This is a great talk I came across today. I have yet to read any of Abani's books, but after seeing this I'd like to. He talks a bit about the Nuance of an entire continent and I've found that to be the case: Africa is incredibly complex and nuanced and it's impossible to distill it down to the few news stories that make it out.

Here is an interesting talk given, ironically, roughly at the time that I was leaving for Peace Corps by Hans Rosling, Professor of International Health. Rather than lumping countries into "First World" and "Third World" or "Industrialized" and "Developing", our technology gives us the ability to treat and track individual statistics of individual countries. Granted, the validity of the data is still an issue. But this speech calls for a better appreciation of the immense complexities of development.

P.S. If you watch to the end I guarantee you'll be surprised...

I couldn't resist the urge to post this Old Spice ad.

Hilarious!

Here are a few more photos of Port-Au-Prince three weeks after the earthquake that has killed as many as 300,000 people.

http://bit.ly/biIC6j

Here are new photos from Haiti.

These are some of the most heart-rending and terrible photos I've ever seen...

In light of the recent Earthquake in Haiti many organizations are scrambling to help those injured and/or left homeless. If you are looking to help, the best way I know is through Partners in Health.

Please look at http://www.standwithhaiti.org/

If you haven't heard of Partners in health and would prefer a name you are familiar with check out this article in the Christian Science Monitor. It recommends six ways to donate.

For the most recent photos of Haiti, check out this site hosted by the Boston Globe.

Hi All,

My mom recently came to spend two weeks with me in Burkina Faso. We travelled all over the country and got quite a range climates and peoples. We started in the very north of the country, part of a large geographical band called the Sahel that seperates the Sahara from the Savanna closer to the coast. There we rode on camels, learned about the trans-saharan salt trade and watched the sun set over the sand dunes.

From there we travelled to Boulsa, my former village to celebrate Christmas amoung friends and to plant trees at the school where I taught for two years. The trees were provided courtesy of my Uncle Ken. Thanks Uncle Ken!

Then we traveled to the very southern-western edge of the country to see some interesting rock formations, large animals and bask in the amenities of the much wealthier southern populations.

To see the best of my photos click here.

Here are a few highlights:

My cousin Curtis recently came to visit Burkina Faso for a few days. While time was limited, we managed to cram a lot of stuff in. His visit was almost extended thanks to some ornery visa officers but he managed to leave in good time and good health.

On his first day we spent most of the day on a drive to the Nazinga Game Ranch near the Burkina/Ghana border. I'd been there once before and was amazed at how many animals we'd seen. The second time around Nazinga continued to deliver. We saw tons of animals in a span of less than 24 hours! See a link to pictures below.

On the second day we spent the morning in Nazinga and the afternoon climbing the Nahouri Peak. It's one of the highest points in Burkina Faso and provides probably the best view in Burkina. It took a while to find but we ended up climbing it with time to spare. We were joined by a few kids who said that we had to greet the local chief before being aloud to climb the mountain. While at first this seems legitmate, it turned out that the kids were really just trying to scam us into paying "tribute" to the "chief" who, upon meeting him, was definitely not a chief. So Curt got a little taste of the select few people who try to take advantage of foreigners too. Infrequent but very annoying.

The third day we spent just walking around the market of Ouagadougou.

When Curt had arrived his passport was confiscated because there were some issues with his entry visa. We made several trips to the airport on his last day trying to get it back. About 3 hours before his scheduled take off, he was approved for a Burkina Faso aentry visa and his passport was returned to him.

All-in-all I'm really glad he was able to make it! It's so hard to describe what its like to be here. Just being here for a few days is worth more than thousands of words.

Check out photos from Curt's recent visit to Burkina: HERE.

Happy Turkey Day!

...and thanks to those who prepared a great Peace Corps-style Turkey dinner.

Late last night the ousted President Manuel Zelaya and interim government leader Roberto Micheletti signed agreement "that could open the way for Zelaya's reinstatement". See the Washignton Post article here.

I've been paying particularly close attention to this situation because I helped engineer a water treatment plant prototype installed in Ojojona, Honduras outside of Tegucigalpa in 2006. The people I met there were extraordinarily welcoming, even to someone who knew no spanish what-so-ever. I wish peace for them as soon as possible and I'm encouraged by this first step forward.

I recently traveled to the Dogon Country.

This is a region of eastern Mali (and western Burkina Faso) where the Dogon people have lived for several hundred years. The Tellem people preceded them in the area and many visitors come to learn more about both the Dogon and Tellem cultures. The Dogon people may be most famous for being implicated in one of the most plausible (this isn't saying much) theories asserting that aliens have visited Earth: in the early 20th century, the Dogon people purportedly had astronomical beliefs confirmed by astronomers decades later. However, the timeline is a little suspect.

