So it is February. I have been living live in Burkina now for 20 months!!! 7 months left to go.

This past weekend Emma and I got together on Sat and Sunday and painted a world AIDS day mural. It says Journee Mondiale de SIDA and has a red ribbon. We have to wait until the CSPS (local hospital) does an HIV/ AIDS training and then we will have them put hand prints on the wall as their commitment to fight HIV/AIDS. On a side note the HIV rate here is actually very low. It is a little low because it is under reported, but also we are just not that HIV positive of a country thanks to foreign trainings and stuff. Go Burkina. Now we just need to start also battling Malaria.

So have come to the realization that I sometimes think I don't have stuff to right about because my life is pretty boring. This thought then made me realize that I have been here entirely too long, because crazy things do happen here; I just don't realize they are crazy. The fact that not 10 minutes ago I heard something knocking over my spices in my kitchen and I go in there and lift up my stove and chase a mouse out of the kitchenette and I thought it was nothing, is not a good thing.

Today was a bizarre day though. Last night we had dust storm and I just thought we had some heavy winds. I get up and go about my day, but I did not see the sun once today. It was blocked out by the dust. That and it was about 20 degrees cooler than it had been on other days. I should have known that it was going to happen because the day before I had cleaned my kitchenette and scrubbed it clean and made sure it was dust free. So much for that...

I have 7 weeks until my Close of Service Conference and I am pumped up. Not only do I get to see all the people from my stage again, but I also get information about how to put Peace Corps on an application and get my resume looked at. I am excited about it. I will actually be able to start applying for jobs and stuff. I feel silly applying in April when I know I can't start until Sept., but o well.

I am trying to think of things that I might want to do here before I leave. I have a trip planned to go visit the southwest of the country finally. I am going a week before the COS trip. I will be visiting Jennifer in lovely Banfora. It should be fun. I am excited to see her house. I also think I might try to find where the people make the leather things in Kaya and try to see if I can figure out how they make some of the stuff. I can be a leather smith. I actually just think it would be cool to make something to bring back with me.

I have been researching cruises for my way home. Right now I am looking at a transatlantic cruise that leaves Hamburg, Germany and would put me back in New York on Aug 28. If Hamburg turns out to be to expensive (which it might be) then instead I will be leaving Southampton UK and will be arriving Aug 28th in New York. It looks like a fun cruise with Cunard Cruises. My fingers are crossed that it will work out and I will be able to cruise back to Americaland relaxed and with a few extra lbs.

That is all for now, QUESTIONS

Hello everyone!!! I hope all of you had a very Merry Christmas and that you will have a Happy New Year. I know that I am having a great December. How about I tell you all about it. Sound good?

So everyone knows that my friend/old college roommate Jade was coming to visit me. I am going to start there. Nothing really much happened before that.

So I have to get a taxi out to airport at 10:30 at night to meet Jade at the airport. I call one of the taxis and he agrees to take me and even says he will sleep at the airport until she arrives. This works out to my advantage. So I go the airport and wait for her plane to come in. She arrives about midnight, and we leave the airport about 1. We go straight to the hotel and talk about her flight and stuff and we finally get to sleep about 3. We get up at 6:30 and we head over to the Transit house and then I head to the Peace Corps bureau because I had an appointment. I get back and then I realize Jade needs to exchange her money out as well. So we wait again. A series of events continue to happen that doesn't allow us to leave Ouagadougou until 3. At this point, Jade gets to experience her first of many buses in Africa.

We arrive in Kaya and I have to argue to get Emma's bike from the guy at the gare and then we take a taxi to my house and we get to see the town of Kaya. Jade just pretty much thinks its cool, but dirty. We arrive at my house and I give her the grand tour, it lasted all but 30 seconds. That night I brought some brochettes and had a brochette sandwich for supper and Jade at some of the pizza that she had for lunch in Ouaga. Also about this time, Jade takes a shower and rinses off and makes a comment about if I knew that I had a few big spiders in my shower. I told her yes. I then told her about my leasing agreement where spiders can stay as long as they stay above my head. Later that night, one was on the floor and it had to be killed. After that, We watched some movies and sleep.

The next day is Jades adventure in Kaya day. We started out at my school for a small tour of where I work and what I do. She did not get to see my classroom because I gave the key to another professor. She did get to meet some of my professor friends who were very nice and only a few asked if she was my wife and if not if they could have her. This was to be expected. After that I took her out to lunch and we ate with Grace. We ate at the Orphan restaurant. It was delicious as always and I even saw some other people eating there for once besides just us. I am hoping they can continue to be open, because their food is amazing; even if I can't afford to eat there everyday. After that we went to Jade's favortie part of going to a foreign country... Shopping. I showed her around my marche (market) and had her see all the things that I buy and a couple of my friends in the marche. She saw where I buy meat at and her only comment was, I can't believe you eat that. After that I took her to my leather marche and let her go crazy. I am not going to ruin the surprises of the things that she bought, but it was alot. I came to the marche with an empty messenger bag and I left carrying it full and another big bag of stuff. After that we went back to my house and ate and watched some Modern Family. We went to sleep, because we knew we were going back to Ouaga tomorrow.

The next day we get up and make our way back to Ouaga. Jade gets to experience her second bus ride, but this time on a big comfortable bus that comes to Kaya I believe once a day. We arrive in Ouaga and drop our stuff off at the hotel and head to the transit house so that Jade and I can get our last hot showers for the next 12 days. After that we (Jade, Shannon, Diana, and I) go out to eat at La Vita where Jade and I get some Chicken Fingers and fries. That day was the day that the new group of volunteers swore in, so after that we went to De Niros (a bar in Ouaga with pool and cheap drinks) and partied with the new volunteers and other volunteers who had come in to see the swear in. Shannon and I drank and Jade and Diana watched. It was a lot of fun, but we left about midnight to get a taxi home because we had to get up at 6 to catch a taxi to the Gare Routier to get on our bus to go to Ghana.

The next morning we get up to go to Ghana and wait for the taxi to take us to the gare. He is a half and hour late, but this was to be expected. TIA (This is Africa; I am telling you this now, because I will be using it a lot in this article I think). We arrive at the Gare and the bus is supposed to leave at 8, but ends up leaving about 9:30 TIA. We are on the bus for about 2.5 hours until we reach the border. That is when all the craziness happens. When you get off the bus you give your passport to a guy who hands it to the Burkina guard, after this you have guys running at you with piles of money trying to get your money. They want you to exchange your CFA(Burkina Money) for CEDE(Ghanaian Money). They are yelling and crowding you and one guy accidently stepped on my flip flop and almost knocked me over. I get into my bag and get my money out and finally get it exchanged with one of the guys. I did not like this process. After wards you wait until they give you your passport back and your walk across the border. Then you get to the Ghana side where they scan your passports in and take a picture of your face and things. It is really high tech versus a guy who just kinda looks at your passport.

After that it was on a bus for the next 15 hours. We made some stops along the way and I got to eat some delicious chicken and fried rice, but it was still a long bus ride. We arrived at Kumasi at 1 in the morning and waited for the next bus to come at 4 in the morning. We got on that bus and it took us about 6 hours to get to Cape Coast. By the time we arrived, we were happy to go to our hotel and just relax for a while. Our hotel here was Hans Cottage Botel. This was a wonderful hotel. It had one of the most bizzare and awesome pools that I had ever seen. The pool was rectangular and once you stepped in there was another rectangle inside that was about 3 foot wide and about 1 foot deep. Then you stepped into that rectangle and there was an L shaped area that was 6 foot deep or two small squares that were about 3 foot deep and 5 foot deep. It had a slide also. Not only this but they had a gift shop and a restaurant that was on a lake. Inside of the lake were fish and crocodiles. The crocodiles were fun to watch while you ate. Also they would feed the fish and you could see the crocodiles come and eat the fish. It was nice and the beds were the best that I have slept in while in Africa. While we were in Cape Coast we went to a slave castle that was used when the British were exporting slaves to America and other places and we also went to Kakum National Park and did a tree top walk. Now, this tree top walk was a literally made of rope, metal ladders, and wooden boards. I felt pretty safe on it, but it shook alot and at some spots the ropes on the side of the bridge were not as high as my chest, so I could have fallen if I was in my klutzy Trent mode. The good news is that I was only about 120 feet off the ground at its tallest, so only enough to kill me. It was beautiful though. After that we stopped by a place that said it was a monkey sanctuary called Monkey Forest Resort. It was not a resort, but it had all kinds of monkeys and was run by the nicest and most fun people ever. They showed us all kinds of monkeys, turtles, civets, a couple of birds, and a couple of snakes. After the tour we sat down and just talked with them. They were telling us about living in Ghana and thier lives. It was my favorite part of Cape Coast. After three days in Cape Coast we left and went to our next city. Busua.

Busua was only about 2 hours away from Cape Coast. We took a tro tro (the ghana equivelent of a Bush Taxi) to Takoradi and then a taxi to the Alaskan. This was the most relaxing part of the trip. We stayed at the Alaskan which is a hotel right on the beach. We had a little hut with 4 beds in it and there were trees lined up with hammocks in them. The restaurant at the Alaskan was amazing and I ate BBQ Chicken and Hamburgers. For lunch, we would go to the Black Star restaurant and eat Burritos or pasta. We went swimming everyday and I did my favorite activity, talk to people. Each days I would go out in Busua and talk to people and I made friends. I am too much like my mother. it was cool though because 2 nights while I was there I went over to a guys house and played some Playstation soccer with him and his friends.

I did have one little mishap while on Busua beach. I was swimming and talking to a Canadian girl. She was watching her friend swim and we started talking because we were both staying at the Alaskan. We kept talking and jumping into the waves and it was a lot of fun. We started talking about how it was weird because the water kept getting cold then hot, then cold then hot. It was strange. So as we are talking we feel a current pulls us really hard and we say go lets go to the beach. So we start swimming and she is a much better swimmer than me and the current just goes crazy and starts pulling us. She gets out of it and heads for the beach. I am not so fortunate. I start getting pulled... and pulled... and pulled. I try swimming against it, but the more that I try the farther I go. I try for about a minute then I quit swimming and just worry about floating. I then start to yell for help. I realize that I am screwed. The more I try to go for the beach, the more the current pulls against me. I see the Canadian girl and she is on the beach yelling for someone to help me. As I am floating, I keep thinking the same thing... I cannot die this way, this is a stupid way to die. Then I finally get myself calmed down and I say, well I may get carried out to sea, but enough people have saw me go that they will get a jet ski and come save me, so I just need to worry about not drowning. Finally, I look up and see a German guy coming towards me with a football in his hand and he is telling me to swim sideways, so I swim sideways and he is telling me calmly to swim towards him and as I do, I realize I am making progress and I am going back to the beach. I reach him and I realize I can stand up and I walk to the beach. This is when I recieve the information that if you are ever caught in a current you are supposed to swim sideways to get out of the current. Information that I did not know, because I have swam in an ocean maybe 3 times my entire life. So now, if I ever start to get pulled out to the ocean again, I know my safety rules. I also learned the rule of if the water keeps changing temperature... get out. So that was my, Oh my God, I am going to die moment. I feel every vacation needs at least one of those... Right?

After that, I was done with the ocean. Which was fine, because our next location was the Desert Rose Lodge. It was run by a Swedish couple and it was a resort by itself. It had a pool and pool tables and was a nice out of the way place to stay. We were staying there for the holiday though and the count was 7 Swedes, 7 Aussies, and 6 Americans. 2 of the Americans were with the Aussies and we made up the other four. It was almost like an International Spring Break. I learned how to play a new game called Kubb which is awesome and is kinda like a Cornhole, but with sticks. We drank and played pool and darts on Christmas Eve, which is when the Swedish celebrate Christmas, and then on Christmas they roasted a pig and it tasted amazing.

The morning after Christmas we left and started our long journey back to Ouaga. We were really excited when we learned we caught our bus back to Ouaga, because we thought that we were going to miss it. Now we are back in Ouaga and Jade leaves at 6 am tomorrow. It has been great having her with me and really awesome to have someone from home who knows about the the things that I do and how I live. It was great for her to see these things. One of the other great benefits is that she is going to be posting pictures. Yes, that is right pictures. I will maybe post a few on here, but if not, they will be linked on my facebook. Finally, you get to see some pictures of things.

Well I know this has been a long one, but again I hope everyone here has a wonderful New years. I have people coming up to Kaya to celebrate. I will give you a shorter blog post about that later.

I love you all and let the countdown begin. 7 months left.

Trent

Ok so I realize that I have been sucking as of late and that my blog entries are about as boring as watching paint dry. I apologize to you (by you, I mean my faithful readers). So I am going to try to zap some energy into this one. Watch out, because here I go.

Ok, so about 3 weeks ago I was lazy and gave 2 kids 5 mille to go buy me milk. I gave them both 100cfa as a gift to go do this. The next day I was out 5200cfa. The kids never came back. So I told my bread guy about this and he said that he knew who the kids were and would tell me. So I waited. It paid off yesterday...

I was having a bad day. My kids would not listen and were just basically laughing and playing the whole class. I had a kid after class who kept calling me Nasara and would not stop; so I threw rocks at him in frustration. I know there should be better ways, but whatever. Judge me.

So I am walking up to my bread guy and he tells me that right there is one of the kids who took my five mille. I turn and look at him. He looks at me. I feel like a hunter who has seen the deer and the deer has seen him and they are both just waiting for the other one to make a move. I tell him that I just want to talk to him. He tells me that his friend is the one who took the money and I should talk to him. Well sure enough, guess who walks around the corner... I see him and he sees me and he starts running away.

However, there is a problem with Burkinabe, they want to see things. I know this. I know that he will want to taunt me a little. So I wait. Sure enough a minute later he is peaking his head around the corner. I walk around the corner and he has moved up to the next building. I give my bag to the brochette (meat on a stick) guy and I wait. He comes back around the corner and sees me, I see him. Then the chase is on. I start running and he starts running.

I know that I have no chance in hell in actually catching this kid. He is an Burkinabe child. He is physically made to run away from lions and shit. I am a fat American who is physically made to... well, not chase Burkinabe children. So after about 3 blocks, I lose him. He is gone, but I have made my point; which is that I will get you eventually.

I go back to where my bag is and there is a small crowd of people and they are all berating the first kid who took my money. I go up and shake his hand and ask him if he will do it again. He says, no with a look of absolute shame and unsure if I am going to beat the living shit out of him. I say ok and start to walk away. (ok honestly I told him ok, but if you steal again I will use my Nasara magic and send a snake after you while you sleep, but either way.)

I turn back and the people are yelling at him and are deciding whether to beat him and that is when I get angry. I turn around and tell them that it is just money and money comes and goes, it is not important and if I hear about anyone hitting this kid; I will be angry and I will come after them. There was an older Muslim man leading the charge and I looked at him and gave him the Burkinabe finger wag (which is very effective by the way) and told him that I would come for him if he continued to try to do any of this. He looked at me and did the palms up ok ok, like whatever you say (crazy Nasara) and let it go. This is one thing that I have learned from being a teacher. You speak to anyone in an authoritative tone and they take it as authority. I don't think it will be highly effective in the states, but it is a nice trick here.

Also, this will probably be my last blog until January. My friend/old roommate Jade will be visiting me in Burkina starting on Monday and the next Friday I go to Ghana. I am going to see how another third world country works. But this one has a beach!!!!

My time here in Peace Corps is coming to a slow halt. In March, I have my COS conference where they tell you everything you need to do to close your service. CLOSE OF SERVICE... Already? Only 8 months left here and I am already freaking out about what I am going to do in America. It seems so close... Crazy.

Hoping Everyone a Very Merry Christmas!!!

Trent

So life in Kaya has been pretty normal as of late. I had a PSDN meeting last week and celebrated Carolyn's birthday with her and made sure the newsletter got out. I then returned to Kaya and have been teaching according to schedule pretty much. Then Today happened.

I am awakened by a call from Emma at 8 and she tells me that the kids are graving (aka: skipping school and protesting). I say ok, and try to call some professors to find out what is going on. I get a hold of one and he tells me that his wife had twins. I say; congratulations and I will come to the school in an hour. He then tells me the kids are graving because of the dust.

At first I thought he was kidding. I mean; I live near the Sahel and well; dust happens. It is right now the Hamartan and that means the dust is even worse; but how do you protest that. I arrive at my school and as I look down the road; I see that they have set up tons of little blockades using rocks or logs or other various materials and they have set some of them on fire.

I enter my school and just sit with my professors who are laughing and are just watching things happening. The students are protesting because they want a paved road to the school. I am in agreeance with them on this issue. We have one other main road that everyone uses in Kaya and it is not paved; however on this road is the Regional Hospital. It makes perfect sense to pave this road. However; apparently the way to get this done is to block the road and set it on fire. There were probably 300-500 kids (ages 7-25) protesting today. It was interesting to watch.

I don't know what finally happened; I think it was just the repo hours so it finally stopped. But it was interesting because a lot of the community seemed to be behind the kids. The kids didn't destroy anything (besides some trash) and no one got hurt. They even turned in a form that morning demanding what they wanted. All in all an interesting protest to watch. We have kids blocking a road here and burning things and no one gets pepper sprayed... Maybe a few policeman in the states should have seen this.

So I have said that I have been busy and this is an honest statement. I started classes and an english club on Monday. Today I go to teach and I find out that a student has died, so there will be not classes that day. This is an interesting phenomenon here in Burkina. If a student dies or professor or someone, they cancel classes that day. Now, I sadly found out that one of the students that I really liked died during the summer also. He was one of the guys here who danced in the traditional dances and was a good kid. However, I did not know his name. That is actually another strange phenomenon here. No one knows anyones name. They just kinda know them. But while it was sad that a student died, it was kinda a business as usual approach to life. Minus the lack of classes. They do not have the same emotions attached to death that I see in the states alot of times. I asked the students where the student I liked who danced was and they just said, oh he died this summer in and accident. This was one of the kids who I assumed was one of his best friends. I ,very american, was like, oh I am sorry. and the kid just started asking when I was starting teaching again. I think it must be because people die here more frequently, People get sick or in accidents. I guess it is a ca va allez thing.

Also, we are in mini hot season right now and moving into cool season. It is going to start to cool down. It will be nice to be cooled down, however that means that harvesting is almost over and ever since they started we have had more grasshoppers than I can count. I feel like I am at Biblical plague proportions of grasshoppers. A few manage to sneak into my house each day and they love to jump around my house and jump on me while I am sleeping. It is really annoying. I keep a cup of water next to me when I sleep, because I wake up all the time craving water and I have to now check it everytime to make sure I don't have a grasshopper backstroking in my water cup, or worse doing the dead man's float.

Anyway, I recieved some great news this week and that is that my brother got a job!!! I am very excited for him. I know that it is hard to do right now, so I am very very thankful and glad he is so talented.

Tomorrow Diana is going to come and stay with me and going to go the Embassy thing at my school. I am glad to have the company. So Diana, Emma, and I will all be at my school in the morning and helping doing English clubs and stuff. Then in the afternoon we are going to Madame Governer's house. That should be an affair. I will be hob knobbing with all the important people showing off my terrible French.

I got made fun of a little bit today because the professors were having one of thier political/history/whats up in the world talking sessions. I sat in on it for about 40 minutes. If you people in America think that I had trouble paying attention before, you are going to be in for a real treat when I get home. I am very good about just sitting there pretending to listen and just thinking about things. Out of the 40 mins, I probably payed attention to 15.

