy Bad Idea Jeans commercials: “Yeah, I had tenure at Harvard Medical School, but I figured why not quit my job, move to New Zealand, and study turtles?” Bad Idea Jeans. So, I have no idea if I'll end up in elbow patches or a scuba suit. But it is nice to know that Markus will always be there to provide me with plenty of beer.

By guest writer Troy McClure, spokesman for the Burkinabé Ministry of Tourism Enjoy the charming company of Burkina's world-renowned faux types. As soon as you leave the airport, you'll be pleased to find helpful men all around you offering to carry your bag, find you a taxi, sell you phone cards, and helpfully point you to their store where you can find the African drum you've always wanted. Don't listen to the cynical Peace Corps Volunteers who will tell you that “faux type” means “false type.” In Burkina Faso “faux” means “friendly.” That they are! Play in Burkina's very own version of the Olympics: transport! The first event is the Mad Scramble for a Seat. Push, shove, claw, and climb your way to a primo spot on the bus. Next is a group event: The Sardine Squish. Just how many people can fit into a bus? All aisles, overhead shelves, and laps must be filled! And the final event is the most extreme event of all: Get off the Bus! Go! Go! Go! Who will be the first off the bus? Will it be you? Go on an African safari! Have you ever seen a goat? How about a chicken? Burkina's got them all! Experience the worst night of sleep of your life! Sleep outside and let the soothing sounds of nature lull you to sleep: donkeys squeaking, goats blehing, and of course malaria-riddled mosquitoes buzzing by your head. Too hot for you? Don't worry. A dust storm will cool you down while also depositing most of the Sahara in your bed. Night night!

The life cycle of a Peace Corps Volunteer is one of my favorite things. It's a chart of volunteers' freak outs and good days over their twenty-seven months of service and it has more loops and turns than a roller coaster. When they arrive in their host country, some people are skeptical that it will accurately reflect their experience. Not me. I'm not one of those there's-always-an-exception people. I like to shove square-shaped people into round holes and look at the overall pattern of behavior. So I wasn't surprised when my service followed the chart almost exactly.Training was a zig-zag of “Aww, Peace Corps. I'm an amazing person because I'm doing an amazing thing for the world. This is all so amazing” and “Holy crap, we have another French class?! And it's all the way across town at a crappy bar with almost as many kids trying to sell you phone cards as there are flies. Booooo!” After moving to Titao, I rode the roller coaster up as I got more and more comfortable with teaching, then plummeted down when I hit the one year mark and realized I'd have to do it all over again. I climbed up again during my second year teaching, enjoying being more confident in everything I did. Drawing giant amoebas on the board, explaining complicated things like photosynthesis and the difference between asexual and sexual reproduction, keeping the class from rioting when I handed back tests, grading intimidating stacks of tests in record time—I could do it all. Now I'm supposed to be on a down slope as I freak out about leaving. But thanks to the weirdly-timed vacation, I'm not. Instead, the psychology lobe in my brain has been lit up while I've compared the two countries and how I react to them. Americans use all their money, creativity, and hedonism to make their world as insanely colorful, comfortable, and interesting as they can. There's so much to look at—fancy shoes, hybrid cars, colorful billboards (not to mention the goat-sized house cats). When I came back to Burkina, I looked down at people's cracked feet stuffed into broken, paper-thin flip flops; I got into a gross old Mercedes taxi with sagging seats and no seatbelts or door handles; and I looked at all the hilariously bad drawings advertising telecenters and barber shops. But then I realized I was wearing the Burkinabé flip flops I'd felt so self-conscious wearing in America. I no longer had to remind myself to reach for the seatbelt and door handle. And the crappy pictures of dudes with misshapen heads sitting in barber chairs were familiar and comforting. Even though I probably looked like I knew what I was doing in America, I didn't feel like it. At times I felt as self-conscious as I had in junior high. But back in Burkina, despite everyone staring at the white woman—what's she going to do next?!—I felt completely at ease. It's very strange to feel more comfortable in a foreign country than in your own country. But I think it means I've become well integrated into Burkinabé culture without even realizing it. And I had such a nice time in America I'm looking forward to going back after I've had time to say goodbye to Burkina. So I guess I'm a little more square-shaped than I'd thought.