I have posted pictures of my trip in Picasa as a make-shift photo journal of our trip. Sorry to disappoint those of you who have already seen my pictures on Facebook. These are exactly the same:

Dogon Country photos

Here are a few more:

Read more for yourself on wikipedia:

Dogon People

Dog Star: Dogon Contoversy

Tellem People

In the next few weeks I'm going to be adding all my old photos to Picasa, but for now I want to make sure that everyone can access them via Facebook. Here are the links to my most recent Facebook photo albums:

Burkina Faso: Year 1

Christmas in Ghana

Burkina Faso: Year 2

Flooding in Ouagadougou

Looking back through my history, the last updates I sent were in March '09, Oct '08 and May '08! "Few and far between" might be a good way to put it. So here's an update:

The last 6 months of my life have mostly been a blur. As per usual, I ended up with no transition time between old and new. May was spent mostly working on grades and report cards and other administrative things at school. At the end of the school year we had several parties (3 or 4 in a weekend). One of which was hosted by the equivalent of the Parent Teacher Association. I was surprised when the president of the PTA stood up to recognize me for the two years that I'd spent working at the school. It was really nice to get some credit for my work from the people I work with. I've grown to expect mostly shouts of "foreigner", requests for visas to America and requests for electronics from America. However, at the end of the meal I was even more surprised when the president stood up again and said he had a present to give me on behalf of the PTA and the school. He revealed a box, gift-wrapped with a bow, and passed it to the school director who then presented it to me (there's a picture of us shaking hands and looking at the camera). When I opened it, it was an absolutely beautiful traditional cotton "boubou" most closely resembling a nightshirt. Grown, processed and dyed in Burkina, it is a symbol of wisdom and respect not easily attained. I didn't really know what to say. I did my best to thank everyone for their hospitality, their constant help with my french and their friendship and guidance over the last two years. I never expected to receive such concrete recognition of my service. I was able to leave Boulsa on a positive note.

And leave I did, for Ouagadougou, in the last days of May.

Since June 1st I've been working for Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in Ouaga. I've been doing a range of different jobs but my essential task has been to evaluate some specific projects that have ended in order to improve future projects. I've been lucky enough to work for CRS during the preparation of their 5 year funding proposal to USAID so a lot of what I do feeds back in to the proposal. Its is certainly a learning experience to understand how these sorts of things work.

The hardest things I've hard to work on so far is adjusting from village life to city life. Though I am still technically a Peace Corps volunteer, I don't feel much like it anymore (though I'm still making a volunteer's salary!) There are a lot of ups and downs to the transition. The perks include such things as a nice apartment with running water, a refrigerator and air conditioning, and access to a gym, a pool and the internet. The pitfalls include much less time spent in community, much more time staring at computer screens and very little time to persue personal interests or just relax!

One of the reasons I chose to stay in Ouagadougou was to have the "urbain african experience" which certainly worlds away from village life. Some people I encounter are well-educated, have option on litterature, culture and world politics. Some, unlike in village, are surrounded by city and have to travel several kilometers just to get to the field where they cultivate their crops. Some wear suits to work everyday and enjoy the luxury of their Mercedes. Some watched their mud houses melt before their eyes in the recent floods.

There is quite a range of life in Ouaga but almost every traveler I've run into hasn't hesitated expound on how Ouaga is much nicer than any of the other capital cities they have been to. It is generally clean, well-organized and has many fewer blackouts than most. Some of the architecture is quite interesting as well. Many buildings are a combination of concrete bricks and poured concrete allowing for some unusual shapes.

All told, I'm glad I get to spend a little more time in Burkina. I cherish the time that I get to spend relaxing with the overwhelmingly courteous people I find here. The longer I am here, the more I see the depth of welcoming and friendship in the general culture. I'm glad that I have a few (much sought-after) creature comforts to help me through my day.

I'm also glad to be heading home in late March 2010. After almost 3 years living in Burkina Faso I've grown to miss a lot of friends and family. I've missed weddings, funerals, Christmas and Easter. But I'm still trying to live in the here and now, and its not time to reminisce just yet.

I've been pondering many a thing lately, but since I am woefully behind in keeping you up on my life in general, I will save those things for another email. I hope that you are all well and warm and it starts to cool down on the other side of the planet (I'm rather envious of you really). Now that I have regular email access I'd love to get back in touch with many of you! Let me know how life, love and all your pursuits of happiness are proceeding! I can't wait to see all of you face to face again.

Good News!

I have unofficially accepted a third year position with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) working out of Ouagadougou (keeping me in Burkina Faso until atleast August of 2010). I will mostly likely be in the microfinance department, but I will have the opportunity to work on varying projects (including water, sanitation and irrigation). I had an interview last night with the Country Representative for Burkina and it went very well. I'm very excited about this opportunity.

At this point, its a matter of coordinating the bureaucracies of Peace Corps and CRS to do paperwork and work things out. Since there are already some PCVs working there, this should not be too difficult.

Thank you so much for your continued support. I always love getting updates so don't be shy!