Also, I have finished watching Mad Men (all four seasons), 2 seasons of Arrested Development, and 3 episodes of new Glee. I also caught up on True Blood. Also for those interested, there is apparently a Zombie movie that was filmed in Burkina Faso it is called..The Dead. I have not watched it yet, I think I am going to wait for Diana to come and watch it with me. I think it will scare the bejesus out of her and that will be fun.

That reminds me of when I used to get together with Krystal and Amber and watch Horror movies. I really do love Horror movies and I am sad that I am missing another Halloween. I am going to have to really go out the year that I get back.

Which for those of you counting, I have only 9 months left. Yes, that is correct. If you are planning on getting knocked up and having a baby before I get back, you better do it soon. For those nice people who are waiting until I get back, I appreciate the thought. I am missing enough weddings and things. I don't need tons of unknown babies being thrown at me when I get back as well. Let me enjoy them while they are in Utero. Because I won't want anything to do with them for about 2 years after that. I like them when they are fun, not when they just sit there. By the way, if the first word your kid says to me is Nasara, I promise I will send it to Burkina.

Ok so I was going to post this before and I forgot my key at my house, so I did not, but guess what; that means that you get more of an update!!! Yay!!

So Diana came to stay with me on Wednesday so we could be up bright and early for the Embassy visit. We arrive at the school at 815 and go over the star spangled banner with the three kids who learned it. They sang it terribly, but they did have all the words and the general rythym so I was happy. The first thing they did in the morning was an english club with the students where they taught them about the food pyramid, only thing is, that they used a plate. This is the new method of teaching people what they should be eating. They create a plate and divide it up with 4 food groups then add a glass that represents dairy. Apparently this is a less complicated food pyramid. The kids seemed to understand and follow very well. They did say that chocolate was dairy, but I kinda told my group that was ok. When the lady saw that they put chocolate on the table, she said that she liked where their head was. So after the english club they talked to the students about ways that they could go to college in the United States. They talked and told them about myths and the real way to get to the United States and how expensive it is. After that, Emma, Diana, and I peaced out to my place and I made some Vache qui rite mac and cheese. So after we ate it was time to go to the governors house. We arrive and we are late, because they are running early!?!?! I was shocked and appalled by this. I was also very impressed. So I arrive and they were just finishing with the pomp and circumstance. We showed up just in time for pictures. After pictures, there was cultural dancing. Which I have seen a hundred times. I sat and watched and then the governor comes and grabs me (literally) and takes me inside. She sits me down at a few tables, (it looked alot like the last supper setup, if so then I am the person three to the left of Jesus) then she brings me food and wine. We are guests of honor with the Embassy people. I was just glad I could sit and talk with some of the Embassy people.

After we are leaving the governors, we go to get on our bicycles. This is funny because, everyone else is in big white SUVs with air conditioning. We wait for the cars to pass and as the people are passing in thier nice cars, we can see there faces. They all said, oh those poor Peace Corps people. Look at them with thier bicycles and thier helmets. They pass us and take the road out of the Governors to the lycee. One thing they did not realize is that the Governors house is on a big hill. So it sucked to bike up there (or in Diana's case walk up there), but the way down was so much fun. It was like a roller coaster and I was almost certain that I was going to fly off my bike at any minute. It is a semi steep hill that is a dirt road. Tons of fun, but semi-dangerous. We are going down the hill and we beat the parade of cars going to the lycee, but one thing we did not think about was that they were still going to pass us right before the lycee. When a car drives down this road, dust flies up and creates a huge dust cloud and they had like 15 cars. When they got out, one lady said she felt so bad because she could see the dust hitting us in the face. lol. We just said that we were used to it. Score one for hardcore Peace Corps.

After some more cultural dancing and a sketch, we were able to leave and it was time to go back to the school for the town hall meeting. Now this meeting was supposed to be about asking questions about America and them being in Burkina. It turned into a session where different groups came and asked for things. This continued for about 40 minutes. It was very annoying. The Embassy was annoyed and it was nice to see other Americans annoyed with Burkinabe. lol. They left afterwards and Emma, Diana, and I went to get something to eat.

I taught this morning (Friday) and we went to the Marche and Diana bought all kinds of stuff and I helped her decrease the price of stuff. I ended up buying a small bag with a symbol on it for Ghana. I enjoyed it and it will be a small bag that I can use to carry some cash, my camera, and phone in. It will come in handy at the beach and places. We had some meat sandwiches for supper that I made and are watching movies. Tomorrow, (aka when I update this) I am going to go swimming at Hotel Pacific. Hopefully Emma will be able to come and it will be fun. I can't wait.

So.. More to come, this was more rambling than I planned it to be. Oh, but one more thing. I have 2 reservations for places in Ghana!!! I am going to be on a Beach this Christmas. Hopefully, sipping cocktails and eating wonderful food with Jade (one of my friends/roommates from college who is visiting me), Shannon, and Diana. I am very excited for this trip and I go to Ghana in about 50 days. The time will fly by. So I am trying to think of things to write about... How about you guys email me some ideas of some things you guys still want to hear about that I have not talked about.

Busy in Burkina,

Trent

So I am back in Kaya and I am trying to at least one bit of work a day. This can sometimes be challenging. Especially when I have slept in until almost noon the past two mornings. It was accidental this morning. I set my alarm the past two days, but have refused to get up. I also have refused to sleep the past two nights. One night I dreamed I was doing things in America, but then I freaked out because I needed to get back to Burkina because I hadn't asked permission to leave. I actually dream this quite frequently. I will be in the middle of a dream and for some reason I will remember that I am supposed to be in Burkina Faso and there is no way that the nice things in my dream are Burkina, so then I freak out about how I am going to get back in Burkina without getting into trouble. I usually contemplate how I am going to do this, then I wake up and realize... JUST KIDDING!!! You are in Burkina. I sometimes have to look around the room a couple of times and verify that I am actually in Africa and the Burkina stuff was not a dream. It plays with my head sometimes.

Last night though, I just had trouble getting to sleep. I was tossing and turning for probably 2 hours before I got to sleep. I was thinking about friends in America and thinking about what I am doing here. It is craziness sometimes. I think I looked at facebook too much. It made me long for the crazy people at home. I think it was because of how I have seen everyone's lives move forward at home and I feel like my life is stuck on Pause. I will feel better about things after I start teaching again.

So as many of you know, I have site mates. There are three of us here in Kaya. We had a meeting about what we are planning on doing over the next year. I have decided that at site, Emma is the motivation, Grace is the communication, and I am the execution. Emma motivates us to do a project and is great about finding projects at site that need to be done, Grace knows everyone and all of the officials and makes sure things are kosher government wise, then if there are problems or if people don't do what they are supposed to do, I come in and find at why and get the ball rolling. If I am visiting people it is not usually a fun visit, that or I am following up and making sure stuff is getting done. I can also do the leg work.

Now don't get me wrong, we all do a little bit of all these jobs, but those are the three parts of the Kaya Corporation.

In the future the Kaya Corporation will be putting on a fair for NGO's (Non-Governmental Organizations... think of like aid services), we will be doing tree planting (bleh... but I am promised that I will not be digging holes, so I am ok with it), and we have one other project discussed in the works. So YAY!! I am in charge of the Fair and doing the grant work with that project, Emma is in charge of the tree Planting, and Grace is in charge of the third project. Also, we are getting ready for the Embassy to come up to Kaya and visit our site at the end of the month.

The funniest thing is that all of us are going to be out of site for the month of December. I am going be here a little bit of time with Jade who is visiting me, but that is going to be about it. Grace and Emma are both going home to spend time with the families. I am not to jealous, because I have already seen Americaland and all its splendor.

We are also going to be continuing with our own site projects including English Clubs, Commerce clubs, Health activities, working with our schools/workplaces, and I think I am going to be doing a world map project after January.

So we have alot on our plates. We are going to change Kaya. They will feel our impact throughout the city.

Also in Exciting news, we have all three noticed a new restuarant opening up in Kaya. It is called Pierinis? or something like that. I have noticed an older white lady who has been ordering Burkinabe around. Emma and I are hoping for an Italian restaurant. We will have to see what happens.

Tomorrow I have to get up and go to my lab and install some programs on my computers. I have some mouse games, some geography games (seterra), and a language learning game (selingua). I would suggest seterra for everyone. It is really easy to download and is a fun way to learn your countries. I just got tired of being lost. lol. Not that I think I have ever been truly found. If you have directions, send them my way.

Missing your faces,

Trent

P.S. I also have to really get on emailing my stuff for my vacation to Ghana in December. That is rapidly approaching as well.

So it is that time of year. It is time for school to start again. It is always met with mixed reactions. So far most of the volunteers I know seem to be on the same page... I DON'T WANT TO GO BACK!!! NO PLEASE!!!

This might be a little exaggerated; but close to true. I look at it this way. School is a return to a "normal" life for me here in Africa; so I welcome it. Everyone is glad to be returning to normalcy. I am not teaching yet; but will hopefully be teaching in 2 weeks. That is my goal. Other "normal" teachers have started teaching. I will be bugging my censeur(sp?) next week and making a schedule.

One semi bit of bad news is that I have been without power for about 5 days. This is not that big of a deal; it is just annoying. I forgot to pay my bill so they cut off my power. It was not even a money issue, I just flat out forgot. So I have been dealing with Sonabel to get my power turned back on. I paid monday morning and monday afternoon they came and took my power box away. My neighbor tried to explain they were supposed to be connecting the power back; but they didn't believe him. So I went in this morning and explained what happened and they said I will have power tonight. I am not really hopeful about this; but it could happen. If not I got a phone number I can call now. Go me!!

I have the Embassy coming for a visit to Kaya soon and I need to get stuff prepared for that. It will be interesting. I will update more next time. I amsorry I have been kinda ad with replying to people. I was very busy and did not get around to it. I am working on planning a trip to Ghana in Dec and am using internet time for that as well.

I love all of my faithful followers. (even the not so faithful :)

Trent

So when we last left Trent, he was in Kaya getting ready to go into Ouaga for a VAC (Volunteer Action Commitee) meeting, warden training, and the 50th Anniversery Fair in Ouaga... Let us continue our adventure..

So I arrive in Ouaga and I get put to work. Everyone has stuff to be doing, because the Fair is coming to Ouaga. A fair that Peace Corps is putting on. We have a VAC meeting where I get to sit in and listen to the people who make the country run, then work with other people to get stuff ready for the fair. On wednesday, I go to the CD's (Country Director) house and go through Warden Training. I am the back up warden to Kaya. If stuff blows up this year, I will be ready to fulfill my duties again.

So now it is the day of the fair. We load up our stuff at 6 in the morning and we go to the Maison du peuple. As we are driving... the wind starts to pick up... the sky gets dark... and it starts to rain.

The bus pulls up to the maison du peuple and there are a bunch of fallen tents. There were already some people there and apparently when the wind picked up, it started to send the Tents flying through the air and volunteers were literally holding and being dragged by these huge tents. Eventually people were being dragged to much, so people ran for cover and away from the flying metal and tarp death traps.

By the time we arrived, the wind had died down a bit. (I forgot to mention that all of us are in our best dress because we are going to a swear in ceremony. The press and everything.) I take off my shirt and use a wife beater and my dress pants and all of us go out and try to fix tents... in the rain. Everyone is pitching in and doing something. We have to move tents that are broken and put other tents back together and try to avoid spots where the rain has gathered. At one point, I was moving a tent tarp and a metal bar swung past me and almost took out another volunteer. We all decided that it was the closest thing to Hurricane relief that we were going to get to in Burkina Faso.

After we get alot of that stuff done, most of the volunteers are filthy and wet, but we might be on Burkina television... so we have a grab box at the Transit house and the New swearing in volunteers brought some of thier own personal clothes and everyone just threw on the best that they could. We actually got some pretty amazing results. Everyone looked nice and the sun came out and the rain stopped. So everyone after swear in, got to put thier booths up and everything went along pretty much as planned.

The fair was alot of fun. I worked the PSDN relaxation station and carnival. I worked the Dunk Tank and the Burkinabe loved it. It was the first time that they had ever seen a dunk tank and they loved to dunk the person. It helped that people could taunt them in Moore, French, or English. It was alot of fun. We had tons of good food, good music, and good Artisanal stuff for sale. Watch some of the video that I will be linking for more info...

So day three rolls around and everything starts happening. Christy Ross teaches a dance group who was dancing all three days. They were really good and reminded me of an amateur showchoir group. There was 2 girls and one boy. Well one of the girls did a solo and it was Single Ladies by Beyonce... Well I know a little bit of the dance. Another guy here knows the whole dance and is a dancer. They said that we should do it with her. I agree, but the other guy's back hurts. So the Christy (who choregraphed the dances) said that she would do it. I instantly hated my decision to do this. I am trying to practice and learn the version of the dance that they know and literally get about an hour and a half to get this whole dance down. We (Thank God) did not do the whole song, but it was still alot to learn fairly quickly.

It becomes time to perform and I did ok. It wasn't great, but the audience loved it and even the CD said that it was awesome. So I win.

After that it was time to get ready for the wife of the president. She was coming to our closing ceremony for the fair. We had Floby (One of the biggest pop stars in Burkina) write a song for us about Peace Corps that was awesome and he sung it at the closing ceremony.

We went through the speeches and the ceremony ended. Afterwards there was a reception and I got to talk to the wife of the president. We mostly talked about food in Kaya. I have now talked to the wife of the president and shaken her hand 2. I am very important in Burkina Faso. lol.

We had an all volunteer meeting today that I stayed for, but I am looking forward to going back to Kaya tomorrow. I have to start getting things ready for school... oh and I found out the Embassy is coming to Kaya on the 5th of October and wants to see a project that I have done... I haven't really done any tangible products. This should be interesting.

Wish me luck,

Trent

So after I posted my last blog, I was supposed to be at my site until Friday of that week. That did not happen. I got dragged into Ouaga early. There are worse things that can happen to you, but it was a slight inconvience. So I get a call and am told that we need to come in on Tuesday because we are filming a tv spot for the fair and they need volunteers. I do not really want to come in; but they have also moved my PSDN meeting so that all of us can be on the show. So I go into Ouaga. some people choose to come in Weds morning; but I had a few things that I wanted to get done at the bureau, so I went in on Tuesday. Weds morning arrives and they tell us that they might not need all of us; but to stay pretty just in case. So we wait around for 3 hours only to be told that they dont need us. They only used 7 people. So I had another day free in ouaga to spend money that I need not to spend.

So Thursday was our PSDN meeting and I would talk about what happened but it is confidential. Sorry! But we are starting some cool new iniatives and trying to get them bureau approved. It was a really good meeting. Afterwards we had a ¨family dinner¨ PSDN seems to eat together after all our meetings. So we call them family dinners. where we had chili and cornbread. It was like americaland. It was delicious and had tons of veggies even.

After that I go to the bureau on friday morning to get some information about something and I get stopped by one of the secretaries and asked if I will fold some papers for her for the fair.I tell her of course and spend the next hour doing tri folds. It reminded me of when I was at the bank folding loan paperwork to be mailed. After that I hopped a bus back to kaya. I arrived in the afternoon and Emma asked me to go shopping with her. I like to haggle and she likes to have a shopping buddy; so it works out well. I got done and went home and relaxed. The next day was a mixture of me cleaning my house and watching movies. Bridesmaids is really funny for those of you who haven't seen it.

The bike tour came to Kaya yesterday. They arrived around noonish and we took them to eat at trois luit. It was nice. Afterwrds, I took half the group back to my house and relaxed. I made them American mac and cheese and Taco meat. They were ecstatic. We started to watch bridesmaids but they all wanted to sleep. we went to sleep at 9pm. That is very early for me; but they got me up at 4:30. So it evened out. I will probably take a nap today. I still have tons of work to do. I have to get ready for school!! It starts in October! Also I will be in Ouaga from 18th to the 25th for a VAC meeting, warden training, and the fair. I have to organize a booth for PSDN. I did not think I would ever be this busy in country, I kinda like this unexpected surprise.

Love and Peace

Trent

P.s; I really need to work on my coke habit here. Stupid liquid crack...

Who am I? Why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing with my life? Why do I ask so many questions? The existential crisis is not for everyone. When even thinking about having an existential crisis, you need to make sure you are ready to deal with it. You can’t ask the big questions and expect everything to stay the same. You have to realize you may ask the questions and find your life to be quite pathetic or lacking something. The opposite could also happen as well and you could find that not only are you living a happy and fulfilled life, but you are on the right track for your future. To those people, I would like to say, “Screw you.”

So I, again, am having to ask myself the big questions in life. What do I want to do after Peace Corps? Where do I want to go after Peace Corps? What should I do in my last year of Peace Corps? Who are my real friends in country and who do I just put up with because they are here. After my trip to America, these questions seemed even more blurry. I did realize that grad school is not in my future. I do not have the drive (or the cash) to make myself go through more years of school. I am young though and maybe in a few years I will decide that I can really choose something and stick with it. I won’t hold my breath.

So let me talk about what I have been doing since I have been back in country, because that is why you actually read this blog, not to here me blather on about existential crisis’s.

So first off I want to say that I had a wonderful time in Americaland. I got to eat tons of food, I gained 10lbs, I went to a family reunion, I helped move my brother in with his girlfriend, I helped one of my best friends move in with her boyfriend (who happens to be my brother also), I went to a water park, I got to spend time with my friends and family and see some people who had already left Burkina. It was great and it was much needed. I will say that I was ready to go back to Burkina, though. I have a year left and I have a lot of stuff to do in this year. I am at my halfway mark!!! Although, really, I am hoping to be mostly finished with the really important stuff by the end of May. I have another school year, a vacation to Ghana, and a visitor from America to look forward to. It is going to be great and I have already started. Let me just start from when I get back to Burkina.

I get back from Burkina at about 430pm and hail a taxi to take me to the transit house. I arrive and find out my neighbor in Barsalgo is at the Transit house and I get to say goodbye to him. So that was great. I also got to see a couple of other volunteers who I really liked and was able to say goodbye to them. It is weird to think that in another 2 weeks, I will have been in country longer than anyone (minus crazy third years and even crazier fourth years). So that night, I went out to Verdoyant and ate great food with Evan, Leslie, Shannon, and Evan. It was Evan's last night in country and the first time that he had ever eaten at Verdoyant. We went back to the transit house and afterwards we had some goodbye drinks with Ouaga Rob, Duckworth, Shannon, and Evan. It was a good time.

So the next morning I get up and get my stuff ready and I go to Kaya. I take a bus back and get back at 3 and drop my stuff off at my house and go straight to the training location for Camp G2low.

Camp G2low is a Girls and Guys leading our world. It is a training camp in everything (Sexual Health, Nutrition, Drugs and Alcohol, Family Planning, Equality for Women). It covers lots of subjects in 1 week. The first week in our camp is a boy’s week and the second week is a girl’s week. There is another camp happening in the southwest of the country that covers the same information.

So I arrive and training is already going on and everyone is getting their stuff prepared. The training went pretty well, but the highlight was the session with Shannon (Country Director) and Alexis (Bureau worker) who gave a session on sexual violence. It covers the spectrum of what sexual violence is and describes what violence feels like.

It is a great session. I have seen Shannon do the session 3 times and each time something new is brought up, especially with working with host Country nationals. After two days of training is time to get ready for the campers to arrive. They arrived on Sunday morning/afternoon and we had a grand welcome ceremony for them. Madame Governour, the APE, my Provisieur, and many others were in attendance. It was a great ceremony with music, speeches, and cokes. I took tons of pictures (yes, I have camera number 3 and yes it is already broken, but I will get into that later.)