By guest speaker Markus Fleisch

Wow, Patrick and Connie, you guys are getting married. As people mentioned yesterday, this is a very international wedding. Jill and I wanted to say thanks for getting us out of Africa. Incidentally I have two return tickets to Burkina Faso, which happens to be the honeymoon destination of choice for 12 million Burkinabe. And don’t worry about those Fiji tickets, Jill and I will take good care of them.

So I was trying to think about what to say last night—that's right, I’m a procrastinator and I thought I could start pulling out the stories and embarrass you—but I think the slide show did my job for me. As a quick side note, that little kid with the blond afro was not actually me; it was my twin. I had a much more sensible haircut.

So after that I thought maybe I could give you some advice since I’ve been married for three and a half years. Or at least I’m someone who you could call in case you need some advice on how to deal with a difficult situation. But then I started to think about which situations you might call me in. Being married in Africa is really different than being married in America. Say for example, you’re outside sleeping under your mosquito net and you’re giving Connie a back massage when out of the corner of your eye, you see a spider the size of your forearm crawling up the side of the tent. This is a situation where I can help you. Or maybe Connie comes home from a really hard day of work. She’s been trying to teach 100 African children the difference between living things and inanimate objects and they still think the wind is alive. What do you say? How do you comfort her? You can tell her, “I know it's not you. You taught me the wind isn't alive, so it's not your teaching; it's the kids.” So I thought giving advice is out too.

Finally, I thought maybe I could tell you what I think marriage is and how it's different than any relationship you have with friends, family, and even Connie while you guys were dating. We've all heard the life as a roller coaster metaphor. You've got your ups, your downs, loops, and those twisty things that make you really sick. For me, those twisty things have been giardia, E. coli, amoebas, and blasto. They're not as much fun as a roller coaster. So you have a roller coaster and all of your family and friends have roller coasters too. Sometimes your roller coasters might get pretty close and you may go through the same up, the same down, the same loop, or the same corkscrew, but eventually, the roller coasters will always diverge. You'll never be in the same cart as your friends and family. With Connie, it's different. Now that you're married, Connie has done the death-defying stunt of jumping from her cart into your cart. It was amazing, you guys should have been there to see it. For the feminists out there, Patrick, you've jumped into Connie's cart. What this means in real life is that you and Connie have the strongest bond you're going to find in this life. Everything you do affects Connie and everything Connie does affects you. With that in mind, I wish you two the best of luck and hope your marriage is as special, life-changing, and beneficial as mine is. Congratulations.

Supposedly when you go back to the States after two years, you have a honeymoon period followed by reverse culture shock that's much worse than when you left the States. Me and America, we've been having a great time. We've been spending our honeymoon tucked into a giant bed with a firm mattress and fluffy pillows, snuggled in real tight because it's cold outside. We've been having a lot of yummy meals, eating way more sushi and cheesecake than any sane person should. We've been walking down the streets of San Francisco against a brisk wind, struggling to stay upright while walking up and down and up the hills. We've been riding the cable cars, unselfconsciously enjoying the operators' sassy attitudes intended for the tourists' enjoyment. We've been on a shopping spree, feeling like a million bucks while spending what might as well be a million bucks.

But we've also been confused as to what to do after finishing our hotel coffee in styrofoam cups before realizing you're supposed to throw them away after one use. We've been really annoyed by the small amounts of litter on the otherwise glistening streets. We've been worried we're acting strangely--always taking and giving things with our right hand; our feelings of extreme gratitude whenever a waiter asks us if we need anything; our savoring every drop of coffee that takes longer than five seconds to make and beer that's not the color of pee. We've felt very scared by the cars whizzing by us on the freeway.

So, while America and I are still going strong, we're aware that, as in any relationship, there might be rough times ahead. Especially since I haven't broken up with Burkina Faso yet.

Sitting in the stuffy teacher's lounge, gearing up to zone out for the next two tedious hours, during the end of year conseil, I was in full on nostalgic, this-is-the-end mode. But then the drink list came around. "Mr Markus" followed by "Mme Markus." I angrily crossed them both off and replaced one Markus with Fleisch and the other with McKay, just like I've done with every drink list and official school document I've seen in the past two years. Then I wrote "Fanta" in bold, angry letters. Instead of the orange, sickly sweet I've come to crave, my Fanta tasted like two years of not listening, not changing, and not caring. Any bittersweet feelings I'd had about leaving Burkina turned into just bitter feelings when I saw that damn drink list.