Harvesting season. We just finished the first week of school. I haven't done much real teaching yet. Mostly just introductory stuff. This I will be teaching two math classes and a biology class. Since I will be teaching more advanced material this year, my classes will be slightly smaller. However, between 3 classes, I will still have more than 300 students. Also, quite happily, I start at 7 every morning this year which will allow me, by and large, to avoid teaching in the hottest parts of the day.

I recently found out that 99 out of 101 students from one of last year's classes passed into the next grade. This is quite a great surprise. I simultaneously discovered that, of another class at the same level, only 50% passed! Sadly, this statistic is the more common one. In my province only 8% of the estimated school-age population attends secondary school. In fact, my province is the lowest in the country. Thankfully, Plan International has put a lot of work into building new schools as well as school latrines, cafeterias, water pumps, et cetera and the government is in the process of making middle school education free to all students (primary school is already free, thanks in large part, to the Millennium Development Goals).

I have two other initiatives which are now in fulling swing. The first is a school garden.

When I arrived in Boulsa, a garden had been established but subsequently abandoned. We planted several trees and crops before and during the rainy season. But with the rains gone and students filling the classrooms again, its time to launch a year-round student gardening project. Using bio-intensive techniques and planting rare, nutrient-ruch vegetables such as carrots will produce a garden wich could have a large impact on malnourished stduents. There is a "kitchen" at the school which, when food is actually available to be cooked, provides lunches for students. Students will be growing their own vegetables and then eating them! Also, once crops have been harvested, we are going to be doubling the size of the garden thanks to a request from the principal of the school.

My other extracurricular has been the promotion and distribution of the tree Moring oelifera, know in local language as arzan tiiga, the tree of paradise. While it does not live up to its name in appearance, its nutritional value is incredible. 100 grams od the dried, powdered leaf added to an infant's diet equals 1100% daily required value of Vitamin C, 443% of Vitamin A, 110% of Calcium and 42 % of protein. All four of these nutrients are otherwise rare in a local diet. Meat and oranges (amoung other sources) are available but too expensive for many families.

Since June, when Bazié (the school lab tech) and I began growing Moringa, we have distributed more than 300 trees. An orphanage and a center for malnourished infants have been our biggest benefactors. My personal goal is to establish a market for the leaf powder. Moringa is well known, but its nutritional value is not.

So, as you can see, I've been rather busy. And although I've intended several times to write an update, this is the first time in a long time that I've sat down to do it. I'm sorry about that. I will try to be more consistent this year. Please continue to send your updates and messages. I love to read them when I get the chance. I hope you all are enjoying some chilly weather for me!

I've added some new photos to my facebook website:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2128074&l=67e48&id=417050

If you have facebook, you can also watch two videos that I've posted giving you a better idea of the landscape.

Rain, Rain, please don't go away.

I promise I'll plant lots of plants if you stay.

Its just that its been so hot every day.

Maybe you can keep all this dust at bay.

It's raining! Now, that doesn't quite mean the same thing here. This rain last about 5 minutes and got most of the ground wet. But with it comes a nice 10 degree dropp in temperature, which is like sweet nectar to my parched body. The average high here has been about 42 C in the shade. Which might translate to like 110 F.

And the last major rain I can remember was in September or maybe the beginning of August (The definition, again, of MAJOR rain being rather variable).

This dry season has seen many, many highs and lows.

Christmas was an amazing adventure to Ghana, with a 5 day stay on the beach. A better, more needed rest could not have been had.

Since Christmas, much as it is in America, those early months were quite slow and tedious. Do I really want to be here, away from everyone I love, in this desolate place, surviving in a language I don't entirely understand? Sitting twiddling my thumbs through other languages that I completely don't undestand?

But now I have come to a turning point in several senses.

My french is getting better and better. I've come to a point where I can actually be myself and be comfortable in the classroom. This makes teaching a million times easier and more enjoyable. I can actually engage the kids instead of just copying on the board. I can make jokes with them and tease them. Which I think is a great teaching strategy, just for the record.

At the same, the school year is coming to a close. We have exactly 2 weeks left to take grades before the trimester is over. It is sadly ironic that I have come to a point of being so comfortable teaching right when it is about to end. But it gives me greqt confidence thqt I will be more equiped to teach even more clqsses next year.

At the same time, I number of different projects are about to come off the ground.

With the rain starting to come, I'm helping to restart an abandonned school garden. Hopefully this will allow me to start teaching some of the locals about Morenga trees which is highly adapted to desert climates and whose leaves are extremely nutritious.

On May 15th I'm going to start a movie night at school! This will hopefully be an outdoor movie projected onto a screen with loudspeakers. All 1400 students will be invited...so we'll see just how that turns out. The first film will be a african drama centered around the effects of AIDS in the community. Highly entertaining. Hopefully a good start to a series of events.

The computer lab at the school is finally up and running. When I arrived, it was brand new and working perfectly until a virus corrupted the server. That was in October... So after a lot of international communication and frustration, there are 20 computers that connect to the internet via satellite (1 of which I am using). Both air conditionners are still broken, but that is a relatively minor issue.