I am not going to go deeply into the two weeks of camp. The wrap up of the camp was that we trained over 50 boys and over 50 girls on tons of subjects that they would have never been able to receive information on before. The kids were really excited and were excited to be learning about all the subjects. Most of the kids here had no idea how their sexual organs actually worked or even knew what puberty was. The camp was amazing with guest speakers and was very inspirational. I feel like when I leave this country, I know that I have touched the lives of these kids and made their lives better… but I will not be doing the camp next year.

I am not going into why I am not going to do the camp if it happens next year, if you absolutely have to know. Send me an email. I believe if you don’t have anything nice to say… come talk to me. Just kidding! I just don’t want to broadcast my feelings about it on the internet.

So after the camp I go to MSC. I was so happy to see my friends in Secondary Education. It was great to see what everyone was up to and how people were doing. We, unfortunately, had to sit through a bunch of boring sessions, but that was only one days worth. We had a feedback session about how things were going and Secondary Education felt that things were mostly positive. We had an IT only meeting on the morning of Ramadan and it was amazing how many ideas and things that we came up with. We are all going to try to get our program sharing down to a system and exchanged some software that will make all of our lives easier. I am hoping to try some out this year.

I had some medical sessions and went and saw the dentist. It was a better dentist than I have ever been to in the states. I got my teeth cleaned with this hook thing that shot water and then right before they were done they gave my teeth a salt scrub thing. It was wicked weird. I got x-rays afterwards with the dentist and I have no cavities. Yay for me.

I got up for the physical exam the morning after the dentist and everything went well there. It turns out I have low blood pressure though. He asked me if I was feeling dizzy or anything and I told him I wasn’t. My blood pressure was 100/50. I don’t really know how good or bad that is, but he seemed to think it was fine. It must be my wonderful diet and exercise… yeah.

So right now I am back at site and am writing this lovely article from the comfort of my own bed. But I am going to wrap it up, because I have a laundry lady coming at 7 in the morning to do my laundry. “le sigh”

Tomorrow’s mission is to clean house, update blog post, and buy meat for dinner. I think I should be able to get all this done easily. We shall see.

Thanks if you’re still reading, you’re the best.

Trent

So last time I told everyone that I was going to be busy. This turned out to be an understatement. I arrived in Ouaga on the 20th so that I could get ready to go to Sapone on the 21st. I got told to arrive at the office at 6 am. This seemed bizarre to me and I was pretty sure that I needed to be there at 6 am on the 22nd, but I went ahead and arrived at 6 anyways. I turned out to be right and I didn't actually leave until 9 in the morning. I was not that upset, because I expected this. I also got to spend most of the day with the new stagiares and Jean luc. Jean luc can always put you in a good mood. So we go ahead and do our session for the day, which is HIV and inform all of the stagiares about the statistics and facts. After that I got to go out to lunch with Sarah, Kathryn, and Kate. We show up and all the stagiares have also went to the same restaurant. It was fun to talk to them all and see what they were up to. I talked to alot of them and could already see group dynamics that were forming. They said that they wanted to be called the Kumbaya group like the other group and I told them that they are only 2 weeks in and to talk to me at week 11.

We went back to afternoon sessions and that was just them getting vaccinations and doing language. It was fun though, because I got to talk to past language people from stage and they got to see how much my French has improved. I actually got told that inspired hope in some people because they heard stories about how bad my French was and now how good I speak it. That was nice. A little bit of a lie, but I'll take it.

So I went back that night with a couple people from the bureau and it was a fun ride back to Ouaga. We talked about multiple marriages and men versus women. It was fun and funny. I arrived back to Ouaga and I was going to go out to eat at Gondwana. This place made me feel like I was in America. I had a cheeseburger and french fries and some white wine. The atmosphere was amazing and had sand and they gave you a small tea at the end of your meal and also a shot of bissap with rum. It was nice.

I get back to the Transit house and it is time to work on the Diversity powerpoint for the next day. It should take about an hour. It ended up taking about 3 hours with strong words between people. This is the problem when working on a sensivity subject like Diversity. Everyone has a different background and everyone finds different things offensive. So needless to say, there were a few arguements about this and about what we would put in the activities and the stuff that we would not. In the end, we all reached an agreement on what we would do and the way we would phrase things. It was not the most fun time of my life, but was interesting to see people's viewpoints on things.

I went to bed late again that night and that would equal about 6 hours of sleep for Trent over the past two days because of internet and other things.

So I get to the bureau at 6 and we are off for Sapone again. This morning we have Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault talk first. This is the morning session. It is a great session and it allows both Burkinabe and Americans see where people are coming from and what each of them find appropriate and innappropriate. It was another fun session. I knew for the most part where the Burkinabe were coming from because I have been here for a year, but the new stagiares were in awe. It was fun to see peoples reactions and show them some of the subtle and some not-so- subtle things the Burkinabe do.

After that we ate a quick lunch and I got back so I could do my Diversity session with Al(exandria). It was a good session. I talked a little to much, as always, but it still went pretty good and they got all the lessons that we were trying to teach. The car wasn't leaving until 530 so I got to sneak in a two hour nap. It was great.

So we arrive in Ouaga with 12 stagiares who need to leave early in the morning to reach thier site for demyst. Sarah and I get the hotel situation knocked out and I get ready to leave them, but then realize Sarah has only been to ouaga 2 and has no clue where anything is at. So I take them out to eat at Quali serv. It is cheap and good food.

Now I was supposed to return and have had some work done that I did not get done yet. I was going to get it done the night before, but the other meeting ran over and now I didn't get back to Ouaga until late and had to help babysit some new stagiares. So by the time that I get back to the Transit house I have to face the anger of a few volunteers. It was a mixed bag and the work only took about 15 mins to do, but I didn't have it done. Soooo, needless to say, some awkwardness for about 10 mins, but then I really just didn't care after that because I was tired and didn't care. I went to bed after a few hours and slept.

I had to get to the bus by 1 because the car that I was going to take with my stagiares and thier language tutor was leaving. So I arrive at 12:30 and the stagiares arrive shortly after. It was funny because our bus was broken, so we had to wait another hour. We finally get things loaded and we all get to Ouaga.

My new friends had fun in kaya. I took them to the pool and made them delicous food and showed them around the dolo stand. The downside was that 2 of them got semi-sick. I tried my best, but unfortunately there isn't much I can do to keep you 100 percent healthy here. I just try to be as careful as possible. So it was fun getting to know them and they taught me a new card game. It was fun and I had a good time with them. They were all Formal Education volunteers and some of them might be coming near me. So that would be amazing. I will be in America when they figure out thier sites. We will have to wait and see.

Well they left that sunday and I spent the day, just being glad to be by myself. Well, kinda. I had a little drama with another volunteer that day, but got it all worked out. I just decided that day, I need to get out of this country. I had not been the nicest when faced with adversity the past week. Usually I remain very calm and just try to find the nicest way to resolve things. I was a little mean this past week when it came to conflict resolution. My mom said that she was being very compromising this past week and I guess to counter that I was being very uncompromising. I just need my break to happen and have a little relaxation. A couple people were shocked that I haven't taken a vacation yet. I can understand why. It has been over a year and I think another month would probably not be good for me here. It is ok because I leave here in 11 days!!! I will be on a plane and on the way to Americaland!

So close, yet so far away!!!

Also a special shoutout to Sandy Sponsel. I went to the post today to pick up some packages for someone who lives close to me, only to realize that I had a letter!!!! I want to thank you Sandy for the card and it was a pleasant surprise! Hearing about people in America that are thinking about me is nice. I am sure that I will be able to see you and chat a while.

Also I am so far speaking at the Geneva United Methodist Church on July 24 after the service and I believe I am going to talk to the Library in Shelbyville or the Grover Museum or someplace like that to do a second talk about Burkina Faso and just my life so far. So if you are interested, I hope to keep things updated on here. I will post the second date, when I get it lined up and am able to establish something for sure.

Thanks everyone and see you soon!!!

So in my last post I talked about how I was excited to go to Boulsa and see Becky and Tim. I now remember why I was so excited. They know how to treat a guest. I left for Boulsa on Monday and arrived at the gare (place where buses and stuff leave) at 7 so I can get a taxi brousse to Boulsa. It turns out that I have the same taxi brousse driver and he doesn't leave until 8:30. So I sit at a nearby restuarant and read a book and drink 2 cokes. I then start on my taxi brousse ride. It is about 3 hours long and is on a dirt road the entire route. The dirt road is ok in some places; but suck in other spots. We stop and pick people up on the road and in villages and drop people off. Luckily at one of the early stops on the road, the guy in the front seat left and I stole the front seat. No one complained; because I am a Nasara. It comes with good and bad; this is one of the good. While on the road; we stopped at Piboare and there is a police station on the road there. Well, of course; the few people see the nasara and decide that they need to document my ID. It is really just an excuse to talk to me. So I went and talked and made them happy. We continued along the road and I really took a minute to take everything in. I sometimes have to remind myself that this is not something that people see everyday. Stuff was looking prettier because it has been raining; so we actually had some greenery on the road and there were mini river looking things.

So I arrive in Boulsa and when I get to the house there is Becky and Tim waiting for me and they do the tres integre thing and give me a cold goblet of water. It had ice in it and was amazing. That was just the start. Each day Becky and Tim made wonderful food for me; we watched movies and television and bitched about Burkina. It is a very good release for all of us. Especially Tim who is glad to compare doing IT with another person. We had dinner with Becky and Tims adopted family one night and they are alot of fun. Mr. and Mrs. Simpoare. They were impressed by the little Moore that I know and were teaching me new phrases to use. They told me that I need to come visit at least one more time before I go home and I told them that I would. Hopefully I like the new replacement volunteer going to Boulsa. So after a few days of lounging around and having a rest from site; it was time to head back to Kaya. Which meant another 3.5 hour taxi brousse ride. My butt is always sore no matter where I sit. lol.

So I arrive back Thursday night and I am told by my homologue that tomorrow night is the end of the year party. This is the official party held by the school for the professers that says school is done. So the party starts at 18. I arrive at 18:15 and we finally go into the building to get things started at 19. I was surprised we even started then. So we had a feast and it was great. There were cokes, beer, 2 types of chicken, french fries, crudite, and rolls. It was delicious. I stuck to cokes, but then they busted out a bottle of champagne so I had a little bit and then the attendant poured me a small cup of whiskey. Well all during the feast there are people talking and doing thier speeches and I actually followed some of the speeches. One professer is a comedian and he did a little stand up thing; I could only follow about half of what he said; but that is pretty normal for this professer.

Then the dancing started...

So the music hear and the dancing here is really different. I cant really describe it really well. Americans dance mostly torso up and Africans dance hips down. Well the professers drag me out and alot of the male professers are dancing. Remember mostly guys dance here; unless its a women's dance. So I start dancing and following along. There was a guy video taping the stuff to show at next years begininning of school party and I am sure he got some good shots of me following along with the few students that were there. They were impressed that I could keep up and follow. I am doing a pretty good job of dancing African and controlling myself; then it happens. The guy said he is going to play a song for me and points to me. I was wondering which American song he was going to play. He plays... Cher ¨Do you believe in life after love¨. Needless to say; with the little bit of booze that I had and the dancing I had done; I danced to the song like a fool. It was alot of fun though. It was fun to see how much progress I had made from the welcome to school party to the end of school party. Who knows what will happen at the next party.

I leave for Ouaga on Monday and Sapone on tuesday. In the next 48 hours I have to do my camp glow lessons, my laundry, and clean my house. We will see if i can get these things accomplished. I have to be prepared because I am getting a group of new volunteers who are going to come to my site and live with me for 4 days. This is uber exciting and I can't wait to see the newbies.

24 days til I am on a plane. Cant wait!!

Trent

So last time I updated you that I had been well and that I was excited about the Regional Peace Corps Medical Officer visiting me. I had the visit on thursday and it was amazing. I was able to talk to her and just converse about things going on in country and in the my life in general. She was alot of fun. But as she was leaving, she made the comment that my latrine is a long way from my house. I told her that it has never really been a problem. She said that it would be a problem if I had diarhea, I told her that that would probably never be a problem.

So that night, I am laying in bed and I start to feel weird. I get this cough and I realize its my "Trents running a fever" cough. So I take some Ibuprofen and just lay in bed. Well an hour goes by and I am still running a fever and I have muscle soreness, chills that lasted over an hour and a headache. All of these signs point to one thing. Malaria.

Now Malaria over here is not like what people think that it is in the states. Yes, Malaria is terrible and it kills tons of people every year, but they aren't under a PCMO's care. As soon as I started showing signs and I admitted that I missed a prophalaxis pill or two. They had me start taking my anti-malaria pills. Really, its a box of pills you take and it makes the malaria go away and your cured. This is why, I don't think of it as such a big deal, because there is a very easy cure. We are not in the 1800's.

So the next day, I start taking the malaria pills, but then a new thing starts. Diarhea. I won't go into the details, but I have lost 2 pairs of underwear this weekend, because I was not handwashing them. I literally was dead sprinting to the latrine. It was crazy. I never believed other volunteers when they told me about this stuff, but it is true!!! I say that the Regional PCMO jinxed me.

So I do a mif kit and get it sent to Ouaga and it turns out that I have a crazy strong bacterial infection that apparently has been going around the country. I know at least three other volunteers that have had it. So they are going to give me medicine and they tell me to take Cipro (Aka, the general kill all bacteria drug). So I go down the hill from my house where they have recently opened a pharmacy across from the hospital (smart Burkinabe) and ask for Cipro. No real prescription needed here. They give me the pills and when I ask how much they tell me 600 CFA. For those of you who don't know the CFA system, that is about $1.20. I thought she was saying 6 mille, which seemed more appropriate. Nope, 600CFA. So I got my meds and started taking them. I took two last night and and woke up feeling %120 better. I am still not 100 percent, but will be a day or two. I haven't had to run to the latrine in over 18 hours, so I will take the small victories.

I also will be getting on a plane and coming back to America in 5 weeks!!! I am amazed that it has come so close. I can't wait to see everyone!!! I start to even get busy in the next two weeks, so I am hoping that time flies even faster. I have been dreaming about the people that I get to see and the things that I will get to do, but I won't lie, like other volunteers, I mostly just keep thinking about the food. NACHO CHEESE, RANCH DRESSING, TACO BELL, Just to name a few. I have a goal of gaining 10lbs when I am in the states. This should not be hard. I'll try to stay skinny the second time I come home. This time, I am on vacation.

Also, I have been updated by a friend of her dates when she is coming to visit. She is staying a little over two weeks. I told her that I don't think I could keep her entertained here for that long, so we are going to go ahead and go into Ghana as well. It will be so much fun and I can't wait for her to see Burkina. On june 9th, I will have officially been in Burkina Faso for 1 year. That is my longest time away from home ever. Its hard on me, I can't imagine what it is doing to you.

Waiting anxiously,

Trent

So last week I was in Ouaga for PSDN training. It was amazing training where we over tons of information. We went through scenarios that might happen to us and just general active listening skills. I think human beings should have to go through this training in general. There really is a huge difference between listening to someone and giving them advice and having them figure out things on thier own. I am now an official PSDN member and am sworn to secrecy. Let the calls with problems begin.

So in sad news; I found out that another person from my stage is leaving the country. This is sad for many reasons; but on the good side; I at least know that he is going to be happier in America or France depending on where he is actually going. So we are officially down to 17 volunteers in my SE stage. One funny thing is that everyone who had a special design on my wall (either a punctuation or a symbol) has left the country. I'm glad that I didn't put more symbols next to peoples names.

So one of the things that PSDN does is trainings. So that means that I will be going to Sapone and help do trainings with either a PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) or just another PSDN member. So I am helping with the HIV and Sexual Assault discussions with the PCMO and am running the Diversity training with Alexandra who I love. I wanted the HIV and the Diversity sessions so I am glad that I am able to get both of them. Then afterwards I may be hosting a Demyst. Demyst is where the volunteers go to a volunteers site and see how they work at thier site. I could show off my lab and I need to think of ideas that I could do for the Agriculture volunteers. Baby plants?? Maybe they could see my lettuce field in Kaya. I also may do something with soap making... but first I need to learn how to make soap. I really hope that I get a demyst group. It would be fun to show off my site a little bit.

So inbetween demyst and training I also want to go see Tim and Becky in Boulsa again and steal Venem from Tim and have him show me how to use it. I spiked my proviseurs interest when I told him about the grading system and that the professors would not have to figure the moyennes. So I need to steal that and get it installed. I have a new PSDN meeting in early july and I have to put out a newsletter with Dani. Then I come home!!! After spending a month at home; I come back and do Camp Glow. Then September is filled with craziness. So I have a busy upcoming schedule. I have a week or two until all the craziness starts. I have a visit on Thursday from the regional medical officer. She is from Senegal. So it should be interesting. I have to clean my house and do some laundry.

Politically we have been doing great in the country. We had some strikes by students last week who were supporting a teachers strike; but that got solved in a few days with really no big problems. I think they only burned one thing in one village in the south. They blocked roads in Ouaga and that was only a minor annoyance. Right now I am kinda immune to anything but shooting though. 43 days until I get to see people. That and eat some american delicousness. Can't wait and hope everyone is doing well!!

Love and Peace!

Trent

So I am one to believe in karma. I believe that if you put good in the world, you get good back. This is generally true for me, however I have my case of the three bad things that seem to happen and follow me. So of course, I get good karma, but it must be evened out. Just think of it as debits and credits for all of you who have taken an accounting course. Like Erwin always told me, "Your debits have to equal your credits."

So I get a call and get told that I am on PSDN, which I earlier described as Peer Support and Diversity Network. This is a network that Peace Corps Volunteers can call when they have problems and we can help them talk it out. Well I found out that I got on it and I was ecstatic. I was concerned because sometimes I can be seen as a gossip. I have no clue how I could have this reputation. I think its genetic. Anyway so I was concerned about getting onto PSDN for that reason, oh and the fact that I'm crazy, but apparently not too crazy. Good news.

So Emma Prasher's sister is visiting and the girls want to go out drinking. I don't usually drink at site, but why not. So we go out to a club and then we go out to another club and we have fun. I drank some sachays of whiskey which were terrible, but ok if mixed with coke. Still better than beer. I also drank 2 liters of water, so I got tipsy. I returned to my house at about 1:30 in the AM to find that my keys will not open my door. The lock will not turn. I am not very happy and try in vain for about 20 minutes to open it. I of course wake up my neighbor who I don't like and is sleeping outside on a mattress and he tries, but it does not open. So he invites me to sleep at his house. I was not happy about this. I wanted a shower and my bed. I was also wearing ridiculous non breathable polyester burkina clothing. It was a hot night to say the least and I kept having to pee, but I got about a good 5 hours in.

I find a guy in the morning to let me into my house. He lives down the road and is the same guy who broke into my kitchenette for me. I go into my house and I at least have some new episodes of Glee to brighten my morning. I watch them and afterwards its time for shower number two and while showering the water gets turned off. I had just soaped myself. I luckily have a bidon (big plastic jug) of water in my shower for just this emergency. I move the bidon and what do I see, but a scorpion. Not a big one, just a little one about the size of my pinky. I rinse off and go out and find a sandal so I can kill the scorpion, but I can't find it. So I go to move the bidon back and it starts running toward me. I have now killed 3 scorpions in this country. Mwhahah.