I've always thought names were important and I know I'm not the only one. Quick! Tiffany, Jamal, Alexander--which one's the cheerleader, which one's the basketball player, and which one's the rich kid? Also Mr. and Mrs. Frank Thompson vs. Sarah and John Williams--which one's the conservative couple? How about Jill and Markus McKay-Fleisch? We've decided that we're going to legally change our names soon after we get back to reflect that we're in an equal relationship (and that we're both quite fond of our "maiden" names--"the fiery and impetuous one" and "meat"). I'm looking forward to having an identity again after two years of Madame No Identity, Madame Not Worthy of a Proper Name, Madame Husband's Property. I know Madame Markus will be a funny story one day, but it's not that funny when it's the only name you've got.

I've really enjoyed being a teacher in Burkina. Notice I said "being a teacher" and not "teaching." There's a big difference. Teaching in Burkina means forcing yourself to start class at least five minutes late even though all the American cells in your body are yelling "You're late! You're late!" Then, as the late students stream into class, you look out the door and see the rest of the teachers cruising into the school yard on their motos, standing around chatting, and casually strolling to class twenty minutes after you started teaching. It means attempting to enlighten your students about the wonders of bugs while sweat drips off your face, down your armpits, and all over your back. Then going into the teachers' lounge and hearing the other teachers exclaim, "Madame! You sweat a lot!" Which gets them on the topic of how hot it is in Burkina and how white people can't handle the heat and is it hot in America like it's hot here? It means having English, which had been so solidly entrenched in your brain, conquered by French so that you struggle to pronounce simple words like "pollination" and "vertebrate" and don't even ask me what the English word for those pictures you draw on the board to represent things like the organization of the body of a snail is because I have no clue.

However, being a teacher in Burkina means that when someone asks you, "Are you a tourist?" and you say, "No, I'm a teacher at the Titao lycée," they immediately warm up to you, ask you how their little Fatimata is doing in SVT, and sometimes offer you rides to neighboring towns in their air conditioned Mercedes so you don't have to climb into the back of a truck full of cows. It means hearing "Bonjour, Madame" from respectfully curtsying students every time you go into town. It means getting two free beers and half of a delicious Moussa-grilled chicken as a reward for sitting through a tedious school meeting. It means receiving the occasional squirming, clucking, cock-a-doodle-dooing chicken from a student trying to kiss ass. It means knowing what you're doing and why you're doing it in this sweltering dust bowl of a country.

I've had a fun time being a teacher and teaching. I'll miss the review sessions when I ask a question like "What are the reproductive glands in a man?" and 100 students shout in unison "The testicles!" I'll miss handing back a paper with "Bon travail!" written on the top next to a sticker of a dinosaur and seeing the kid acting like a bad ass, fanning himself with his paper with a cocky look on his face, trying to make sure everyone around him sees his grade. I'll miss the time I got to announce to all the teachers in our end of trimester meeting that the highest scoring student in the class I calculate grades for was a girl and hearing their surprised, pleased reactions. I'll miss when I announce that the highest grade on a test was a perfect score and the whole class claps.

So, I was feeling a little sad when I walked into my last class ever. Luckily, my students are really very thoughtful. They went out of their way to bomb their last test. And in really dumb ways, too. Many of their answers were just the question rephrased. And knowing that I have a million tests to grade, some of them made it easier for me by answering "Why" questions with just "Oui." And the guys whose tests I graded last blatantly cheated so that the last thing I did as a teacher was to write "Cheating!" in big, red letters on their tests. They're so sweet!

And then there were the students who'd figured out that after being their teacher for two years, I'm not coming back next year. They're the ones who've been stopping by the house to exchange addresses so we can write, who've been very politely carrying my bag to my bike for me after class, and who wished me "Bon voyage!" as I left the classroom. Those jerks, making it hard for me to leave this place.

Take 100 parts adolescent boys and girls,

1 part sexually repressed culture,

1 part white teacher,

and a twist of naughty words,

shake, shake, shake, and serve chilled.

I'm convinced the Burkina SVT textbook writers put sex ed at the end of the book to act as a litmus test for new teachers. “So you think you're a good teacher, huh? You've got your neatly organized lesson plans, your pretty little diagrams, and your stock discipline phrases.  Now let's see how you do saying 'penis' to a classroom stuffed with immature 12-year-olds. Then we'll see who's a good teacher.”