During the planting season, I'm also hoping to get some more shade trees planted around the school. It sits on top of a very gradal hill and gets A LOT of wind and direct sunlight. Thankfully, the lab technician (who is the brains behind the school garden) is very interested in this and trees are very cheap. I can get 5 Neem or Mango trees for about 1 US dollar (Which at the moment also happens to be 1 canadian dollar!).

So all of a sudden things seem to be explodng and getting very interesting for me. And I feel like its about time since I'm almost half way through my service at this point. I arrived here on June 6th, 2007. And shortly I new group of volunteers will be arriving as trainees. Oh how niave I was. What a scary, horrible, new, fuzzy, martian, indescribable feeling that was.

I am hoping to take part in their training as a leader and maybe try to soften the blow a little. Between that, all these projects and a likely trip home for 3 weeks, it seems like my summer is going to fly by pretty quickly. Despite the fact that the summer vaction here is 4 and a half months (the problems that I have with the educational system here could fill many emails).

So if you felt that you hadn't received an email from me in a long time, it wasn't cause I deleted you from my email list. It's just cause I was bored and didn't really have much to say other than complaining, which is not really worth reading.

I'm so thankful to know that I have so many people supporting me, thinking about me and even asking why they haven't heard from me in a while. It would mean a lot to me if hear what you have been doing lately and to keep in touch. And if you really loved me, you could send $100 dollars in cash to the following address:

Ok, just kidding.

Thank you,

Pete

To quote a song out of context:

Sometimes the lights all shinin on me;

Other times I can barely see.

Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip its been.

Hi everyone,

Unfortunately my cell phone was stolen on a trip in Ouaga on Thursday. Since the SIM card was in the phone, I've lost my old phone number.

*edited*

Otherwise things have been going ok. I don't have a nice, fancy, well written story or anything, but I figured I'm overdue for an update!

Not much to report really. Things are heatin' up in fits and starts. So far the average high has been about 40 C which I'm sure is somewhere around 100 F.

I'm starting to get a much better handle on teaching. Needless to say, when teaching 125 kids in a room, theres an adjustment period. I've had to learn to be the disciplinarian, which is a hugely different role from working at camp. You have to be extremely strict here or the kids can walk all over you. I didn't really like, but theres not much to do about it other than lay down the law. I look at it as workin' to not be that push-over dad who always gives his kids ice cream for dinner when moms not home.

I'm writing from Ouaga and this is the first time I've left my village in 7 weeks. So in that time, I've had a lot of time to integrate myself and really test the limits of cultural adaption. I've certainly come a long way since hiding in my house all day.

One of my favorite things to do now is go and drink tea with friends on Saturday afternoons. Burkina Faso is a huge melange of cultural influences and preparing tea in an arabian fasion is a big deal. It takes about an hour to prepare 4 shot glasses worth of extremely powerful tea. Drinking tea is really code for: guys sitting around and talking for 8 hours. Its a great chance for me to get to know what some of the more well educated people in my village think about the government, rising food prices, america, kids, etc. Teaching is really a bit more like an obligation: a job. And then the Peace Corps experience is really everything outside of that. Teaching is my excuse to really get to know more about these people.

I don't want to revert to statistics, but seriously, these people have a lot going against them. Less than 1% of school age kids actually graduate from high school, let alone university. Can you imagine? I can't even imagine that and I live here!

The only thing people have going in their favor is that the government, having had the same president for the last twenty years, is pretty stable. And yet most of the governments lip service to aiding the people goes no where and they are widely know to embezzle funds for big houses and private jets. I guess you might be tempted to say its your "typical" poor african country. Lets hope this never passes for normal.

But as for now, my job is to do my job within the system and quitely take notes and observations. Theres a lot to be learned here about how the world really works.

This is a general overview of my life. It occurs to me that it may

not be entirely clear to everyone what I do exactly, so here's pretty

typical Peace Corps life:

I'm in the Peace Corps as a secondary education volunteer. I'm

teaching math to the equivalent of 6th and 7th grade students. I have

two classes: 6th grade is 125 kids and 7th grade is 101 kids. I'm

teaching in french, which I couldn't really speak before I got here

(and still learning). The main language of my village is Moore.

Everyone speaks it but there are also people who speak Fulani,

Gamulchema, Dioula, Samo and Dagara. When I got out to buy veggies and

stuff, I try to use Moore as much as possible, but I still haven't

learned much of it.

Between my two classes I teach 10 hours a week, which really doesn't

make me feel like my presence here makes a big difference. But I've

been able to find some secondary things to do. I'm gonna start

teaching english for adults soon. There is also a computer lab at my

school (one of 3 in Burkina Faso) and I'm hoping to help them get it

up and running. All the equipment is brand new but the server crashed

in October and no one uses it. I sent the hard drives to the states

last weekend and hope they will come back fixed by the end of the

month.

Other than that, I spend a good portion of the day chatting, cooking,

cleaning, napping, reading and otherwise trying to keep myself sane.