So I have Emma Prashers USB key and I have to return it to her. So I go into ville (the city). As I am biking into ville a guy with a moto pulls out in front of me and I hit his front tire with my front tire. I fall off my bike and onto pavement because I had just arrived at the pavement part of the road. A quarter mile back and I would have just been dusty, but no. I have to get hit at the pavement part. So i scratch up my left hand, elbow, and foot and I hit my right upper shin on the bike. I was not happy, but I made sure not to curse out the Burkinabe who pulled out in front of me. I just didn't talk and got back on my bike and glared.

So I am hoping the scorpion and water running out counts as one of my bad things and therefore, I am ready for an amazing trip to Ouaga filled with fun. I had my day of bad karma, hopefully the good can come.

o while I have been on standfast and not been teaching, I have been thinking about my life and the things that I want to do with it. Here are my two Ideas.

1. I come back to the United States and go to grad school for Mental Health Counseling and become a mental health counselor. I like listening to peoples problems and the whole subject of counseling and psychology really appeal to me. I would be able to help youth with thier problems, drug addicts, alchoholics, GLBT issues, and so much more. I really think that this is what I should do with my life. Downfalls would be that I would have to go back to school, which while I was pretty good at school; I do not know how I would deal in a learning environment again. That and I have to find a grad school that takes the approach to counseling that I agree with, and I have to figure out how I am going to pay for the thing.

2. I come back to the United states and become a trophy wife. Now this is a position I think for which I am well qualified. I can cook, plan parties, join committees, clean the house, decorate the house, go shopping, and just wait until you see my bedroom skills... pillow fluffing and bed making I mean. Keep your mind out of the gutter. The only downsides are that I would have to workout and who knows if this means that I would have to raise a litter of brats. OH that and finding someone who is rich enough and deserving of my services.

ok, so as you can see; I have a wide variety of options for my future in July of 2012. But for the not so distant future, I applied to be on PSDN, which is the Peer Support and Diversity Network here in Burkina Faso. You listen to volunteers problems and help them make decisions. Almost like a counselor. This would be great to have on my resume and I think it would be a good experience to see if this is something that I really want to do. Kinda like, now I know that under no circumstances in my life would I really want to be a teacher. I leave that to my father, who has had 24 years in putting up with my ridiculousness and is thus a very patient man. I have not yet developed this patience or love of children. So if I get on PSDN then I have a training for that in May.

SO everything above this line of text was written the night before I got consolidated. It was written and I was just doing my final touches when the guns started. So yay!! Its a little late to be update, but I have changed the parts that have changed and deleted some stuff.

Now I want to talk about my life since I have been back to site. So I get back to site and I decide to go back to school on thursday. I open my lab and talk with students and am feeling good about my new system of opening the lab on certian days and having people come in and help them with stuff. This is a system I am much more comfortable with than teaching. Although, I have already had a teacher ask me to open the lab on saturday (aka today) so he could do some research on Encarta. I told him about lab hours and he complained worse than the students. I'm writing this at 945 on friday night. He wants me to be there at 8am If he does not show up, I will cut him. That would be very Burkinabe of him. So on thursday some of the professers ask me if I will play in a soccer game. It is students versus professers. I politely tell them that I am a fat American and I don't play football. They generally accepted this. I get told by my homologue, Natalie, that there is a traditional clothing contest tomorrow and that I need to dress up. I don't have any traditional Burkinabe clothes yet, so I go out to buy a boo boo. A boo boo is a long shirt that goes down to your knees, pants that match, and a matching hat. You where this with white leather shoes. If you can't wait to see it, just wait. I plan to wear it in the states to give a few speeches about Burkina Faso. It will be magical. I go out to buy my boo boo and I can't find where I can buy them at. So I keep looking and finally I find a shop, but the boo boos are ugly and I don't want them. So the guy says he will take me to a traditional fabric booth. I show up and there is one adult boo boo and it is nice, but it is black and white. It is just boring. I needed something flashier. Soooo.... the bring me a bright green boo boo with gold stiching and intricate embroidery. NOW WE ARE TALKING!~!! I buy it and then buy my leather shoes. All in all it ran me about 50 American dollars. I looked at it as an investment.

So I get a call from Natalie and she tells me to come to the lycee (school) because the game is starting. This is of course 1 hour late. I make my way there and they are just starting as I arrive. It is fun to watch the kids play soccer and more fun to watch the professers. The professers score the first goal about 30 mins into the game. Maybe less. Two minutes later, the referree calls the game and the professers win. The kids say it isn't fair. lol. The important thing is that the professers won. lol. I leave and go and visit my friends Biba and David a little ways from my house and show them my boo boo. They tell me how pretty it is and that I am a real Burkinabe now. They were loving it. Biba is definitely my mother in this country. She tries to feed me, but I tell her I need to cook because I have meat in my bag, so she makes me promise to come over on Sunday and spend some time with her and David. I tell her I will and I go home and get some rest for my big day the next day.

I get up and make it to the lycee by 9 and the contest and dancing is supposed to start at nine. I find out Emma P. is visiting and she comes and to see me and the traditional garb. The APE (parent leader, think of it kinda like the leader of the parents committee in the states; except they are really active and respected here) sees me and grabs my wrist and starts showing me around to everyone. The APE loves me and I like him. He is really nice and loves the fact that I am here. One thing though, he is really grabby with me and likes to show me off. Its like I am his white man prize. His school is better because they have a white teacher. Its funny, but literally today he would not let me go until I met with everyone he wanted me to meet with. So after that was done Emma came and about had a heart attack at how ridiculous I looked. I am hoping to get a picture of myself from someone. I had enough pictures of me taken today and the Burkinabe love to give you pictures they get printed of you. So we go over to sit down to start the ceremony at 1045. It was supposed to start at 9. Its that West African International Time... or WAIT. So during the ceremony they brought out all the professers that dressed up, we got to see dancers from 3 different lycees come and do traditional dances. It was alot of fun, but really hot. There was a prize competition for best dressed and in the male category... I got 3rd. Hear that!! I am a winner!!! or the second loser depending on how you look at it. But it was nice to be put into it. I had alot of kids stop me and ask for pictures. Then when everything was over I turn around and there was Biba!! She said she wanted to come see me in my boo boo and that I looked really pretty!! It is nice to have people here at site who care. I almost didn't want to come back because I didn't think anyone would care, but I have had literally 1/4 of the town ask me where I was and they missed me. It is a good feeling, maybe I am more integre than I thought...

Love,

Trent

Ok, so I apologize profously for my lack of blogs. There are just alot of things going on that I was not allowed to talk about. But now, Trent spills the beans. Well for the most part. Ok so rewind two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, no one knows what is going on. There are people burning stuff (a certian group of people that I am not allowed to name) and breaking into places in Ouaga. So I am sitting peacefully in my home writing a blog entry to post when I hear fireworks outside. I go outside and look, but don't see any. Then I listen again and realize its gunfire. They (again, a certain group of people who I am not allowed to name) were shooting into the air in Kaya. For what reason, to show support for the group in Ouaga. So I call my site mate and make sure that she is hearing it as well. She says that she does and while I am on the phone with her, my stupid neighbor comes outside and starts shooting right outside my courtyard. So I hurry into my house. He quits and I hear him laughing. He is an idiot. He decides to shoot off another much bigger gun at about 1 in the morning. Right outside of my house in the courtyard. So needless to say, I did not get much sleep that night.

The next morning I am supposed to go to a village near me so that I can get out of Kaya. So I ride my bike with my site mate to the village only to be told to continue on to another site. They wanted us to keep riding my bike in 120 degree temps for about 30 miles. Needless to say, we said no and searched for a car to take us. I tried a taxi but he kept changing the price and I finally yelled and called him a faux type. So we wait and see a car that happens to be going to the site that I am supposed to be going to. Well it turns out that one of the guys in the car is the prince of that site and is going to be the new chief soon. So he buys us drinks along the way and talks with us. He was really nice. So we finally get to the site and relax. We wait until a couple more people arrive and we sit down to eat. We recieve a call that tells us that we need to continue traveling again tomorrow. So basically, in two days, I traveled across the country of Burkina on bike, in car, and finally by bus and bush taxi. We were on official consolidation. So while on consolidation in a site that I cannot name, many people took safaris because there are some there. I did not. For many reasons, one is that I do not like the zoo. All that a safari seems like to me is a moving zoo in heat and humidity. Second, literally animals can attack you. There are no gates or anything and elephants charge you and even the lucky groups that got to see the lion, doesn't mean they could not be mauled by them. I think we know my luck. I would come back having been scratched by a lion or worse our car flipped by an angry elephant.

So I just decided to stay at the hotel and play cards and watch movies.

We did have an easter celebration, but it was Burkinabe. In Burkina, easter is celebrated by going out and eating food, then drinking and dancing at a bar. I really think that this is something that I could bring back to the states. We played some American music and danced at a local bar with the people. It was alot of fun. We also ate Macaroni and cheese (vache qui ri not real cheese) and ate pork and chicken.

One of the wierdest things about being on consolidation was that we were in Gourmache speaking area. This is difficult because I am in a Moore speaking area. So if the people did not speak French, we had a problem. There were children who hung out at the hotel everyday and we started calling them Ewoks. We called them that, because we had not clue what they were saying, they were kinda squeaking when they talked, they all carried around sticks and would point them at as as they would speak, they would gather mangoes from the trees and give them to us, and they were just kinda funny to watch. That was one of the biggest entertainments for me on consolidation.

So the day after easter, everyone can go back to site... ok not everyone. All the major cities can't. So I decide to go and stay with Becky and Tim in Boulsa. They are somewhat near me and they have electricity. It was alot of fun staying with them. They cooked good meals including chicken pot pies and soups. They have an oven that they are gifting to me when they leave. I am very excited. I got to play with thier dog, surreal. She is funny and also very needy. She acts like an american dog. I went to work with Tim two days and got to see his computer lab and what he is doing at school. It gave me some ideas. Also Tim reformatted my computer now so that it works faster. He got rid of Vista and just put XP on it. My computer works so much faster. I also got to watch alot of newer shows that I haven't been able to catch up on. I haven't seen Glee since regionals, its kinda killing me.

During all of this, I also had some time to do some deep thinking. I, among others, were thinking of going home. I haven't been able to do much work and morale has really taken a hit in the country. I have decided to stay and now that I am back at site, I am actually much happier than I thought I would be. I was really exhausted and wanted to leave, but now I am a little less. I still think that I am going to have to a take a tiny vacation even before I come home, but I am back to wanting to stay again. I had about a week or two where that was not the situation. There have been alot of stressors here and I definitely have been pushed farther than I ever thought that I would, but here I am. I am surviving. I am living and with everything that happens to me, is just another story that I can share later in life.

So good news!!! I come home in 10 weeks. That is only 70 days away!!! I will officially been in this country 11 months on the 9th. Too bad my official one year as a volunteer isn't until August. I am now back in Kaya which means that internet is officially my friend and available everyday. Now I have a homework assignment for you!!!!

HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT-

Write a 1 paragraph email about what has been going on in your life and email it to trentonmtaylor@gmail.com.

I bleed my stories for you, you can at least drop me a line and tell me about your Americaland stories.

Also if you are in a Newcoming stage in May/June. BONNE CHANCE!!!! I can't wait to meet you!!! I am not working your stage, but I am sure that I will be at your swear in and you will hear stories about me. lol. Don't worry, we are fixing the country and getting it ready for you.

Trent

So I am not really allowed to talk about everything that has been going on here, so that is why I have not been blogging. I apologize to everyone. I want everyone to know that I am safe and sound. I have spent the last two weeks in Ouaga trying to plan this party that is the COS party. This is a party for all the Close of Service volunteers. Everyone in the country gets together to have a party and talk and have a night to show thier appreciation for all the volunteers who are ending thier service.

So I will give you a wrap up of my two weeks, without too much detail. But enough that you will get the idea...

So two weeks ago I come in to start getting things ready and unfortunately some events happened in Ouagadougou that prevented me from going out and getting things organized. So I did not get them accomplished. So on Friday I was told that I need to get a back up site near the bureau so in case anything happened we were close by. That and the old location was near a building of people that we did not want to be around at this time... So I found a back up location in a wooded area. It was good. Soooo...

The next monday, more stuff happened in other parts of the country. Then this continued on to tuesday. This is the point where we moved the party again and I was calling people in the country and making sure where people were and who was coming in and who was stuck at site. I also find out the location of my party has been moved again...

So at this point I find out that one of my girl friend's girlfriend. (sorry sounds wierd but can't use names. plttt) Anyway, the girlfriend snuck into the country and I went to the airport with my friend Suniata who had helped arrange the whole thing. We picked her up at the airport and took her to the hotel where her girlfriend was staying. My friend's face was priceless. She was confused, shocked, and excited. I thought she was going to faint. It was so sweet and romantic. I found out later that she asked her to marry her. SO they are officially engaged!!! Amazing.

So then it was back to party planning. I had thursday to get all the drinks ordered and I was supposed to be at warden training, but luckily they are going to be doing another warden training at a later date and I was told I could just go to that one. So I spent all day getting drinks organized, getting food organized, and making sure all the accomadations were met. I was running around like crazy, but it was worth it. I especially have to thank the Peace Corps Bureau for helping me get things organized. They were a vital part of making sure that this party happened and making sure the COSing volunteers had a party to remember. The Country Director and her assistant even organized for Floby, (Who is the most famous Burkinabe singer here... equivilent of Lady Gaga in the states) come to the party and sing a little bit for us. He sang a little bit and as he left he shook my hand. My students are going to be so jealous when I tell them.

The party went off mostly without a hitch. Everyone was in high spirits and some said that it was the best COS party they had been too. So I was glad that I could get it organized and everyone was happy with the results. However, I do not think that I will be organizing another one of those anytime soon. I have decided that I am glad to have a mother who knows how to event plan. If I do become a party planner, it is going to be of the skills she and my father have passed down to me. Mother in organization, and father out of making something amazing out of nothing. You should see what he can do with some pcv pipe and electricity. ;)

Ok, I am now back in Kaya, and I am glad to be back. I am hopefully going to have students come to my class tomorrow morning. Afterwards, I am going to go into town and tomorrow afternoon... LAUNDRY and CLEANING!! I have already swept and replaced my water filter and cleaned my kitchen, but now I need to take on my bedroom, which is more like a closet for me anymore sinch I sleep in my living room, but still. I need to clean clean. Two weeks away and the dust builds up. That and I have people coming and staying with me next week!!!

I will try to keep you updated and if you have any specific questions, you can email me,

trentonmtaylor@gmail.com

Sorry for the discreetness, but I can tell you all about stuff that happened when I get home... Thats right, Im visiting home.. Its 14 weeks away!! Be excited. I am!!!

Love and miss you all!

So on the Weds before saint patricks day; I decided to have a couple of Gin and Orange mix and watch some of my favorite episodes of Glee. It gave me a chance to catch up on what music I had been missing and see some old favorites. However; I also have been taking Benedryl so I could sleep at night. I wasn't thinking about it and took my Benedryl and after I took it I was drinking and thought; Uh oh. Probably should not have mixed those two. To quote Justin's mom on QAF; "Who do I look like; Judy Garland?" But I did it and I fell asleep and had the most knocked out sleep of my life. I woke up to Hailey calling me telling me at 8 that they were going to throw a ST. Patricks day party. I was like, gimme 2 hours. lol.

I met them at the Marche and am still slightly drowsy from the Benedryl and then they said the magic words. Trent we need you really to carry stuff and do stuff for us. Basically like my dad says; A strong back and a weak mind. That was my mindset for the day and I was more than happy not to think.

We get back to Grace's house and the work begins. Hailey gets to work on cutting vegetables; Grace is getting decorations; I am popping popcorn and Shrimp crackers. Grace not only gets burned by oil in the process; but also cuts her finger while cutting garlic. Poor thing. About this time we realize we should have invited people around us. The only one who could reach us was maybe Emma; so we call and invite her. She says; no; she can't make it. We are sad but understand. At this point Hailey starts cooking the food; and it smells and tastes amazing. Its a stew of Beef; Cabbage; Potatoes; Carrots; Onions; Garlic; Black Peppercorns. IT is amazing and semi-irish. We get the place decorated and I go get two other volunteers who are staying here for a little while and when I get back the party is ready. We had food; we had cold drinks; and all we had to do was wait for the people. The people did come! To our surprise; Emma came!!! She had found a late bus and made it into Kaya!! After that Burkinabe started to arrive. One of them was supposed to bring the beers; but of course he didn't get it set up so the beers didnt arrive until about 9ish. You know it isnt St. Patricks without beer. Even though; I don't really like beer.

We fed the Burkinabe the stew and they loved it. They drank beers; we played a milange of African and American music and danced. The funny thing is trying to explain St. Patricks Day. Someone asked about why we wear green and Hailey said it is because Snakes are greena and St. Patrick chased out all the snakes. None of us knew exactly why; so we let it go. It was alot of fun and we were able to share a St. Patricks Day party with Burkinabe and explain a little bit of cross culture. It was a great time and I can only hope my future partys can go as well.

Speaking of which; I still cannot go to Ouaga... So I am right now about 2 weeks away from my party... FANTASTIC!! Not freaking out yet; but next week; I see a mental breakdown occuring. We'll see!!

Also I had to take down a couple of blogs because of political commentary with stuff happening. If you missed it; just talk to someone who reads it. Or I can give you what you missed over the phone. lol.

NOW one more Shout out!!

One of my Best Friends Katie Fouts is tying the knot tomorrow to an amazing Man Zach Holt. I want to wish her the best wedding day that anyone could ever have and I know that they are going to be happy together for years and years to come.

Also; she cannot get knocked up til I come back. ;)

LOVE

Trent

So remember how peaceful I said that Kaya was, well that came back to bite me like these things always seem to do. I get up in the morning and I am running late already. This was not a good start to the day. I left the keys to my class in my house and had to return to my house and when I went to my class, none of the students were there. So I said screw it, and went to the post. I got a package from my grandma. (Favorite package items included cherry drink mixes, garlic powder, cheese in a can, m&ms, JOLLY RANCHERS!!!!, a book and some movies.) I loved the note that she left me as well. She even made me a grocery bag that I can use at the marche (market). It will be better than using the hundreds of sachays that I use. She made it herself, being the crafty sewing queen that she is. She made it out of an old jacket. lol. But it will be amazing.

Anyway, back to my story. So I get my package and go to the Marche to remind a tailor that he is supposed to be done with my COS Party outfit today. He has had it a week. I see him and tell him I will be back at one and he tells me that it will be done. I see my fabric sitting next to his chair where it has sat for the last week. Oh Burkina. So while at the marche I hear that the students tried to burn down the Commiserie(sp). I am glad that I am at the marche and not at the school, because I'm thinking they are talking about the dining hall thingy that is at the school... This is not correct. I go down the road and start to go to the Cyber. As I am riding my bike, I roll past a group of people at the V in the road and don't think anything about it. I look ahead and I see a group of Gendarm (army men) in full riot gear glaring at me. I stop and am confused. I have gendarm in front of me in riot gear and a group of people behind me. Then I realize that they are surrounding the police commiserie(sp). Then it hits me. I am in the middle of the demonstration.

So I turn my bike around towards the group of people and I ask what is going on right here. Making sure that I am not in the middle of some riot. Someone tells me that they tried to burn down the police commiserie(sp) and at this point everyone starts to run/moto/bike away and people are yelling. I start riding my bike away with the people and realize the gendarm must be chasing us or something. So of course, I try to turn off at a restaurant and sit down. I'm trying to figure out what exactly is going on. So i sit down and say, oh I am just going to take the back roads around the gendarm and will just see what is happening. So I take the back road and when I get back the main road after the police commiserie(sp) I smell something. My eyes start to water and it smells peppery... I realize that they had just got done using tear gas and I was getting a nice after smell of it. I am like, ok get out of here. So I start to ride my bike to the cyber and I see that not only did they attack the police, but they attacked the gendarmarie and they burned the outside fence and I had a bunch of gendarm with very unfriendly faces and big guns staring at me as I rode by. I was not in the best of moods.