When I taught sex ed last year, despite having taught for several months, I felt a little like I had during the first week of school: butterflies in my stomach, trying to get through it quickly. This year I'm just the opposite. I confidently write “testicules” and “scrotum” on the board in big, bold letters, feeling a bit like Martin Luther. Then I unselfconsciously explain how “les spermatozoîdes” fertilize “les ovules.” And the kids giggle and ask me to explain it again, so I do, and they giggle some more. I encourage them to laugh, just as long as they take it seriously and study it. God knows that with an average of six children to every woman, these kids need to learn about what happens when they have sex.

But the problem is, these kids are laughing at all the wrong things. They stoically listen as I list male and female genitalia, then crack up when I describe menstruation. I should give them a lesson on sex humor. Lesson one: testicles are way funnier than ovaries. Discuss.

I'd say I've passed the test. Once you've taught sex ed eight times to approximately 800 Africans (that's got to be a world record), you can do anything.

You are the last to arrive at school in the morning. You're a bit frazzled because on the bike ride to school you got pummeled by a windstorm (but at least your skin is soft and exfoliated!), then when you tried to get a drink of water you spilled it on your shirt, making it look like you're lactating, and to top it all off, your bike fell over on top of you. You go to the line of teacher. What do you do?

-For start shaking hands, go to number 1.

-For stop, look, and listen, go to number 2.

You spot an old man in a boubou shuffling toward you. Having never seen him before, you figure it's the village chief. What do you do?

-For respectfully shake his hand, go to number 3.

-For blow him off, go to number 4.

You're devouring one of Moussa's famous chickens, getting shinier and shinier with chicken grease when you spot your buddy Ibrahim walking toward you. What do you do?

-For snap him go to number 5.

-For wrist him go to number 6.

You're walking down the street when a gang of small, pants-less kids spots you. They run at you with their little hands out. What do you do?

-For shake their hands go to number 7.

-For bump fists go to number 8.

1. CRASH! You didn't see the beefy gym teacher coming down the line toward you. After accidentally knocking you down, he and the other teachers point and laugh at your shirt. Way to go, loser.

2. Holy shit, it's the gym teacher! You duck, narrowly avoiding getting clothes lined as he reaches out to shake the principal's hand. Everyone claps and pats you on the back, congratulating you on your athletic prowess.

3. You give him the ultimate handshake: you hold your right arm just above the elbow with your left hand as you shake, then you touch your right hand to your chest. While smugly congratulating yourself on your cultural appropriateness, you notice everyone laughing at you. Then you notice the chicken on the chief's head. That's not the chief! It's the village nut! Honored by your respectful handshake the village nut follows you around like a puppy, occasionally offering you his chicken hat.

4. What the . . . Is that a chicken?! Run away!

5. “Hey, dude,” you say and attempt to snap his fingers with your own. But all the chicken grease on your hand glues your hands together and now everyone thinks you're dating. How embarrassing.

6. You offer one shiny wrist, which he grasps. He's a little grossed out by all the grease (and the drumstick stuck in your teeth) but at least you're not stuck together.

7. Aww, how adorable! You shake each of their tiny hands one by one. After they run away, you notice your hand feels itchy. Oh dear God, what is that? Hopefully they won't have to amputate.

8. You make a fist and say “Tampon.” They tampon you back, bumping their tiny fists against yours. Just for fun, you then teach them to put their fists in the air and say “Black power!” Preach it.

By guest writer Kindo Angèle Fanta

I'm so ready for this math test. I know all the formulas and I memorized all the problems we did in class so there's no way I can fail. I better get started. I only have two hours.

Phew! I've been working for ten minutes and got half a problem done. Better take a break. Let's see what everyone else is up to. There's Belem Issoufou trying the oldest cheating move in the book, The Visor, put your hand on your brow and use your peripheral vision to see what's on your neighbors' paper. Too bad he sits next to the two stupidest kids in class. OH! Check out Zango Salimata, she just did the Stretch-and-Look. She put her hands way up in the air and, while yawning, casually glanced at her neighbor's paper. Damn, I hope she got an answer because Mr. Fleisch is walking over to take two points off for that one. Nice try, Salimata. Oh man, only one hour left. I should get going.