I have two kittens at the moment: Socrates and Descartes. Although,

they are both female...whoops. Who says female cats can't be great

philosophers?

and thats my life in a nutshell...

Pete

December 27th, 2007

Remote beach in Ghana. Waves crashing. No shirt. Long day in the

sun. BBQ fish on its way. How incredible. How much has happened to

me here.

I'll start on Dec 8th. That afternoon, we had a huge event to clean

the Boulsa market. All women sellers and the important community

types were there. We must have swept for two hours. There was a

percussion band that followed the crowd. In the end, all the small

piles we made were burned. It was quite something to participate in a

community action and to feel involved.

Lately, I've been realizing that I can't save the world. I've put so

much pressure on myself to make a difference in Boulsa; to do

something radical. But all its done is stress me out. And then this

project to clean the market just fell into my lap. It was mostly

organized by my friend. I just got to take a bit of credit.

Skip ahead a few weeks to Dec 21st, the day before my bus trip to

ghana. I woke up in the night feeling horrible and needing a

bathroom. I spent the whole day feeling weak. The doctor did a test

but found nothing other than a lot of white blood cells obviously

fighting something. Thinking it to be a virus, he recommended rest.

How better to rest than to take a 27 hour bus trip to a new country?

The trip, despite leaving 4 hours late, was relatively boring (we

spent 3 hours at the border). I assumed the worst was over. The bus

rolled in at around 4 AM and after two taxis, I found the hotel where

Julianne and her friends were staying the night.

Flash forward to Christmas Eve. I was feeling worse as the day went

on. At a dinner party, I decided to take some anti-biotics figuring

there was something living down there based on a lot of carbon/sulfur

burpage.

Christmas morning, I was going strong for about half-an-hour on

espresso when I started to feel like death.

Jules called her embassy nurse friend and she diagnosed Giardia over

the phone by the taste of the burp (the miracles of modern medecine).

Fortunately, the cure is just 1 dose and I had it within the hour.

However, I was so weak after that that I spent the next couple days

recovering.

In the mean time, we left Accra (the capital) yesterday morning (Dec

27th) heading West. There are plenty of beaches in Ghana, but theres

one the always gets the best recommendation: Busua Beach. By the

Bradt Guide and with the help of a daring and quirky old taximan,

Jules and I found ourselves in the middle of a small fishing village

called Butre (a 3km walk from Busua). The fisherman spend all the

daylight they can draggin and hauling their nets. These nets are so

huge it takes a village just to pull them from the sea; litterally

kilometers long.

Today we made the trek over the Busua to find some friends and some

food. Its a cleaner beach with a big resort and a lot more white

people, but our little village paradise can't be beat.

So, atleast for now, I've given up on saving the world. I'm content

to enjoy what I am given and learn some things a long the way.

To all a good read,

I stumbled upon an article that I think it worth reading. its written

by Shane Claiborne, a guy who also wrote a great book a couple years

back.

Enjoy:

http://blog.beliefnet.com/godspolitics/2007/12/creative-cures-for-the-common.html

Pete

Do I really live in one of the poorest countries in the world? It doesn't seem like it.

On one hand, I think that I've been able to survive mentally by blocking out some things around me: people working through the heat of the day to tend crops that will probably fail thanks to a lack of rain, kids taught to beg for food by schools that can't afford to feed them lunch, elderly people still working despite poor health because there is no alternative.

On the other hand, I live in a thriving community. Most of my friends, neighbors and colleagues are quite "westernized". They prefer to speak French over Mooré. They've travelled the country (many of them don't come from Boulsa). They own refrigerators or TVs (usually one OR the other depending on their priorities). They wear colorful, clean clothing and have babies that wear colorful, clean clothing.

I've forgotten many of the amenities that exist in America can't be afforded here. Having a washer and dryer would be an absurd expenditure. A dish washer just seems silly. I'm sure people would laugh if you suggested it. Buying them would pose a problem anyway considering running water is (quite literally) a foreign concept.

And yet I'm stunned by how much things feel more familiar than I expected. When we talk about "the poor" in America, it is is an abstract sense. I've come to learn that "the poor" are people just like me. They have friends and families. They go shopping and go out to eat. They go to mass or mosque (sorry, no synagogue). They have hopes and aspirations. But mostly, they live as if life, love and laughter are different words for the same thing.

So whose helping who over here? Guess we'll just have to wait and see,

Pete

All of a sudden I've been in Boulsa for 3 and a half weeks. Having no official responsibilties is both a blessing and a curse. I've had plenty of time to organize my new house as fear and courage are duking things out. I have developed a bit of a fortress mentality where I would much rather stay inside and read and feel bad for myself than leave my courtyard. It takes quite a lot of energy to go out and interact with people and be stared at. Some people must thing that I'm a ghost or something. I say hi and they literally just stare and they go by.

However, the majority of my excursions into town (about a five minute bike ride) have been quite positive. I've come to the point now where I try to invent reasons to go out into the community: buy bread, buy bananas, see of that guy I talked to before is home.