So I finally arrive at the cyber and I call my safety and security officer who tells me to just stay where I am at for the next couple of hours because everything will stop by about 1. I just sit and play some on the computer. I didn't post anything or send anything because I wanted to see what was all playing out. I left the cyber about noon and everything had calmed down, so I went to a restaurant and had a coke. I felt like I deserved it.

So in conclusion. Everything right now is fine. They (Students) are still rioting (some days) around the country, but they aren't angry with white people. They are mad at the police and the army. I actually saw a bunch of my students today and they said they would see me at school tomorrow. Apparently to white people it is a big deal rioting and stuff. This does not seem to phase the Burkinabe at all. They just continued thier day as normal. I talked to someone about they rioting and they were like, oh yeah that did happen... so how about this heat. I was like, yeah it was hot. The heat seemed more important subject to talk about. lol. Another cultural difference I guess.

The most important question is will Trent be able to go to Ouaga this weekend to work on his COS party. The answer is (as Carol would say) "God willing and the creek don't rise."

P.S. When I came back to the tailor at 1, he had my vest made and just finished making me a bow tie. Gotta love that service. ;)

So I live up in Kaya like many of you know, and there has been student rioting all through out the country, except for my area. Today there were student riots in the Bobo region of the country and koudougou and Ouhigouya, but nothing here in Kaya. We went back to school today and the students didn't even strike. So basically I have a few theories about why this is true.

1. I am near Blaise Compaore's hometown of Ziniare. So everyone around here basically loves Blaise and have no problems with almost anything that he does. Which is kinda cool.

2. The students in Kaya are lazy. This is something that I also think to be true. The students here are all cool with a day off of school, but rioting and throwing stones sounds like alot of work.

3. The students here find the irony of killing people and destroying things because the police killed one kid. I doubt this one to be true, but I like to give them a little benefit of the doubt.

March 8th is International Womens Day. Here is a big shout out to the women in my life and there are lots of them.

To my girls (JJKE): We have been through alot, seen alot, and screwed up alot; but look at us know. We are fully functioning members of society. I'm proud of us.

To my mom: You have always been a strong woman who raised me to treat women with respect. Thanks for that.

To my Grandma's: You have taught me poetry, folk tales, and taken me on numerous trips to make me more cultured. Thanks to both of you. Love you both.

To my tough Female Teachers and Professors: (Erwin, Kuhn, Crosby, Adkins, and Mary Spillman) You always pushed me to try new things and were always pushing me to do better even when I just wanted to be acceptable. You made me do better and to expect better from myself. Thanks for that, even when I sometimes didn't appreciate it at the time.

To my bank ladies: Celebrate yourselves you do great things and bring happiness to peoples lives, even when you tell them they are flat broke with a smile. ;)

To everyone else: celebrate your Women's day and if you live in America, be glad that you live in a country where you are treated as a equal (mostly) and not just a glorified child bearer who is expected to clean house and birth babies your whole life. You can even wear shorts without being thought a prostitute. God Bless America.

Ok speaking of this, I am working on a project this summer called Camp Glow. This is a two week camp where we will be bringin in students from around the region and bringing them in to empower the girls to not be as shy and to show them they have a choice to go to a university and not just be married off. We also have a boys week where we teach equality and other information. We will be covering information both weeks, including HIV/ AIDS Prevention, Malaria Prevention, Food Cleanliness, General Women's and Men's reproductive health, Goal setting, and much much more. We have a website where you are able to donate money if you would like. This is not a donation/ full charity, we have recieved free lodging in Kaya and also recieved travel from the site where the children are coming from. This is something that will hopefully happen every year; and will educate children for the future. There are camp Glow camps held all across the world in Peace Corps Countries and have been successful in every country. We are having one in the north here in kaya and one in Boussama in the south.

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=686-140

Now to COS party planning. I currently have 87 volunteers coming. I am very excited/worried. If this event goes well (like im sure it will) then I will be a success and I will recieve very little gratitude, but will be filled with self satisfaction. However, If it fails, I will be known as the guy who ruined the COS Party and will hear the complaints for the rest of my service and I will reek of failure. So, no pressure. I have to get the food and the drinks ordered when I go to ouaga on Saturday- Tuesday. On monday I have to give the money for the cokes to the Madame who runs the bowling Alley with the drink order. After that... no more reservations. I am already seeing people going to try to come in on the night and not RSVP'd. I am going to have to turn them away, and I'm going to look like an ass. However, I have called like 90 people in this country and talked to them about the party. Alot of them are waiting until the last minute. I only need 3 more people to reach my initial budget, so the good news is that anything after can be used on extras like Jungle juice, decorations, more beer. You know, the important stuff.

The HEAT!!!!

Ok, let me try to describe exaclty what I am living in here in Burkina at the moment. Grace told me today that the thermometer in her house (her house has a drop ceiling to keep it cool like mine) was 105. So that was in the house, in the shade. At that moment, I was riding my bike in the sun, back to my house. When I was sitting in the cyber and typing, I was sweating through my shirt. It is not that you get sweaty while you are doing things, its when you stop. When I get to my house and sit down, it is like my body is a waterfall that was plugged until I stopped.

Also I now have new sleeping arrangements. I have ditched my bedroom and now have a mattress in my living room under my ceiling fan. That is right, A blue and white checkered mattress with fruit on it, in the center my living room with a body pillow and blankets. Now, I know the first thing most of you are thinking is... BLANKETS? Yes, I know that its hot, but I have to have a sheet or a blanket on me to sleep. I think its a security thing, but yeah. My fan on high and I sleep there. I have never been so happy to be Posh corps and have electricity.

Anything else you guys want to know???? My camera is broken, so no photo requests, but send any cultural questions or anything to trentonmtaylor@gmail.com or leave a comment.

I have been here 10 months. So close to my 1 year mark. I have been faking french for 10 months now. lol.

So I just got done having 8 people stay at my house for a camp glow meeting and it was alot of fun and I feel like I got alot accomplished. I guess... But Friday I recieved an unexpected surprise. So students in Koudougou are protesting because a kid got killed and they say it was police brutality. So the kids are rioting. 4 people have been killed and a number of cars and stuff have been set on fire apparently. I am in Kaya and my kids are reallly lazy; so I am not really too worried that the kids are going to be demonstrating here. However; the ministry of Education has closed all schools until further notice. They are apparently rioting in Ouaga and Ouahigouya as well. So that means that I am on vacation until further notice. So what is Trent going to be doing... still deciding. Today I swept and mopped my floors, did my dishes from this weekend, and did my laundry. So it was a work around the house day; that I very much needed. I guess I can continue to work on my COS party. I may decided to take a bus to Ouaga and try to see what I can get accomplished. I will just have to wait and see.

Also in other news; I just got a debit card that I can use in Burkina and I am very excited about it.

Happy 50th Birthday to the Peace Corps. It was signed into action today. So cool to be serving in the 50th year. I have lots of work to do ahead. I am thinking I should look into more Secondary Projects. Do alot so the next volunteer here is expected to do alot. lol.

My schedule

March_ work on COS party

April

So I am having problems with my stomach when I eat, so I get brought into Ouagadougou so we can see what is going on. When I come in, I get blood drawn, poop in a cup, and get a sonogram. That's right, I get the goo on my stomach and have them move around and look at my organs, for the second time in nine months. Its like I'm having a baby, only babies of disease. Well it turns out that I have an amoeba. This amoeba decides to eat my stomach. So when i eat, it eats my stomach, or something of the sort. So I am now given medicine to kill the amoeba farm. I should be back to normal in about ten days. So excited. To be able to drink or eat without feeling like I am being stabbed. The little things that you look forward to in Burkina Faso...

I come back to site on tuesday night (aka 6pm) and I go to a restaurant and meet some of my favorites *Hailley, Grace, and Emma* and do not return to my house. I go to Grace's house and stay the night and watch the new Glee's and introduce them to Queer as folk, to which they are now addicted. We will probably watch them later. I stayed because the next day we took a trip to Nemtenga...

Nemtenga is a little village in BFBF (Think BFE but instead of the Egypt replace Burkina Faso). There was a grand fete there where I saw traditional masks and traditional dances and helped Mike from friends of Burkina. I played the game sharks and minnows from when I was in Gym class back in Elementary School. Having one shark attack the minnows, then they become sharks, until everyone gets tagged or you get down to about 10. I was playing with over fifty students and it was a little intimidating. I'm explaining the rules and telling them not to cheat in French it was alot of fun.

So also they brought out thier tribal masks to greet us. They look like big cousin IT's with faces. The masks are spirits and they have different personalities and they really are cool to watch dance. You can't touch the masks, but they will bow and touch your hand if you hold it up... and your white. lol. They speak, but its like a series of bird chirps and it is kinda creepy. one of the masks had a stick and it was swinging it at people and hitting them. So the children ran from it. It was really cool

Also I got to see a weaving guild and a ladies group get together and dance. When the ladies dance its a circle of women and usually one lady is singing loud and the others sing a following chorus. It is so cool because two women go out and they spin and then they booty bump each other and then another women enters as another one leaves and they just keep going. The ladies here carry babies on thier back in a pagne and I was about to die when one of the ladies went out spun and booty bumped with a baby on her back. The baby was like, I don't like this ride. lol. It was really fun and I got to see the women create some cloth that was really pretty!

They also had a big ceremony where they thanked us for coming and they gave us gifts. I recieved a hat that farmers wear, I think my grandpa taylor may have just recieved an African Hat he can work in. lol. Its a cone hat with a couple of African designed things on it. It is pretty cool and traditional, but I will never wear it. Most likely.

After the way therey we had to go back. I must mention that the trip to nemtenga was off road and at night took about 40 mins on the off road part. I don't get car sick, but by the end of the off roading expedition I was glad that we were on paved road again. I don't know how the drivers even found the place, it was like, take a left at that one rock... lol.

The next morning was the all important community meeting in Kaya. In order for us to recieve any funding for a project we need a 25% community contribution. So in order for us to recieve this, we were going to need the lodging in Kaya to be paid for. We didn't know where we were going to stay or what is going to happen. So we go to the meeting with some of the most important people in Kaya and good news, we recieved the lodging. So that is a relief off of Emma's mind and we can start getting our funding from SPA grants and also money from friends of Peace Corps people. More to come on that later...

So we are at Friday morning, this is the the day where I am able to start eating full meals almost without dieing. The pain has subsided and I am in Ouagadougou. It turns out that our softball game isn't until Friday, which works out great, because I need to meet with the owner of Pandora about the COS party. (Close of Service). The COS Party is for volunteers who are leaving Burkina and going back to America, because they are finishing their service. However, every volunteer in the country is invited. I volunteered to get the event organized, because I'm a glutton for punishment. I decided to have the party at Pandora, a bowling alley in Burkina Faso. I know a bowling alley, tres classy! So I needed to get the venue for the night. The starting price for the venue was 375000 CFA or 700 and some dollars. I talked it down to 225,000. or 475 dollars. Thats right, I haggle. I did agree to buy drinks from them, which is going to be a little more expensive, but I was just happy to have the place. And all I need is 7 more people to come outside of the people who are leaving the country to come and I have the venue paid off. That is amazing. It is a Viva ouaga Vegas Party and there is going to be bowling, dancing, music, drinking, Slot machines, pool, and some other games. Talk about an amazing time. If only I had a musical chairs with a twist game. Jk Mom, don't actually make and send one.

SOFTBALL TOURNAMENT

So saturday morning came around and it was time for me to play. Our first game we were using to try to see how we played together and was not that competetive, but everyone was surprised when I was telling people where to play and batting orders and base coaching. They were surprised that I even knew the rules. I never realized I grew up in a sports family until I came here and realized that just by knowing the rules to sports, I was ahead of the curve of even some of the guys. lol.

The first game we lost, but only by a few points. It was a good game, we just had a bad first inning. This followed us as a trait... we had a bad first inning in all three of our games that most of the time cost us the game. That and our spirits broke a little bit in the third game. But we were upset that we lost the second game because we were up against JICA. Now I know you have no clue what JICA is, but think of Peace Corps, but the Japanese version. So literally we got beat in Baseball by our Japanese counterparts. Although we technically go beat by some Nigerians and some americans as well. I liked what Dan Rooney said, you know we developed a country we they can beat us at our own sports. lol.

So I know it wouldn't be a blog entry without me having some injury, so we are playing in the third game and I am the catcher. I let a girl who was much faster and better than me take that position. I liked being the catcher. Surprise surprise... I am on home base covering it and the ball is right behind the third baseman and a guy rounds second and goes to third and rounds third. He should have stayed. The ball was right behind him. So I jump on the plate and get it thrown to me by the short stop. The ball hits my mit and he threw it really freaking hard so it comes up and hits my other hand and bounces out. I grab the ball and throw it to the pitcher before anyone else runs. I look down and my middle finger is swollen up twice the size it should be. I'm like, well shit. So I just decide to finish the inning, which didn't last long and luckily that was all I needed to finish. It turns out that blood had just made it swell or something, but I was bruised all down my finger and it was blue for about a day and half. I two other bruises on my arm and shoulder where I dove for a ball in the outfield. I stopped the balls, but didn't catch them. lol. When it comes to sports, I am glad that I only play them for fun and am not competive. Lets leave that for the Bingo, poker, and board games.

Needless to say we lost the tournament, but we came in 5th out of 6th. Who cares if everyone on the team that lost overall was probably under the age of 16... I don't.

So one of the weirdest things though about the tournament was that it was the International School of Ouagadougou, where they teach in English. The whole time that I was there, almost everyone was speaking English. The kids spoke English and had American mannerisms. I bought 4 snowcones to help the school prom at one concession stand. I had pizza at anothe concession stand. Then I bought sprites to help the Arts club go to Paris. It was like I was at a high school function. The most awkward thing was that, everyone was ignoring me. They acted like I was not important and didn't yell at me and didn't stare. I didn't realize how used to that I was until it wasn't happening. I'm used to being observed doing everything like I'm a celebrity, so it was kinda awkward going back. I think I am going to be one of those people, WHY AREN'T You Staring AT ME!!!.

Finally, last paragraph, I swear. I went to Chez Simone with a bunch of people including two volunteers who live in Benin. They were on vacation and on thier way back. Thier names were Eric and Elise and they were awesome. It was fun talking to them and just hanging out with everyone. I also got to get some good stuff in Ouaga, including new Modern Family, Glee, and Black Swan. If you get the chance to watch Black Swan, its a really cool film. If you like to see ballerinas going crazy. Oooh and Burlesque, but that is if you like musical films with Cher and Christina. Which I think we all know.. I do.

Love you all. and there are photos of me apparently on facebook playing softball.

Trent

One last p.s. I just found out that I am going to be getting a visitor in Dec-Jan time. One of my adventourous friends. More to come later.

So I have another inflammation of my stomach; Most likely caused by piment or as you americans know it; peppers. I try to avoig all but the green; but I have been cooking with piment powder and making some awesome chicken noodle soup; but alas; now it hurts everytime I swallow food. not that it is keeping me from eating; because I think we all know I would have to lose my stomach for that to happen. Im trying antacids and going to try to find a glass of milk for tonight. YAY!!

Some of you may have noticed that I changed my address. Look Here----->>>

If you send things to the old address; I will still recieve them at the bureau. This address is my new one in my town, so a little easier access to me. Thank you for this brief announcement.

I have a really busy schedule coming up. I am going to Nemtenga to visit someone with Friends of Burkina. His name is Mike and he served in Peace Corps over 30 years ago!! He returns and brings letters and speaks fluent Moorê. Talk about an amazing man. After that I have a community meeting on Thursday morning and teach thursday night. I am leaving for Ouaga at 6 in the morning on Friday and have an LPI (maybe a medical appt if my stomach isnt better), then softball tournament weekend. I am so excited!!

Well its been a boring week; but those of you who have questions about joining the peace corps and what peace corps service can really be like; wath this,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-wDq17zyN0

It is really funny and alot of it is in good fun. It is not a completly accurate display of service; but definitly hits home in alot of places. Aka the whole gardening section and local foods. LOL.

Love an misses!!

Trent

So for you that haven't figured it out, serpent in french means snake. So I am watching Parks and Recreation (A fabulous show that everyone should watch) when I hear someone banging on a metal door. At first I ignore it, but then I'm like what the hell...

So I go outside and I walk down two houses in my courtyard and hear my gendarm (army) neighbor banging on his door. I am confused until I look down and see a snake on his stoop. Now my first thought is really, its a one foot long snake. Its skinny and is maybe a gardner snake or the african equivelent. My second thought is but what if its not...

So I go back to my house and throw on some jeans and my black shoes and grab my half a broom... I will describe why I have half of a broom in a moment.

So I walk down to his house and walk up on his stoop and just kinda brush the snake off of the porch and into the courtyard. I tell the gendarm that its ok to come out and he says very panicky, ou est le serpent!! Ou est le serpent!! (where is the snake! Where is the Snake!). I tell him in the courtyard. He comes out and sees it and I ask him what we do now. I was thinking maybe he had some serpent knowledge, but then I remembered Burkinabe are scared to death of snakes and there is only one answer. Kill it.

So I walk to my house and grab my big kitchen knife that is a little dull, but I figure with enough force the head should come off pretty easily. I walk back and ask the gendarm if he killed it yet and he said no, then throws a big rock at it... That is the system for him to kill a snake... throw rocks at it. I am thinking about walking up and just chopping its head off real quick and this man won't get within a 3 foot distance of the snake. After we did some substantial damage with the rock, he crushed its head with a big stick over and over and we swept it outside. I just always love situations where I can play the butch male figure. Not only was I the one who had to sweep the snake away, but I also was going to be the one to just chop its head off. Thats right, when you think of men, think of me.

Ok, so now about the broken broom, so earlier this week I was burning trash and sweeping up my courtyard and I had a couple of big piles of like gravel dust mixture. I am moving these over to a mini-burn pile that I am make and while I an sweeping, my broom breaks and half and the top part of the broom and my fist hit me in the face. It almost knocks my jaw off. Needless to say I was alright, but my pride took a hit. Oh who are we kidding, how much pride do I have left to lose?

I am posting this entry from Ouagadougou, I am going to be enjoying a relaxing day away from site. Wish me well, I'm wishing you well.

Love, peace, and chicken grease,

Trent

P.s. That makes the count.. 4 scorpions, 1 scorpion carrier, and 1 snake for those playing the game at home.

So Fridays are my hard days. I have my first class at 7 for and hour, then I have a class at 10 for two hours and a class at 3 for 3 hours. Needless to say, by the end of the day I am tired. I have to try and get concepts and translate them in French, not an easy task to do. It is especially not helpful when you are at the poor end of things at the end of the month and you find out you haven't recieved your living allowance. It won't come until monday or god forbid Tuesday. I really have a list of things that I need to buy and even a few bills that I would like to pay. I was trying to figure out how I got into such a tight predicament and I figured it out. Cokes and meat.

Now when I say this, take all of it with a grain of salt. The Burkinabe here live off of what I make a month for thier whole family and for whoever else they give thier money. They may give some to thier family in village or to thier family in another city, you never know. Now my predicament is that I spend to much on food, surprise, surprise!!

one Coke costs 500 CFA or, for you doing the math at home, 1 dollar.