So tired! Three problems done out of ten, good enough for me! What else is happening in the classroom? There are thirty minutes left so people are starting to get desperate. Boïna Boureima is doing the Duck and Cover where you put your head in line with another student's head so Mr. Fleisch can't see you talking to your neighbor. Wow, Zorom Issouf is just looking at his neighbor's paper without hiding or covering. Ballsy! Ganamé Abdoul Rahim is doing the U-Turn where you turn around as if stretching your back and look at the tests behind you. Gamsonré Soumaïla is holding his test up and the people behind him are all copying his answers. What a nice guy. OH SNAP! Ganamé Boureima just picked up his paper, pointed to it, looked at his neighbor, and had a conversation about it. Mr. Fleisch just kicked both of them out.

Five minutes left. Ouermi Mariam is holding up a sign that says “#4.” That's a new one, but it seems to be working--someone just threw a piece of paper at her. Oh, too bad, Mr Fleisch saw that one too and they both got kicked out. Crap, time's up and I only did three problems. Oh well, I'll just cheat on the next test to make up for it.

Note from Markus: Thanks Fanta for your eye-opening report on cheating in the classroom. Yes, I have seen all of these methods except for the last one.

By guest writer Ouédraogo Doudou.

I've sure learned a lot from Madame McKay. She taught me about the scientific method. I now know that the reason biologists do experiments is because it's a fern. That explains a lot.

Madame also taught me a lot about plants. Basically, plants have three parts: the mushroom, the cat, and the goat. Plants are capable of reproducing two ways: good reproduction and bad reproduction. The difference between these two types of reproduction is peanut. And some plants live under water. These plants are called fish.

I also learned a lot about animals. I used to think that only goats, sheep, and donkeys were animals. Now I know that the wind and water are animals too. Also trotting is an animal and it moves by jumping. Animals are funny. Snakes, fish, and horses walk on two legs, which is really weird considering horses have no legs. And cows are carnivores that hunt down and kill herbs before eating them. These herbs are digested in their anus.

Madame also introduced us to new types of test questions like fill-in-the-blank and true or false. I think the fill-in-the-blanks are fun because I fill them in like Mad Libs with any word I want like “bile” or “beer.” I used to think the true or false part was really tough because it says to write a corrected sentence if the answer is false, but I didn't get it, so I just wrote “false” and Madame counted it wrong. Then I figured it out: Now I write “False. A corrected sentence.” I can tell by the look on Madame's face that she's really pleased with me now!

I've learned so much from Madame!

Note from Jill: These are actual answers that my friend Caroline and I have gotten on our SVT tests. I'm not making this up.

When volunteers get together, they invariably talk about food. Hot topics of conversation include “What do you miss more, burritos or sushi?” and “McDonald's or Burger King, which has the better breakfast?” (Answers: sushi and McDonald's.) And if someone back in the States asks me what I'm looking forward to, I'll probably say good food and air conditioning and hot showers. But I say that just because it's easier than saying what I'm really looking forward to. Which is reflecting on my experience here and figuring out what the hell happened over the past two years.

I didn't have any particular interest in Africa before coming to Africa. I had vague ideas about wood masks, tribal scars, and cool dancing as well as AIDS, malaria, and war. Not surprisingly, the reality hasn't been that good nor that bad. I'm bored with traditional dancing, which is way less aerobic than I was led to believe--it mostly consists of old ladies holding rags and droning a song while shuffling around in a circle. And as for the bad, the AIDS rate in Burkina is very low, Burkinabé catch malaria as if it were the common cold, and other than the occasional riot, the country's peaceful.

Frankly, Burkina Faso is boring. It's not really known for anything except for being a stop over on the way to more interesting countries like Mali. Even National Geographic agrees. In a cover story about the Sahel, they featured every country the Sahel passes through except Burkina. Sheesh.

So what's a girl supposed to do when she's just spent two years in what just might be the most boring country in a continent she really has no interest in? I guess I'll digest and reflect by reading what I've written about this place, talking to RPCVs, and looking at photos. I'm a little hesitant to look at photos, though, for two reasons. The first is that photos of this place have the eerie quality of changing the reality of things. I look out my front door and see my neighbor's pants-less kids playing with a bike tire. No big deal. then I take a picture and suddenly I have a photo of adorable little African kids playing with their little homemade toy, and oh look, they have no pants, isn't that just so cute?! It's very spooky. The other reason is I don't want my memories to be skewed by photos. Humans are so visual and so dumb that we make up stories that never even happened so our memories match our photos. So if I look at my photos that have that eerie AFRICAN quality to them, I'm going to think this place was way more interesting than it is. But that wouldn't be so bad, would it?