Just about everything I do happens in the morning. I wake up around 6 with the sun. I'll read my Bible, make some tea and oatmeal, spend an hour or two cleaning the yeard before the sun gets too intense (my yard is filled woth construction debris). By noon its just about too hot to do anything. I'll usually eat lunch and have a nap. The temperature peaked today at about 3 pm at 34 C inside my house. I measured the temperature in the sun yesterday and it was 50 C! Thank goodness for shade and insulating concrete walls!

Its been getting noticably drier this week. The grasses are browning and the ground is cracking. The dark clouds that would previously bring rain bring only strong dusty winds. The next rains will most likely start in May. Contrary to the flooding in southern Burkina and northern Ghana, the Sahel is quite dry. Like many African countries, its seems Burkina is capable of simultaneous droughts and flooding from one side of the country to the other (not that there is a drought here at the moment).

Classes will start 'some time in early October'. Since the majority of students work in family fields, classes don't really start until the work is done and kids actually start coming to class.

In the meantime I can't complain too much about my life. Everyday I meet a new person. Slowly my roots are digging in.

Pete

If nothing else, I can describe my life as intense. So much to take in, to feel, to think about, to try not to think about. Heres a quick recap of the last couple days:

The swear-in ceremony was more typically "african" than anything I've seen so far. We sat under a giant thatched roof that housed about 200 people. There was a crazy african percussion band and everyone was decked out in their finest dress. I had a shirt that I had made after buying some cloth in the marché and I had then make me some pants too which they pleated but are otherwise really nice. Just about everyone who was anyone made a speech in typical african style and the whole thing lasted about 2 hours with not much having actually happened. The US embassador to BF was there and she did one of those repeat after me oaths and we all became volunteers. After that we had barely enough time to run back, grab our stuff and head to the bus station at which point we crammed ourselves into a small bus just wide enough to hold four abreast with no isle. The person sitting next to me promptly fell asleep, head practically on my shoulder.

I had a fairly quick dinner with a couple people at a lebanese restaurant and went to bed.

The next day was probably the longest of my life. I woke up at 6:30, with the sun and walked witha few others to the International School of Ouagadougou for breakfast. The general rule about eating in Ouagadougou is american food at american prices and this was no different. Even choosing a normal breakfast, I spend enough money to buy 4 days worth of food in village (about $7).

The rest of the day (litteraly) was spent walking all over town spending money at a sickening pace without actually aquiring much. The mission was to try and buy everything I needed to furnish a house before leaving Ouagadougou at 7:00 the next morning. I failed. Despite spending a good chunk of my "moving-in allowance" I now live in a house with no bed or furniture. Although, I am well-stocked with food and in the process of ordering furniture from the locals in Boulsa.

After a full day of walking and being harassed but vendors sure that I've come in Burkina Faso to spend my fabulous wealth, we had dinner at an Indian restaurant. Despite leaving to get to bed early, I didn't get to bed until about 11:30.

The next day I managed to get incredibly sick. I don't know whether it was the indian food or the yogurt I had for breakfast but my arrival in Boulsa was punctuated by stumbling off the bus and vomitting just behind the wall of the bus station. Without realizing it, I had picked the bus company whose station is on the opposite side of town from my house and I spent the next half hour walking to finally arrive at my new house. I lay down and stayed there for the next 24 hours.

Enough of the pity party. My counterpart has been very helpful since I arrived. He is a math teacher and the censeur (like a vice principal) at my school. When I was sick he brought me food. He brought me water to shower with. He even offered to pray for me and as he did I couldn't help but feel weak. If I gain nothing else from this experience, I will know how it feels to be weak.

Starting again from scratch is always tough. And in a place where I don't know anyone, let alone the language will be hard but its possible. I can see it like the light at the end of a tunnel. Or maybe its more like looking through a toilet paper tube.

Pete

I can feel time slipping away. It's melting: slowly transforming itself from concrete to liquid. Maybe it can't take the heat. The daily dances of shadows have become the rhythm of its passing. every day they cross my doorstep to tell me that lunch is ready.

Clocks seem to be slightly confused and tend to argue about how long an hour should be. Most have gone on strike until everything gets sorted out. Personally, I think an hour here must take longer since one day seems to encompass so much.

The corn in our yard, planted four weeks ago, has found the time to grow over my head. The buildings here often look more like ancient ruins even though most of them have been built within ten years. Even my family's house has lost some chunks since I arrived.

People tend to age like they're late for heaven. Most women are grandmothers by 40 and don't often live to meet the fourth generation. Hauling water and firewood, cooking, sweeping, maundry and working in the field ten hours a day: by the they die, they've probably done the work of two Western lifetimes.

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Well, there are approximately 2 weeks left of training. Today was my last day of practice teaching. Tomorrow, I'll be giving an exam and next week is all ceremonies and loose ends.

I can't wait to get to Boulsa and have a little more control of my own life. I typical day of training has me up at 6 (with the sun...and the goats), teaching by 8. Theres a 1.5 hour break for lunch. Language and other classes to take after lunch are followed by local language tutoring putting me back at home at dusk just in time tohave a bucket shower and sit down to dinner with the family before collapsing into bed at 8:30. Repeat.