One sachay of meat costs 500 CFA as well.

If I buy both everyday in a month, this is 30,000 CFA!!!

I am spending 30,000 on food, however the downside is that I can argue the cost.

Cokes and meat make me happy, when I am happy I am a better volunteer, if I don't get meat and cokes, then I won't be happy, thus I will be a sucky volunteer. Makes sense doesn't it?

I am thinking that I am going to try to be better about what I eat in February. I am going to try to eat more Achieke- A substance made of a maniake(sp?) that is shaved and cooked and then they add a little vegetables and some oil. It is really good and it is only 200-300CFA. That would be a reduction in my food costs for the day. Right Now by the time I get done making a meal here, it costs me usually a little over a 1000 CFA. This is both the joy and the downfall of living in a city.

When you live in a village, you don't have access to cokes. You don't have access to canned ravioli. You eat usually with your neighbors and you maybe buy Benga*(beans) or you rice with sauce or if your really unfoturnate, you get to eat Toe. So you don't buy as much stuff. You also dont pay for electricity, and you do pay to get your water delivered to your house usually. So needless to say, your living expenses are usually quite low and this makes your living allowance almost more of a travel allowance. You really only use the money when you leave your site and go to your region capital or when you go into Ouagadougou and Bobo.

So because I live in a regional capital and just the otherday I found Snickers bars in a refrigerator at one of my Alimentations, I spend my money like crazy, because there is always something to buy. I have a daily marche with all kinds of Pagnes and leather goods and I have alimentations and Boutiques with all kinds of items for sale. I also have been buying small gifts that I am planning on bringing back to the states and give to people, so that is about 5000-10000 CFA a month.

So next month, I am going to chop down my cokes and meat purchases. I am going to figure out how to not eat so much, and I am going to see if I can save 20,000 mille a month, so I have money when I come home. Will I succeed? Probably not. But its worth a shot.

Also I must mention that cold season is ending, Hot Season (April and May) is just around the corner. Already the temperatures have been going up.

Also, I was riding my bike home after I picked up a couple of sachays of Ice and my bag broke so I tried to stop my bike and when I did I hit the front brake too hard and I had my feet down, so the back of the bike flipped up and hit me in the back and knocked me over in a sandpile. Good times!!!

Do you know how to tell the difference between a goat and a sheep? I do. A goats tail goes up and the sheeps tail goes down. I know wha your thinking; sheep are black with thick white wool. This is false. I mean some sheep are that way but definitely not all of them. I awakened on tuesday morning and I heard goats. This is not a problem; I hear goats all the time. Then I hear a pig. Now the thing about pigs is that they are quiet; unless they are squealling. This pig was not squealing. I leave my house to realize my gendarmarie neighbors have trapped 2 goats and a pig in our courtyard. That or they pushed the door open and then got trapped. So I wrap a pagne around my waist and open the door and the goats run to behing my house with the pig. So I run around the other side of the house and hiss at the goats and pigs and they leave my courtyard. It was then that I realized; I never thought that chasing goats and pigs out of my yard was going to be a problem in my life. Life; huh?

So I am trying to get focused. I have a Close of Service party to plan; I have to set up a new post box; I have to start secondary projects; I am tutoring in French; and also I am trying to figure out whatto do with my life in general. I was talking to some of my friends about this very subject. I thought that in the Peace Corps; I would get some big new vision for my life. So far this has not been obtained. I was talking to some people who were leaving the country and they said; "oh yeah; they should put that as a warning in your Peace corps service. Warning: You will not find some new path in your life after your service."

So I am going to have to really be focusing on my life; that or just do a 3rd year in the Peace Corps. lol. But I have tons of work to do and I really need to buckle down on my French. When I leave here; I will have tons of experience and will speak ok french. That has got to count for something. Add that to the experience of my 13 other jobs and I am very well rounded. I am learning that my best skills are organizing people and events. I may talk my mom into opening a party planning service with me. lol. JK. Atlhough thatwould work and then I could just get my brother to make whatever artsy I need for free. LOL. Anyway back to Africa...

I played a game with my students the other day where I asked them questions and had them type the response. The winner got Gateau; which translates to cake; but it is nothing like cake. It is literally Fried dough and I am not a fan. The kids actually knew alot of the answers to the questions; but thier spelling was questionable. jorge bouche= George Bush. It was funny. I had fun with the kids and then today they come into my classroom and they were pushing and roughhousing so I made them marche in a line outside and stand in the sun for five minutes and then had them walk into the class. These kid are ages 16-23 probably and they act like early teens. Its semi ridiculous; but fun to watch.

Well thats all for today. Questions Comments?

Also my camera quit orking; but am trying to fix it. Desolé or sorry!

So this past weekend I had everyone from the Central North region of Burkina Faso in Kaya for a meeting about a girls and boys camp in Kaya. Afterwards, I had people at my house for a small soiree with music and drinks. It was alot of fun and I got to have everyone from out little region together. The best part was that Emma P. was basically doing all the work and all I had to do was listen to the meetings. So not much work for me. It was also the first time that Kristin and Diana have visited Kaya and got to see all that my lovely city had to offer. Especially the leather! I was discounting merchandise for Diana at the marché; it was fun. More to come on Camp Glow; I may even need your help in the states. ;)

So last week; I went to the vegetable marche to buy some peanut butter and while there I was talking to the ladies and speaking a little Mooré (local language of Burkina Faso). While talking to the ladies; one of them tried to have me hold her baby and I told her no thanks, afterwards while listening again; I realized she was trying to give me her baby. It is a common joke here; kinda. When the ladies offer you thier babies; you have to be careful not to seem to excited or they may actually give it to you. Mostly its a joke though; but I definitely didn`t need to be adding a baby into my Burkina Equation.

So another latrine story, I was going to use the latrine and I had to poop, so I was squatting over the latrine. While squatting over said latrine; a lizard runs out of the latrine and over my foot which I try to shake off and have to catch my balance or my butt is going right in the latrine hole. I luckily catch my balance and kept myself from touching the yucky latrine hole. I am still not happy with lizards though. I will forgive them in time, but right now; the war is on.

Miss everyone and hope life is going well.

Trent

So Monday came around and with it came the new work year for me. I started back teaching and the first day was semi-eventful. I figured out that my building doesn't have enough power to run all of the computers in it. This is what happened. I walk into my lab and the students are using the computers and I notice random computers start turning off. So I start chasing the power outages and then I start unplugging computer and replugging in computers and now have it so that all the computers on the outside of the class work, but six of the computers in the middle of the room don't work. If I plug in any of them, then I start chasing power outages again. I am figuring this out and yelling at myself and the computers and the whole time the students are looking at the crazy nasarra teacher walking around the room talking to himself and randomly turning computers on and off. One of the kids unplugged a computer while I was working on stuff and I told him that I was going to hit him if he tried to touch another one. Not that I actually would, well at least hard.

So i finally figure out my problem and have just let the kids play on the computer for about an hour and I start to get up and review. I stand up and realize the chief of the class is gone. So I ask where he and a few others have gone and the other students tell me they went to go play futbol (soccer). So I was like, ok. A kid starts to walk in the room and I asked where he went and I forget what he said, but at this point I had my water bottle in my hand and I asked him what was happening in the road behind him. Burkinabe children are easily fooled and when he turned around I poured water down his back. Other students went to take a drink of water from the pump and when they came back, they decided to leave. So I threw alot of the water from my water bottle on him. I also threw some chalk at some kids and then I designed an outline of a kid who didn't listen to me 3 times and put a speech bubble around him that said " I did not listen because I'm stupid." However, I didn't know how to spell stupid in French, so I actually looked a little stupid. Karma!

Lastly I asked one of the girls if she was going to go play soccer and the guy next to her said that she doesn't play soccer she is just a wife. This pissed me off, so I told him that I was going to tell an american girl and she would beat him up, but then I slapped him in the back of the head. Later in class I had the class type the phrase, I want... and had them finish the phrase. That girl wrote that she would like to be a doctor. It made me really happy to see that. All the guys in the class wrote was that they wanted girls. *rolls eyes* I hate teenage boys. One guy was original and said that he wanted to get the moon so he could give it to his girl. That was semi-sweet at least. Although it seemed very old fashioned. Who can tell me the movie because I don't know it. What do you want... do you want the moon? I'll go get it for you.. or something. Its and old black and white movie.

I have pretty much decided at this point that teaching is not going to be in my future. I have trouble with the friend and disciplinarian line. Also, I am a bit of a sadist in this country. I saw a little brother being annoying to his bigger brother of like 6 years and the big brother told him to go home and like kicked him really hard in the butt and I laughed. The younger kid started crying, and that made me laugh a little bit more. One thing that I also must mention here is that Burkinabe children cry over the stupidest things. Its not like real pain or anything, its more like when they feel like they have been looked over or wronged. Its really annoying. I like the old addage, I will give you something to cry about. That and the Burkinabe children also like to throw stuff at each other and like literally beat each other and they don't cry at all. Emotionally weak and physically strong, who knew?

Sorry I feel like this one is kinda a rambling entry, but fun. Any questions for me?

I want to give a shout out to miss Angela Lockridge, I hope things are going great at the bank and you try to keep the girls in line for me. Especially that Carol. ;)

So it is official, I have made it to 2011. Don`t worry; when you live life like me and am basically a catastrophe; you are always amazed when new years rolls around and you aren`t dead yet. So to all you people whosaid I wouldn`t make it to 25, you only have 5 months before you have to pay up. I actually talked to a girl here named Rasheeda who is a fellow volunteer and she was giving people at what age in there lives they should just end it all and she got to me and said; "he should have been dead 3 years ago; he is living on borrowed time." I thought this seemed somewhat accurate. lol! The more reason that I try to make each day special.

So after christmas I decided to go to Fada and spend christmas with the Fada boys and Ebben. Itwas alot of fun. I got to hang outwith Joey from my stage; Scott and Luis who are from the new new stage and Ebben who is from GEE in my stage. Anywho we all just hung around and talked and had fun. nothing too eventful. I did get to see the largest Beef market in West Africa there; and I ate some of thebest fried chicken that I have had. I ate tons and tons. So then I came back through Ouaga and decided to hang out at the transit house for a night, it was fun to see some people.

I am now back at site and am hoping to maybe stay at site until FESPACO(film festival) in February. We will see if I can do this. I am not feeling uber motivated to do this; but think it would be pretty cool.

Also when I was in Fada I bought a pagne (clothing material) that was gold leaf with big flowers that was really cool. I bought one for me and one for Grace. Grace bought a pagne that is a Chanel pagne and is awesome looking for me and her, so we will have matching pagnes and even more people will think that she is my wife.

New Years Resolutions

1)Change my attitude of hating French and really try to learn it.

2)Try to calm my life down a bit.

3)Try to not spend so much money at site and save something for trips and gifts.

4)Learn Moore better

5) Try to come up with some sort of plan for my life after Peace Corps.

Any suggestions for things to be added to the list?

I could use some probably.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!

Love Trent

P.S. In a news site that I kinda keep up with here... Vinny Guadagnino of Jersey shore is coming out with a clothing line that also gives donations to help stop teen bullying. It almost makes me want to watch the show; because I have never even seen 1 episode. Just something that shocked me and made think "See good things pop out of the most unexpected places."

So it is Christmas time in Kaya. I got home from my long Ouaga vacation only to find that my neighbors have moved out of their house; when they return to Kaya; I will find them. That was sad news because I really liked them; however; I also came back to find that I have a new site mate that is like 5K from me. So that made things better.

On Christmas Eve I had Zach and Christina come up and see me and also Halley from Forgi (four-gee). So all of us stayed at my house on christmas and christmas day and we watched movies and ate food. I made calzones and macaroni and cheese with tuna, yum! I had alot of fun with everyone and it made christmas easy to be around people. We all had alot of fun and that means I only have one more christmas to miss.

Right now my plans are to go to Fada for nezw years. I am hoping to have go because I really will have no other reason to ever go to Fada again. lol! So it will be fun; I hope. Not much of an update; but I have just been relaxing and getting ready for the next round of school to start.

Merry Christmas;Happy New year; and all that Jazz.

Trent

So I am staying in Ouaga and what do I see, but christmas lights surrounding me. YAY!! So while staying in Ouaga this week I got to eat at Chez Carlos, where I can smoke hookah and eat great food (aka, not rice or spaghetti, or to(toe) or benga). On the way home we fit 8 people into a taxi (not including the driver) and were singing christmas carols. We did a white elephant exchange that I organized and I received silly bands from Americaland. The next night was swear in for the new stage, and it was fun to go to the American Ambassadors house and see the new people. I found my new sitemates and met some people who are very nice. We went out to Chez carlos again, then we danced at the Majestic and had alot of fun. Last night I went to a fashion show that was being held by one of my friends here and it was alot of fun. Afterwards we danced all night at Calypso.

Now is a big shout out section. I have got to thank my family for sending me some packages. I recieved 3 last night. I was so excited. I got lots of candy, cheese in a can, and underwear!!! The most important was the letters that my family wrote to me and put me in the box. It was great to read all those short notes and receive the love. I reallly cannot put how much love that I had in those packages. I received notes from Cate and Colin and it was amazing to see!!! It was so cute and all the other volunteers were awwwwwing. I also have to thank audrianna for an awesome necklace that I have been wearing since I got it. It is amazing and perfect for here.

Thanks for Grandma Taylor and the many misc items that you sent me.

Thank Grandma Crouch for all the candy that you sent,

Thanks Mom for sending my package and thank you for my book.

Every book I recieved I have never read. Score!!!

Ok, I am at the transit house and will go back to site tomorrow. Hopefully.

Merry Christmas!!!!

Trent

So I was feeling sick and waking up with stabbing pains in my stomach. So I came into Ouaga after 3 days of pain and got put on some strong antacids and other pills and also received some Claritan to work on my newly acquired dust allergies. Afterwards I stayed in Ouaga and got to eat some lovely food and am currently at IST.

I am excited about being at IST because currently I am watching Glee with some of my fellow stagiares. We went to Chez simone for supper and afterwards we fit 8 people in a taxi here and drove to CACS hotel. It was my most people in a Taxi ride right now.

More to come later, sorry kinda boring update.

Trent

So today is the second day of student striking, but the bizare thing is that it only seems to be my students and the ones in Ouagadougou. First off, I am just impressed the students can organize such a thing. I know trying to get 55 students in my class to do something was difficult, let alone the numbers they have reached here. They are striking because they are mad because Blaise let some family member off after he killed a famous journalist (wikipedia if you are interested). They apparently strike every year, but I was told this was on the 13th. Well now, they are striking for maybe the whole week before, which completely throws off my test giving and grading. So when will I see my students again? That is a good question. I had students come to my 3 o'clock class yesterday, so maybe my three o'clock class will come again today.

So also this month I recieved the monthly Zak Ramba that is our Peace Corps newsletter and it had a nice little article about allergies, and I think after reading it that I may be allergic to dust. I have been basically having headaches and stuffed up and dried out since november (aka the start of the dusty season). So I am going to try to take some claritan next week and see if this fixes some of the effects the dust is having on me. Who knew, I might actually be slightly allergic to something, besides manual labor.

I have power back to my computers and all the computers seem to be turning on and working right now. This is a major relief and I don't feel like I am starting back at square one like I was feeling before. I am just a few days away from IST. I am almost done with my 6 months of sobriety and I am so close to getting a site mate and christmas. I am so excited for the break and can't wait to just relax in a hotel and hang with my friends for a week. Don't get me wrong there will be long sessions over god knows what as well, but ca va allez.

Love you all and miss you

Trent

P.s. Happy Belated Birthday to a Miss Jade Wagner.

So first off; I have to say Happy Birthday to a mr. Johnny Nellis. I am hoping he has a wonderful birthday and that he recieves everything that he wants. I really hope that he gets something ridiculous like a prop from the hit nickelodeon show ¨all that¨ or something similiar the legends of the hidden temple would give away.

Now; I go to my lab on monday and rewire it only to realize that I have not one; but two outlets broken in my lab. So I only have 3 outlets in the lab for 27 computers. Not Good. I finally get a message that the electrician is coming and going to fix it sometime this week. Then to make matters worse the kids have just decided to quit coming to class. SO needless to say; This has not been the best week. I am not going to Bobo this weekend because that got canceled; but I have IST in a week and a few days. I will leave the 12 and come back the 19th. When I come back; I will have a new site mate. This is very exciting and I can`t wait. So right now I am just biding my time until IST.

Also I bought a colorful pagne with gold all over it that I am getting made into a shirt. It is ridiculous and I love it. I am glad that I can be that old aunt that wears all the gaudy clothes over here and get it out of my system. LOL.

I`m out!

Trent

So I went to Kombissiri this weekend and was able to see some of my favorite people! It was hosted by Dwight and Mari and I was able to see Val, Zach, christina, and Diana. It was alot of fun. We ate fried chicken, grilled chicken; Mac and Cheese from America, salad, mashed potatoes, key lime pie, cookies, tons of fruit, and they gave us PEANUT M&M`s. It was delicious and amazing. We said our prayer and then we ate and afterwards we gave speeches for what we were thankful for and I swear that each was more heartfealt than the other. Not the usual stuff. Afterwards we played some UNO and were able to talk and everyone got to trade videos and music. It is always fun to exchange. I got 3 episodes of GLEE!!! Needless to say it was a fantastic weekend.

On sunday when I was coming back, we had to use a bush taxi to get back. This was my first time on a bush taxi and it wasnt so bad. Just imagine a big van and you try to shove as many people animals and things into it as possible. The seat that I sat in was on some plastic containers and when the bush taxi would stop the seat would tip forward and when we would start the seat would almost flip all the way back. It was interesting and a little fun; but uncomfortable.

Now on friday they supposedly fixed the power to my lab and it was still not working; so they are in there working on it right now. The really bad news is that when I went to turn on the computers; alot of them are only giving me microsoft beep codes. Which means the computer turns on qnd flashes lights and beeps a certian amount of times and I am supposed to know how to fix this. I have no clue. I am going to do what I do best though; make it up as I go along and hope I don`t break it more.

We will see what happens with my class. I am supposed to be teaching typing. I am going to give them what is on the test and have them practice typing,,, if I can get any of my computers to work.

Wish me luck and I always love to recieve comments and emails.

Trent

Trent is shocked... but not appalled.

Ok so I am back in Kaya and I am a little bit sick. I just have a head cold that I believe that I received after sleeping on the porch of the transit house under a fan. It was a little cold and I think I got sick... Ok now I should justify by saying I think a little cold was maybe..70? We are getting into the cool season though. It may actually start to be around that weather, which means I may have to actually use some of the those long sleeves that I packed. I know this sounds ridiculous to you in america right now getting into 40's, but I have acclimated to 90-110 degree weather. This is different. When I come back to america, I have already heard of people wearing coats in july weather, because they were literally so cold in 70 degree weather and because the stores had on AC. Which will kill me. My ladies at the bank can vouge for me being cold all the time at the bank and actually even wearing a jacket a few days. So Yeah!

Now one thing that I think that has changed over here is my emotional spectrum. Now I have almost been a little on the dramatic end of things when it comes to happiness and being jolly. I think everyone can vouge for this. Now one thing that does not come easy for me is empathy and sympathy. I feel bad for people, but never really really bad. Since I have been in Burkina Faso, this has changed. I think my emotions are more raw. I have taken them out of the box of control and have just kinda let them roam free. I watched the third episode of Glee today and cried twice during the episode. I am not one to cry at things and maybe it is just because Glee is so amazing. Who knows, but I am hoping to keep a little of my emotional rawness back in the states.