I've been sick for the last week and a half putting me in the lead amoung trainees for most sick days/most antibiotics taken. Things will certainly change when I'm preparing my own food and have my own space. I'm now fully recovered and trying to eat as much as I can to gain a little weight back. If only they had ice cream and McDonald's, I'd be all over it!

In Boulsa I'll be teaching Math and hopefully computer skills. My lycée has a brand new computer lab (an incredible luxury for a rural school) which is meant to come into use this year.

Since the rains came quite late this year, children are likely to stay in the fields longer and school is not likely to start until early/mid October.

I've been placed at a site with two neighbors that have become good freinds during training and we are making plans to hang out a lot.

Things are about to change for the better. Thats always exciting and I'm having trouble waiting. Good things to come,

Pete

I have to say it was hard not to notice the glaringly obvious differences between us. She wore a faded and wornpurple down jacket with no-longer neon pink shoulders; I, having just sat down to dinner, plugged in the squeaky floor fan. I would sweat through this meal as usual. As the daughter of my host family brought me pots and plates, I couldn't help but recall the hamburger I had for lunch while enjoying air conditioning and cable television (the perks of a foreigner's budget). Tonight's menu includes rice with peanut oil, cabbage and stewed meat (origin unknown). It has quickly become my favorite and is a welcome change from cous-cous with onion sauce, spagetti with onion sauce and rice with onion sauce.

In the chair opposite me, my host brother plays parcheesi. It is the only game available at the market and it is played atleast 20 times a day around the house. With school out and 13 hours of sunlight, theres not much else to do. Time is marked by Arabic chants over a loudspeaker: the call too prayer. And in a city thatzs almost entirely Muslim, the english slogan on the parcheesi board seems more ironic than life changing: "Jesus saves."

As I am trying to muster the energy to stand up and get ready for bed, another host brother appears with a video disc (the prefered medium of cheap and/or pirated entertainment). Given that last night's selection was a Vietnamese shoot-em-up, I decide to stick around and see what he has choosen. My 19 year-old brother has chosen a compilation of Celine Dion music videos. I watch the entire disc before willing myself off the couch.

Celion Dion and Bob Marley are equally popular in Burkina followed closely by Phil Collins. It doesn't seem to matter that all three of them sing in English.

I filled my bucket with water and carried it to the "shower" in the corner of the courtyard. As I bathed myself in the mixed ambience ofthe clouded moon andthe glaring fluourescent tube attached to the house, a third brother entered the latrine next to me. With only a four-foot wall between us, I was reminded yet again: this isn't "Hotel Rwanda" or "Blood Diamond." C'est l'Afrique.

A la prochaine,

Pete

Hello everyone,

The last week has been drastically different from the first month of training. I returned to Ouahigouya yesterday evening after spending almost everyday travelling since I left last Sunday.

I awoke before daybreak, partially because I had to be at the bus station at 06:00 and partially thanks to the bacterial enteritis I was later confirmed to have. There are at least 20 private bus companies in Burkina and we had chosen a 6:30 am bus from Ouahigouya to Ouagadougou in order to have a free afternoon in Ouaga. After taking an immodium to carry me through the bus ride, I was only feeling worse by the time we enlisted a lime green taxi from the Ouaga bus station to our hotel. I spent the majority of the next three days in my hotel room trying to provide my body energy (and eventually antibiotics) to fight the infection. I did manage to sneek out for a pizza or two (a delicacy only found in Ouaga).

The intention of those three days was to meet and greet fellow Burkinabé teachers who would be escorting each volunteer back to our respective sites. I met with Sawadogo Ibrahim (a math teacher at my future school) just long enough to make plans for our Wednesday trip to Boulsa.

Wednesday turned out to be the highlight of the week. There is something about short term suffering that makes the a return to normalcy very satisfying. Likewise, I was excited to come to the realization that I am now more comfortable than ever in Burkina. This was mixed with nervous anticipation and I moved ever closer to my future house and school.

Boulsa is about 2 hours from the nearest paved road. Since I can easily count the number of paved roads in Burkina without using my toes,

it can be considered relatively close to everything. The house that I will move into at the end of August has 3 rooms with a patio, courtyard and enough room to start a garden. It also has electricity which is more than most volunteers can say. The lycée (middle + high school) serves between 1000 and 1100 students, many of whom must either move to live Boulsa from their native villages or bike long distances every morning and evening. It is one of few schools in the country to have two science labs and a brand new computer lab as well as solar powered running water and a library. The school looks very different than a school in the states. It is simply classrooms built in clumps of three all in close proximity to one another. The most exciting prospect is that the school plans to have internet up and running by the time I arrive. This is an absurdly fortunate perk as some volunteers live in villages without a post office, let alone internet access. Technomania seems to be sweeping across Burkina in the last couple years. Cell towers and internet stations are going up faster than ever.

There are strong influences in Boulsa by the Catholic church, the Assemblies of God and some NGOs which means there is a lot of potential for secondary projects. I hoping to be able to invest a significant amount of my time in community developement projects such as: after-school programs, improving farming techniques, improving water treatment, etc. But for now I need to concentrate on teaching in french and learning Mooré.

Boulsa also has a market, a post office and a "hospital". I am tremendously excited to live there and I am now slightly disappointed to be back in Ouahigouya.

On Thursday I took a bush taxi to Zégédeghen to stay with a current volunteer (PCV) before continuing to Tegouri on a transport truck Friday morning. A bush taxi can best be described as similar to an early-mid eighties Volkswagen van loaded beyond capacity with luggage, bikes, motos, animals and people. The transport truck is more like a flat-bed with wooden slat siding to hold everything on. This particular truck was going to market hauling grains, goats and other goods and, of course, about 20 people sitting on top of everything.

At Tegouri, I met up with a few other trainees and we stayed the night with another PCV there before making the full day trip back to Ouahigouya yesterday. The day was highlighted by a bacon cheeseburger, onion rings and a chocolate milkshake at the American embassy (at American prices) while waiting for a bus from Ouaga to Ouahi.

NOTE: The main modes of transportation in Burkina are motorscooters (motos for short) and buses. For a family to own a car here might be likened to owning a Cadillac SUV in the states. It is a status symbol of extreme wealth. I currently live with the director of a primary school (a well paying/respected position) and our family owns one moto and a bicycle.

Theres certainly a lot to be excited for, thankful for and worried about as per usual these days. Until next week,

Pete

PS. Once again for those who have asked, my address is:

Peter Crysdale

S/c Corps de la Paix

01 B.P. 6031

Ouagadougou 01, Burkina Faso

This address will be valid throughout the rest of my service.

It seems like yesterday that I was writing the week 2 post!

This week has some its own highs and lows. Sometimes being here is just hard. Theres no one thing that makes me not like it, its just hard. Thankfully, I have many things that pull me out of bed in the morning, including knowing that I have so much support from you all at home. Its funny how quickly ALL of North America is now my home. I share common experiences with many of the volunteers that the Burkinabé, even our trainers, cannot understand.

How do you describe an igloo to someone who lives in the desert? How can you describe a country of paved roads to a family that owns a one-speed bike?

This place has to be experienced to be understood. I talked to a man, while working at camp, who had been a missionary in Niger for 4 or 5 years. He said "It is just hard and theres no way to prepare yourself for how hard it will be".

These things aside, there are many exciting things that happen everyday in this incredibly fast paced life of mine. On wednesday, I will be assigned a site and school somewhere in Burkina. I will be teaching there for the rest of my time here. Although, I still have another 8 weeks of training before I actually go to live there.

I taught for the first time in french yesterday. It went relatively well, given my current abilities in french and I will give the same lesson again on Monday, except it will be in front of 80 kids instead of 10 peace corps people!

It is amazing to think that less than a month ago, I could not have composed a full sentence in french!

Thank you as always for you support,

Pete

P.S. my mailing address is:

Peter Crysdale, PCT

S/c Corps de la Paix

01 B.P. 6031

Ouagadougou 01, Burkina Faso

P.P.S. I can't believe that camp starts to tomorrow! I'll be praying for all of you. I'm also praying that the Evans' baby is born without complications despite the obvious inconviences! I love every single one of you guys. Bon chance et bon semaine!

Wowy wow wow,

Another week gone by weekly. Many highs and lows.

Lows: A three day bout with bacterial enteritis! Severe dehydration.

Highs: Having my first real flowing conversation in french! Starting to feel more comfortable.

Last week we had 6 hours of language classes everyday. My brain is so overloaded with french that sometimes I speak and the words just sort of fall out of my mouth in a jumble. Thankfully, they are starting to come out in the right order now and then. I have to say that direct objects (it, them, etc) are the defining line between talking in a language and speaking a language. They are also the hardest thing to try to use.

On this coming Friday, Each of the Secondary Education (SE) volunteers will be giving a 15 minute lesson in french! The first major teaching hurdle.

Life for me here feels more REAL if such a thing is possible. Everything is new, everything is alive around you (among other things, there are 20 chickens and 8 goats that live outside of my room.

The sun is still hot. The ground is still hard and brick red.

I find myself beginning to detach from the desires for American things. Cheese, peanut butter, blueberries, strawberries. The diet here will certainly get old before I leave. Currently, my breakfast is tea with powdered milk and bread. Lunch and Dinner rotate between cous-cous, rice and spagetti. Each with tomato sauce. Sometimes for dinner I get salad. The mangoes have been good but are rapidly diminishing as the season ended a couple weeks ago. There are also peanuts.

The family that I live with is generally hospitable and they are the providers of my meals. The women spend most of the day cooking and cleaning. The father is the Principal of a local primary school.

Please keep sending emails and updates.

Much love,

Pete