So I am trying to get my internet to work again, but right now it is not working. Technology and I aren't really getting along right now. I just bought a new power outlet today and the house power outlet ate the metal rungs off of it. I was stupid and thought hey, Ill just pull it out... Yeah, I electricuted myself. What are you going to do though? It was funny, I went to shower in ouaga at two of my friends hotel room, and when I turned on the water the shower was facing me and sprayed me in the face. I of course jumped back and hit the sink and squealed a little and fixed the shower, but after; my friend told me. "Trent I would love to live your life for just one day... actually no. Nevermind, I don't want to." I just replied, "If you do live it, just know you are rarely bored." I have decided this is true. I actually relish my more bored moments. Which makes me appreciate Burkina Faso even more.

Well tomorrow I have a big day. I have alot of things to do and people to see, so I will hopefully be able to update this soon!

Love and Peace,

Trent

Oh where oh where has Trent's Internet gone?

Ok so I am without internet until at least monday. So I go to the zain store(they are kinda like a cingular in america) in Kaya and I ask the lady why the internet is not working. Now she tells me that she does not speak English and can't really help me, so takes me to the Alimentation(small store) across the street and has them help me. The funny thing is that we had this entire dialogue in French and she understood everything, so I was confused where the English came in. You can be talking to people in Kaya in French and they will tell you they don't understand english. Now I find this very bizarre and another fact that my french is not very good. Now the man at the alimentation is trying to tell me that I haven't bought time for my key, which I did; from his alimentation and he is holding the reciept. So we can't figure out the problem with corporate, so the man says just to take it to Ouaga and try to get it fixed. Now I am not going to Ouaga again until December. So this is not going to work. So he says that he is going to Ouaga on Friday and will see what is wrong with it. So I give him the key and I will get it back from him on monday.

Now what I just did is the equivalent of having an iphone in america and the guy at the cingular booth in the mall saying he will take it to the headquarters and come back with it... and he is around 24. Would you do this America? Hell no. He would thief that and the next time you would see that Iphone would be on Ebay as he was selling it. But here in Burkina Faso, this is not a big deal. I have seen him 4 or 5 times working at the Alimentation and I don't know his name, but he will still bring it back and tell me the problem. Just funny some little cultural differences.

oh yeah and I electrocuted myself again. Not as big as last time, but I went to plug something into my USB and I was touching both the metal and the item as I plugged it in and I shocked myself again. *rolls eyes*

Now one bit of good news is that I have received my class schedule today. YAY! I am starting next week and I am teaching 16 hours. I will be teaching 4 classes of 4. I am teaching 2nd. Which think of that like juniors... kinda. It is weird to have and education system where literally the teachers are trying to fail students. They literally don't want everyone to pass because if everyone passes, the next class level will have too many students. That is just not logistically possible. I mean the 6em classes have 110 students per a classroom. You can't have that in 3em. It is too hard. THat and I have 2nd. Which means I have 60 kids in a class. I have 27 computers. This is going to be a problem, but the proviseur is charging a mille for the class as well, so that will have help kick the kids out who just want to take the class for goofing off. I know that a mille seems a ridiculously low price, equaling out to about 2 dollars america, but her that can be alot of money, especially for an extra class. So the kids will have to be really wanting to take this class. Not a big problem, I will just kick them out if they goof up anyway. Yes, students here actually like to learn and canceling class is a punishment. Could you imagine that in America? My grade would have never had class.

Now I start teaching next week. Let me see what adventures I can have and what I can mess up now.

Love and misses,

Trent

Trent comes to some shocking realizations.

Yes I have been electrocuted again. I have not been electrocuted this many times in all my life, but I have at least determined the problem with this electrocution. I think my computer has too much power in it. I went to go take the headphones of of the socket and got electrocuted. I am talking, power up through my arm electrocuted. I had to get them out of the socket and eventually pulled them out by the cord, but it turns out it was not the fact that I was touching th headphone metal. No my laptop has a metal ring in it where you put the cords in and that is the item that I touched that gave me the shock. I figured this out when I went to go move my labtop and it shocked me again. Right now actually my labtop smells like it may be on fire, so I am going to unplug and shut the girl off for the night. Let her relax and cool down a bit. I have been working her kinda hard lately.

Love you all and hopefully the only thing electric I do tomorrow is the slide.

Trent

Trent Finally Teaches!

That is right. Today was my first day of teaching. I prepared my lesson and was ready to go. I had 3 lessons. I figured 45 min a piece and I would give the kids a 20 min break. That would equal 3 hours, easily. Actually I taught for 1 hour and fourty five min. The students chose for me to keep teaching and to not take the repose I had planned and to leave early. The kids picked up on my lessons much quicker than I expected them too. They didn't stop me and ask me to repeat anything and I made sure that I repeated important things twice and even had the kids draw stuff in thier books. I thought it was easily three hours. The lessons took me that long in Koudougou. Apparently with me speaking French much better and the kids already knowing a little bit about computers. It made the lesson fly by. I need to add some more interactivity into my classes, even though the kids at first would not interact that much with me. No updates on the internet key situation because the guy did not go to Ouaga, so it is going to be another week before I can use it. I may try to get a code and use the Cyber at my school on Weds. That and if I can actually get it to do what I want the computers to do.

I also got a call from one of my friends Emma P. who is apparently going to be putting on a camp this summer and wants to know if I will help... and host people. This is exciting and fun!

Just a kinda boring update,

Trent

Trent's first week of teaching...

My first week of teaching went well and was uneventful.

Trent recieves a guest visit!

I had miss Emma P. come and visit me and I love it when Emma comes and visits me. Not only is she fun, but she is a great conversationilist. We talk in english and it is fun. Especially since I have friends that are Burkinabe and I actually have to even speak french to them. She brought me all kinds of goodies including new music that I listen too like crazy and she also brought me new GLEE aka the ROcky Horror one and new modern families. I have been entertaining myself well.

One thing that we talked about is that I am going to go to Bobo on the first week of December. It is international Volunteer day or something, which is wierd because its the same week as World AIDs Day (Aka Johnny's Birthday). So I am going to have my classes work on thier typing and type information on VIH/SIDA. Then I am going to go down to Bobo and see most of the people from my stage and we are going to be doing volunteer projects all weekend. It should be fun and I get to see people from my stage a week early!

Trent Prepares fo Tabaski!

So tomorrow (tues Nov 16) is Tabaski. This is a Muslim holiday that goes with the moon. This is one problem with muslim holidays... when the hell are they? I was told last week, we think Tabaski is Tuesday, but we are still deciding. So basically every place decides which day is Tabaski, but pretty much everyone decided as of Sunday that Tabaski is Tues. Which means that school is canceled and I don't teach tomorrow. Basically teachers here are like bankers in America. LOL!! (Miss you banker ladies).

Trent deals with discipline... Burkinabe Style

So basically I am never going to be able to teach in the united states. I have decided that I would be one of those teachers that violated the human rights of the students and am being held without pay. I basically believe the best way to deal with students is to punish them through humilation. This actually works very well here in Africa and most teachers utilize this method. So far I had students break a computer so I had the students stand in the courtyard in a line for 10 min in silence in the sun. After that I kicked two kids out of class for not listening and also because they broke the computer they have to give me next friday the phrase "I will not act like a monkey in Mr. Taylor's class." (in french of course) 50 times. Another teacher said I should have given them 250. I am hoping to be able to fix the computer, but I don't quite know what is wrong with it yet.

Trent finds the internet!!!

Yes it has happened. I have found the internet and as God as my witness I will never go without it again. THe funny thing about that is that I could probably make an outfit here out of curtains, if I could only find some curtains. My life is not really that exciting right now. I am teaching and overcoming adversity in Burkina Faso. For this week, I am overcoming the adversity of not having electricity. That is correct I taught Monday and Tuesday of this week without electricity in my building. I am hoping to have it tomorrow, or I am not going to be able to do anything. Ca va allez. (life goes on.) I am going to Kombissiri on Saturday for Thanksgiving and am looking forward to seeing some people and eating since I will be working on thanksgiving. The next week I am going to Bobo to work with other volunteers in a big international volunteer thingy. I am going to be cleaning CSPS, which should be... well volunteery? I mean, I will at least be working with people from my stage.

Now, I know that there has been alot of talk about me being electrocuted, but I swear this will be the last entry. I was correct that my computer was recieving too much power, but it is only from one socket in my plug. If I use the other one, then I am ok. I went to grab my computer and it electrocuted me again. When I changed the socket, it no longer electrocuted me. So I solved the problem at my house, now to my lycee(school). Apparently two of my tables at the school are metal and one day I kept getting small shocks on my arms and just thought it was static electricity. Well today, when the power was not even running to my classroom, a student all the sudden jumps from the table. I am confused and ask him whats wrong and he said that the table shocked him. I am thinking that he is being silly and touch the table and nothing happens. I am trying to figure out how it could be shocking him and another student touches it and nothing happens. So then I look at my shoes and realize they have rubber in them and he is only wearing tapettes (flip flops) so I put my bare foot on the ground and touch the table and get shocked to hell!! So the other kid takes his flip flops off and touches the table and gets shocked. So they use another table and I am trying to figure out how this is happening. There is no electricity to the building, so how is the table electrocuting my students? After ten minutes another student forgets and touches the student, but does not get shocked. So I try out the table again and don't get shocked. So apparently I have an electricity ghost that likes to shock me and is now after my students. I will keep you updated if I get it exercised.

Also I am getting very tired of all the dust here. I am getting dust in every crevasse of my body and am using kleenexes like they are... uhm kleenexes, but still. I am hoping a decrease, but I actually think it will increase more, especially with all the green around me starting to die. Owell. I can still get bissap and that is the most important thing.

So this weekend (Halloween Weekend) I took a trip to Ouaga. Now this is the capital of Burkina Faso, but I came in for a special reason. It was the International Arts Fair that only happens once every two years. I will probably never have a chance to see it again. It was amazing and the art made me want to buy everything there, but I decided not to. I was good and did not buy anything because I am on a peace corps salary and I didn't want to be eating only spaghetti for the rest of the month. Although that seems to be all that I eat anyway. While I was in Ouaga I also got to pick up my packages. Yes my packages. I received one from my mother that was packed full of spices and amazing goodness, then another one with candy and GQ magazine from my friends the Kruse's. I just have to say it was candy in the box so that everyone knows that a dietitian sent me candy. Hold it against her. I want to thank you all for what was inside. I will be using them all. I also weighed myself and I am at 90 kilos. Which is 198lbs. When I left I was about 223-225ish I think. So I am maintaining right now. So I am good and leveled off and will probably stay this way for a while. Now one bad thing is that my internet key at site has been messing up as of late. I have no clue why and cannot figure out the problem. I am hoping it will fix itself when I get back, because apparently internet keys around the country haven't been working. I am writing this from the transit house adn its really late at night, but I wanted to do it tonight so I know that I can get it done.

I also have been able to hang out with some people from my stage and that was alot of fun. I was so excited to see them and hang out. It was like seeing some of my friends from home. I did hang out with some new friends tonight and we spoke mostly french, so I am still keeping up with that.

Now we ate at verdoyant today and one of my friends ordered le pain. Which in french is Rabbit. Can I tell you it was delicious and I think I may have to eat that next time that I come here. Lord knows I have probably already eaten all kinds of other meat, I was like why not.

Now I have a camera now and I have taken some pictures.... but I did not receive a USB cord so that I can upload them to my computer. I am hoping that when I get home the cord for my other camera will work and I can upload a few pics of my friends and stuff, but we will have to see if the internet works and the cord works. Welcome to Africa, where one can not be completely sure that things work all the time. lol.

Sorry if this seems scrambled, but it is late and I am just now getting tired. It happens.

Love and miss you all

Trent.

So ever heard the rule that bad things happen in threes? I will tell you that it is totally true. Not only will you start to notice a pattern, but when you are like me and already live the life of an ironic comedy unfolding; you start to count and wait.

My first one happened on Weds, I arrive home and go to go into my kitchen and get a drink of water, but guess what... the door handle breaks. I mean it was already slightly broken, but now I'm holding the door handle in my hand away from the door. Now remember my kitchen is outside of the two buildings that I live in. It is like a small storage room, but I cook in it. Now, the problem. The door will not open. you see it is stuck on closed. It is not locked just without turning the handle there is no way in. It is a tight and secure room. I try many different objects to try to get the door open. I use a knife, the door handle put back in place, and the door handle to try and budge the sucker open, all to no avail. So I get pissed and go to my computer. I try to relax so I don't do something silly like just try to pull the door off. (Ok may I did try this, but it didn't work either.) I pulled and pulled. So I come back and hour later and try other methods like tying a cloth to the door and pulling. It was not cutting it. So my neighbors come over to help. I love them, but they had about as much luck as I did. We pulled, poked, and prodded, but nothing worked. So my neighbor says he knows a guy. now this guy comes with various screwdrivers, but nothing works; so he says he will be back. He returns with a hammer and a chisel. He proceeds to put the chisel in the door and hammer the hell out it and break the door spring completely off. he finally gets the door open and just takes the whole door handle mechanism out. I don't need it anyway, because I have a padlock for the door. He charged me a mill for it and finally after 5 hours I can get in my kitchen, however, I am to exhausted to cook so I just eat some canned ravioli.

Now I get up the next morning and go to my proviseur(principal) and ask him for my schedule. He proceeds to tell me that the schedule is hard and they don't have it done. So I tell him that I need to start teaching my Nov 1st or there is no use in me being here. He tells me next week for sure (I have heard this for 2 weeks now). so Hopefully I will be teaching by Nov 1st at the latest.

Now I go to my favorite restaurant and eat some cous cous and I start to leave for my house when I hear... rrriiippp! I stop abruptly! My pants have ripped more while I was biking in them. I love my bike, but it demands a pants sacrifice that I am just not willing to give. I have holes in both pairs of my jeans where the chain has decided to not wait for the sacrifice and just decides to start eating my pants while they are on me. Leaving a hole in my pants leg and me yelling, "This is why I cannot have nice things!"

So I am hoping I am done with my three, I hope! Unless the pants ripping is not grave enough. But I am still doing great in Burkina. I am loving my life here actually. I am missing less and less the technology and culture that I loved back home. I will say, that I do miss glee and for the first time since my hep; I have recently been craving some wine. Its ok I have like 2 1/2 months left of no alcohol. I think going 3 and half months without so much as craving is a good sign that I am not an alcoholic. lol. So I am still biding my time and relaxing for now, just doing a little work here and there that I need to get done with peace corps and simply talking to people. I need to study my french more, but again I find ways not to study it somehow. lol.

Also I watched American wrestling tonight in French in Burkina. Makes me laugh and think about life again.

Love

Trent

So I went to the tailor and picked up my clothes from the tailor. He made all the shirts a little big, which is great because when I come back to the states and gain the lbs back I can still wear them... if I want to. Actually my one outfit is pants and a shirt both made from pagne material, that looks audacious and ridiculous, but I will wear it with pride. I was told it was very pretty by my neighbor. So that is good news.

Now a funny story for you to enjoy. Warning it is a little bit scandalous but I still below PG-13. SOOO I finally get to sleep last night after about an hour. In Africa, I have been dreaming hard. Now any of you that know me when I talk about my dreams, they are intense, full of color, sometimes emotional, and sometimes they tell my future (This comes from my mother and its true I dream the future alot, more when I was younger.) Now I am asleep and things are are fine and then my dream turns a little bit sexy, nothing bad just someone is like tickling my left chest area with a tassel. Well I wake up, and I still feel something... I focus on it, and realize that I have a spider that was crawling on my chest and was slowly crawling over my left nipple area. So basically molesting me while I slept, I semi freaked out and bit and swiped it off of me and hopefully killed it. I know that I am irresistible, but I have to draw the line somewhere.

Well I am going to visit my school again tomorrow and hopefully get my class schedule. I am going to make it a point to work on my french this week and work on hopefully not being sick. I am receiving a camera in the mail, hopefully. Now I am not assuring you that I will be updating pics often, but I am going to try to do something to show you a little bit of my life. Including my amazing clothing and my house, maybe including shots of my latrine!!! Aren't you guys in for a treat!

Miss everyone!!!

1 year and 11 months to go....

Trent

Shoutouts:

TO my bank girls: I miss you all. I know now is the season where things get really busy, but try to keep your heads together and just remember... there are tons of holidays ahead. oh yeah, and try to be nice to the new jackie girl. She is kinda ok. I may know her. heheh. Oh and make sure Jenn doesn't have to talk to too many customers at her new station. That would be bad. I feel it will end with shoes being thrown, just hopefully not of the designer kind.

To my families friends: HAVE A wonderful time at Halloween, I will not be wowing you with my dancing this year, but hopefully you guys can still have a killer party... minus anyone actually dying.

Jenn, Katie, Jade, Erin, and Johnny. I miss you all so freaking much. I can't wait to see you guys again. ASAP. Which may happen in June-july, if I can swing coming home. If so I expect you to be there at some point. I am making the half the world travel. lol. That and if you come visit me... well uhmm yeah. You may get malaria. lol.

So my faithful blog readers trent is a stupid head. I had to go to Ouaga on monday (oct 4) and get some blood drawn for some tests. (All of which returned back super OK). I arrived in Ouaga and had to end up staying the night at the Transit house, which is kinda like a Peace Corps frat house. I enjoy my time there, there is internet and good people dropping by. The transit house is also like a digital trading post. People bring their hard drives and their computers in hopes someone has some movies or tv shows they can steal. Which someone always does. I have now seen two new episodes of Glee and Modern Family. Both of which made my whole month. Now I go to leave on tuesday and what is it that I forget to pack in my bag? My USB Key and my Internet key. Both of which are now tucked away in my box at the transit house.

So right now I am writing this blog update on notepad and will update this to my blog when I have access to the internet again. Which could be a few weeks. I apologize. I am basically going to type up one huge blog entry and put dates on it so you all know when and what was going on. I apologize again for being a stupid head. Now.

This week I spent Monday and Tuesday in Ouaga and had fun with some wonderful people. I returned on tuesday and on weds morning I had a wonderful surprise. There was Sally!!! Sally is the lady who speaks mostly Moore and washes my laundry. I was so excited to see her. I needed laundry done really badly. I mean.. really badly. My pants were filthy. The only things that I wash are my underwear because supposedly some of the Burkinabe find that offensive. I can do that though. Although since my wieght loss has happened, I really need to buy more. The elastic kinda just rides up on me when I am riding my bike in a couple of pairs. Really very uncomfortable. Sorry TMI. Now she is there and not only does she clean my clothes, but no she asks for my shoes and sandals as well and proceeds to clean them. Now she asked me for 500 CFA to do this task and I gave her 800CFA which really is not enough. That is basically like 1.50 for her to wash my garments. Granted I supply the soap and water, but she is a miracle worker. I swear my clothes have never been so clean. Although I do miss the smell of fabric softener. On a funny side note, a guy returned back from America and literally we took turns smelling his clothes because they smelled like fabric softener. lol.

Now I was not able to go to school on this day, so I decided to work on my wall that I was painting. I finished the country of Burkina on my wall and let me tell you people, I was impressed. I then went to wash the pencil marks off of my wall and was not so impressed. The other color that my wall was basically washed right off. So I ended up just smearing the pencil marks. Then the colors brown and yellow that I bought, were both old and unusable, so I had to thrown those out. So what is a boy to do? I only have blue paint, which would look terrible on my dark green country. SO I write my other 22 stagiares names on the wall in terrible paint writing and literally throw paint at the wall with a paint brush. I am happy with it. It is not nearly the classical beauty I was hoping for, but it will do.

Now today is Friday Oct. 8.

Today I woke up and went to school to work in my lab and saw there was a meeting. I was glad that I noticed this and went about my day of eating at a restaurant and reading (Currently: Kissing Babies at the Piggly Wiggly, if your from a small town, definitly on a too read list. Alot of fun) then I went to my meeting. My meeting it turns out was to welcome all the teachers back and to go over everything for the year. I was glad that I saw the post on bulletin board. They brought me up three times. About me teaching informatique, how I was going to fix the cyber (which was news to me), and about how I was going to be a starting an Arts Club (because I told the Proviseur that day I was thinking about maybe doing he, he made the decision for me). I pretty much understood 60 percent of the meeting. Now it didn't help that I got bored during the meeting and zoned out during parts of it, but "Ca va allez." Afterwards I got up to leave and there was an after meeting welcome meal where I got half a chicken and felt like the protien god above sent that chicken just for me. It was delicious and fun to talk with some of the professeurs. Although there are 46 of them, so I don't know them all. It doesn't help they mostly all have very african names that are somewhat difficult for me to pronounce.

All and all, everything is going extremely well. I have to wait until next week to recieve my bed that I had commissioned and I also gave some fabric to a Tailor to have some clothes made. Needless to say, I am very excited and have alot to look forward too.

Saturday October 9th

My fallen Compatriots...

I have to also report sadly that I have had two of my fellow Secondary Education stagiares Medically Seperate from the Peace Corps. This is sad news and it is hard to hear. These are people who I spent 2-3 months training with, working with, and learning with. It is sad for me to say that they have departed. They both would have made wonderful Peace COrps volunteers.

MONDAY OCTOBER 11TH

So today was just an average burkinabe day. I went to school at 10 and worked until noon. I went to lunch at the restaurant where I eat everyday. I had a high point where my coke glass fell off the table, but the good news is that I caught it with my lap and glass didn't break. But the Burkinabe had a good chuckle at my coke filled lap. Too make matters a little worse, I went to the water company to pay my bill which was only 1,500CFA. I was happy to pay such a low amount, until I got there to pay the bill and it was 8,000CFA. I look at my receipt and it is because apparently no one had payed the water bill since June, so I was paying for june-sept. I was not the happiest camper when I received this news, but took it with a grain of salt. Ca va allez!

I went to the Marche today and met some people from France and had a semi conversation with them. This is only because I passed them 4 times in the marche and have seen them around town about 3 times. So I introduced myself and they seemed rather nice, but not interested in anything more than a hello. Which is fine with me, I can say that I made an effort. I also realized that I could not find the tailor that I gave my clothe too. I am supposed to pick it up in the next week, so I am going to have the effort of trying to find this one tailor in the marche. Think of the Marche like a big flea market. That will help you understand why I am having problems finding him. I will find him eventually.

I did find someone today to buy meat from. Now I claimed that I would be buying meat in Burkina Faso and I would still be eating it. I am not scared of a little mess, I am literally going to be eating my words tonight. I mean, I bought meat and literally it was crawling with flies, it was red, and they had it seperated out in little piles. Not to mention there was a just a huge slab of watever you were buying sitting on the table. Now I am trying to be bien integre, but it was a little off color for me still. I bought the beef instead of the mutton and I am going to try to create tacos tonight I think. There is a recipe for tortillas in the book and I figure if I cook the meet in slices and use seasoning, what the hell. It could be delicious... or disastrous. Will update...

IT was delicious. Well mostly. Now I won't lie, I almost lost all hope and was going to give up, because as I am tearing the meat off of the bone, I am noticing a part on the meat that was blueish-green, that my neighbor assured me was ok, and also while I was breaking it apart what do I get, but a handful of blood from the cow. Now granted, I know cows have blood, but I was not expecting to get a nice big covering of it in my hand when I broke a little of the bone apart, but Ca la vie. Now I cooked the beef with onions and made homemade tortillas, that actually turned out to be about pita bread texture instead of tortillas, but all in all, I was very happy with the meal. The seasoning I think is what made the meal though. So basically, I realized that I can do not have to be a vegetarian chef in Burkina Faso, now Trent's Cooking with meat!

Sunday oct. 17

WHAT A WEEKEND!!! So Friday night I had some of my neighbors Mike and Emma P. come in to town to see me. I made tuna pasta with the last of my cheese sauce from Americaland. :( But it was well worth it to see thier faces light up in delight. We watched Eclipse on my labtop and went to sleep. The next day I had Kait and David come up and see me. Both of them have completed thier Peace Corps service and are working in Burkina. Kait is only working until November for site development with the Peace Corps and David is working at the Embassy in some important job. Something to think about. It was cool hanging out with volunteers and sharing stories with people who are done with service, a year into service, and me being the newbie. We at first thought we would go to the pool in Kaya, and then we looked at the pool and the water was green. Now I did not have a problem with this until someone brought up shisto and then I was out. lol. So we went and ate at my favorite restaurant, went to the marche, then hung out at a bar. I couldn't drink but it was fun passing stories around. That and Mike paid one of the shoe shining boys to wash his feet, which was hilarious. After this we came back my place and we cooked some pasta with tomato sauce, which was great. We watched movies, they drank wine, and we smoked some hookah. Minty fresh.

*hookah is flavored tobacco not drugs it doesn't contain the chemicals that smoke does and you don't get addicted to it. Don't worry I'm not becoming a smoker, just fun on occasion... aka every 4 months or so. Research on the internet if you are interested.

This morning everyone left, but not before lovely Kait gave me back my internet key. I was super stoked. That and I got to trade movies and music with people which is always fun. Its like a digital trading post.

Well I am tired and am going to enjoy some internet time. I hope this will please you all and I will post more later. BYE!!!

Loves and kisses.

Trent

First off, I am not artsy. Now when I say this, I am excluding the performing arts. I was blessed with that ability. However, when it comes to hand eye coordination and being a stickler with detail. You need to call my brother the artist. He is the one that will paint you something beautiful. I hear he is looking for work, call him up to paint your house. lol. jk.

Now, what I am trying to do this weekend is to paint the country of Burkina Faso on my wall. Now I know that this is utterly tacky and not something that one would do with their home. My reply to this is... then don't come to my house. lol. Anyways, I have a big map of Burkina and what I am doing is gridding the map and then taking the measurements by 2 and gridding that on my wall. I am in the middle of this process right now. It is long and boring, but I am sure in the long run will make the map of my country turn out better than if , heaven forbid, I drew it freehand. So I am hoping for wonderful results and I can put my friends houses and the map and it will look wonderful. I will post pictures if I ever have a friend with a camera come. lol.

Now a funny story. Yesterday I was sitting in one of my chairs. Now the chairs here that the Burkinabe love are like plastic lawn chairs. They think they are the bees knees. So I bought 4 of them for 15,000 CFA the equivalent of 30 dollars American. Now I am sitting in one of the chairs talking to my friend Jenn on the phone and what do you think happened to poor Ironic Comedy Trent.

Yes, exactly.

I shift my weight, the chair tips a little bit then breaks then leaves me to fall through the chair where the leg broke while I am on the phone and I scream, which makes my neighbors come over and see what the crazy Nasara (Na-Sar-uh) has done now. I am laying in the broken chair and finally get up and out of it. I am laughing, which the Burkinabe didn't understand. I receive from this fall what is probably a huge bruise on my butt that makes it very uncomfortable when I have to ride my bike. I am good though. Just slightly embarrassed that I am so much of a catastrophe sometimes.

Well I think that is about it for me.

Miss you all.

P.S. If you have any ideas on how to keep crickets out of your house or how to stop roosters from crowing, be sure to let me know.

So I went on a bus and visited my friend Diana on Saturday. We had fun on saturday just talking and walking the dam. We even made Crepes for supper. It was fun and relaxing. Now I didn't sleep at her house though, because she works at a really religious all female school. So I slept at her neighbors house. Which was awkward, but not that bad. Now for my Sunday adventure.

I had said that I was going to go to a church here. So I could see what church here is like. Well I have decided that if you haven't been to a church in another language you should go sometime. lol. First off the whole church is in Moore (a local language in Burkina Faso). I don't know Moore. I know how to salute someone and say if I like something or not. So the first hour of the church(yes I said the first hour) is the different choirs saying what they learned in sunday school, followed by alot of singing in Moore. Oh and if you are a lady over the age of 40, I sure hope you brought your homemade drum or other percussion instrument, because your gonna play it to the music, with the band!!! Why not you have natural rhythm. Everybody knows the songs and there are no books.

Now the next hour starts and we have a lady pass out in the back of the church and has to be helped carried out, why I have no clue. I'm not a doctor. Now we start with the usual. The announcements, more singing, tithing, more singing, and the prayer. Ok now prayer is also different. When you are in a church in America, you quietly pray to yourself. NOT HERE! You need to say your prayers loud and proud. Not just you, but everyone at the same time yelling their prayers like some gregorian chant gone awry. I am in the middle thinking I should be yelling something, but can't quite figure out what to say at the moment. I mean, its going to be in English and I already have been called out in the church to stand up and wave at everyone. There are two white people in the church, we already stick out.

Now after this we get the sermon. Now I know it was Judges 19... and there was something about the youngest son. That is all I got. The rest was pretty much a blur. One thing similar here, you can definitely rest your head and it is not rude. At least I hope it wasn't. Finally the sermon was over and there was a small communion and another round of Gregorian chant praying. Finally we were released after 3 hours. It was an interesting experience, but I don't think I will be going to another Moore Service. By the way I think it was Protestant church. I just don't think it was Catholic.

Now I go to get on a bus to go home at 4 and what happens... my bus breaks down. Not once, but twice. So what should have taken me a 1.5 hour trip to Kaya,took me 4 hours. We ended up having another bus come and we got on that bus and it pulled the other bus to Kaya. I couldn't help but laugh every time the bus behind us would slam into us. It was funny. I finally arrived at my house around 830ish and my neighbors told me to go shower and they would feed me. Have I mentioned that I love them?

QUESTIONS? COMMENTS?

oh p.s. thank you all again for your emails of support they were very much appreciated.

Yes it finally happened. I hit rock bottom today. At least I hope it was rock bottom. I woke up in a good mood and thought, I am just going to stay in bed. Stay in bed I did. I had no reason to get up, so I didn't. I finished the fourth season of Dexter and was relaxing. Then it happened. I started thinking. Which is dangerous for me. I start thinking elaborate things and ideas that really just don't need to be thought. This is why I keep myself busy. Then it happened. I called my PCMO and asked him when I was going to come in and he said 0ct 5. I think this is fine. Then I realize that this is another week at site...

Now I call Sarah... and I am crying like a little baby. I mean it is ridiculous. I couldn't control my words and nothing was helping me and I was like this for a whole 20 min. I just sat and bawled. Now those of you that know me, know this is a big deal. I don't cry. I don't like to cry and I think it is ridiculous and serves no purpose when there are so many things I could be doing to fix this. But cry I did. Sarah was such a trooper and talked me through it. I told her I laid in bed all day and was thinking and blah blah blah.

Finally I get myself kinda together and Sarah my lovely friend tells me, I am going to get out of bed, I am going to shower and I am going to leave my house. Which is exactly what I did. But she was strong and there for me while I was crying ridiculously for no reason. So I am so glad.

So I left my house and talked to my neighbors and I informed them that I was going to make supper for them tonight. They had made me supper many nights now, so it was my turn to make them some good old American food. So I went to the little boutique and bought stuff so I can make, Tuna in Macaroni and cheese. Ok so I didn't say that it was elegant eating, but I at least fried some bread so it was like foccacia bread. THEY LOVED IT!!! They ate some seconds and cleaned their plates. I was so excited. Not only did I make a meal for the Burkinabe, but afterwards my neighbor told me that I was a great neighbor and that they were glad I was there. That made my whole night. Afterwards we watched tv and played cards. All in all it was just like a dinner and card night in the states. I call it a success.

Even better I called one of my friends and I think that I will be leaving site on sat and visiting her. I can't wait. She is one of my friends who likes to hug and I have been needing a great big hug.

Oh yes, I also must mention that I talked with Miss Kathy Davis. Now Kathy is one of my favorite people at site and if you enjoy reading my blog you will love hers. She takes the same approach to her blog that I do so if you like funny stories like mine and cultural mishaps. Hit her up. kathydavispeacecorps.blogspot.com

Miss you all!!!

Trent

So I just got my electricity in my house today, this makes me very happy and very excited. I can now charge my computer and my phone without annoying my neighbors. Which I say will alot of sarcasm. I want you all to imagine a world, where your neighbors care about you, and they have both already fed me on multiple occasions. I go and watch tv outside with my one neighbors who are my adopted family right now and I love them. They even like to play cards. They taught me a silly burkinabe card game, that is alot of fun, but not as much as euchre. lol. Its like war, but with strings attached.

Now, this is me launching a formal apology to my grandmother and grandfather for anything that I may have said on the phone that seemed out of normal on sunday night. Now let me explain. Sunday was not the best day at site for me and I wanted to go to sleep, but couldn't so I decided hey, I'm going to take two benedryl. For those of you who don't know, I may as well have taken two Ambien. Benedryl knocks Trenton out to a sleep happy fun world, and if he tries to stay awake he crashes with funny results. Now I had just gotten to sleep (1/2 hour)and my phone rings. I pick it up and its my mom saying that my grandma wants to speak to me, to which I think is ridiculous why doesn't she just come in my room. Then I look around and go, crap, I'm in Africa, how did I get here? All the while I'm figuring this out, I am talking to my grandmother who is just happy to hear my voice. While I am looking around the room figuring out how I got in this room and should I leave or stay. I talk to them for maybe 4 minutes and eventually get it together enough to tell them I love them and I am doing fine (once I realized where I was that I was doing fine) I hung up the phone and went straight back into a comatose state slumber.

Now my site is wonderful and I am doing fine. I got the keys to my lab today and can't wait to start work in the next two weeks. I still don't know my teaching schedule, but will figure it out eventually. I am still hoping for fridays off. I would like my vondredi's(fridays) for travel in case I go visit people. That would be sweet and I need to start looking at secondary projects. My neighbor does something with moving sheeps to villages, but I don't quite understand what it is yet. I will probably help him with that, but I am thinking some health classes over malaria and HIV/AIDS couldn't hurt. *P.s. in case I use the work VIH/SIDA that is what they call it over here. That and Malaria is like paluia. I know the pronunciation not the spelling sorry.

Well I think that is a good long update for now along with a funny story.

ARE YOU NOT AMUSED!!!!!

*plus ten points for the first person to put the movie the quote is from.

So I have officially been at site 24 hours. I am so far so good. My shower is broken and I am getting that repaired and I have to get my electricity turned on monday. So until then trent is without power. Which means this is going to be the last time I check anything until then. So don't get to depressed when I'm not as on top of things as I was right now.

It rained this morning which was nice for the temperature, but bad for the roads. If the rain does not stop school is not going to start on time. Which is going to be annoying if that happens. So far on track, I think. but I still have to meet and talk with people. I don't know when my introduction to the school will be. We will have to see. I am still waiting to see what classes I am teaching and what my schedule looks like. I am hoping we figure this out in the next week.

Unfortunately my homologue's child is sick, so I need to wait until she gets back.

(homologue= the teacher semi responsible for the other teacher while at site.)

So until then I wait and hope the child gets better. Then I can start to get my stuff ready.

My house is better than I remember and my neighbors are very nice. They have kids too which means I will have work horses to do things I don't want to do. lol. I do love that cultural aspect sometimes.

Well I think the repair guy is here so I have to go.

So I leave maybe in three days now. That means I could be getting out of Ouga on Friday. And there is a rumor that they are looking at putting a SED (Small Economic Development) or and Ag (if you need help to know this is Agriculture.. you are obviously not from Indiana) in Kaya with me. They are looking at it for site development. Right now this is just a rumor, but I would love for it to be true. Although being the only Nassara (white person in Moore) in a village will be fun.

I have shopping that I have to do, I have to buy a bed, and kitchen supplies and hope to find someplace to get Gas. Because you see the port near Burkina is apparently not bringing in enough gas and the whole country is on a gas shortage and it is near impossible to receive gas to cook your food. So some of my fellow volunteers are having to eat out or beg their neighbors to feed them until they can buy gas. I am hoping to be able to find some in Ouga, because I'm crafty like that. However, some people here in Ouga don't even have gas which is sad, because you can buy almost anything in Ouga. Who knew a gas shortage in Africa would happen.

My lessons have moved down this week from book work to just speaking French, which is awesome and I am happy with this. I don't mind the speaking it was the book work that was getting annoying. I really am starting to believe the phrase you never leave school. You hear that kids, you are stuck learning things the rest of your life. (Especially if you join the Peace Corps)

Also if you are ever planning on joining the Peace Corps I would definitely say do it. For as much as I complain, which I know I do alot. This really is a great experience and something you can do once in a lifetime that makes a world of difference not only in another countries life, but also yours. It is a chance to reinvent yourself and a chance to take risks. Now I'm not saying leave your three kids and husband to go to another country (Jennifer), but something to think about. We have people here 21-70 something. I don't know exactly her age, but she is in her 70's. So don't think this is just young people.

Ok now my shout outs section...

Angela- Thank you for my blog reads and of course I have not forgotten about you or anyone at the bank, except for that one girl... whats her name.. likes coach and Fox stuff.... can't quite remember her name...

Johnny- Be expecting something in the mail in about 2-3 weeks. Maybe sooner. I hope I picked out a style you would like. Nothing big, but think you will like them.

Brad- Same as johnny, if you don't like some get with him and trade. I won't really care.

Mom- I Love you.

Dad- I Love you. Win some games this soccer season in honor of your son... and if not I may be able to sneak you back some Burkinabe Children who are really good.

Well I hear a Donkey Braying like crazy, this could mean he is hurt, someone is hurting him, or he has gone crazy like what happened in my friends courtyard and they had to end up killing it. Either way I think that is a good close to this blog.

Trent

So for you muslims, Congratulations, Ramadan is over. That means you can eat again in the light of day!!! That is for those of you muslims who did not cheat and just sleep all day and stay awake at night. That is not really the point of religious fasting. Anyway, Ramadan is over today, which means that I will no longer have the mosque across the street from my house blaring music at every hour of the night. I consider this a personal victory. Because as many times as I wanted to storm the mosque at three in the morning when they would blare music and figure out a way to burn down a stone building. I did not. I used the patience of God and showed my tolerance for other religions. Even if they did disturb my slumber the past two weeks. I think the church that decided to burn the Quaran should have taken a message from book. Anyway thats a personal opinion. Which this is my blog, so I can do.

I actually went to a party today with my friend nathan at his muslim fathers house (his host father). I ate many servings of Cous cous, beef, and cokes. This was amazing. They were listening to music and tomorrow apparently there is a dance party, but I will not be attending. I have more important things to do... like.. uhmm, well not go. I have had 3 host families and I don't need another one to get attached to with one week to go.

That is right. I go to site in kaya on saturday of next week. yes next week. I cannot wait!!!! I get to buy things for my house and make it all pretty. I think I may paint, (and no jade, Erin, and Katie; I will not do the paint job that I did at our second apartment). I am thinking I may make a mural though. I don't know, I will have to be inspired.

Well for those of you who don't know, I am 4 hours ahead of time from Indiana. So if you are ever wondering, look at indiana's time and add 4 hours.

Mon francias est mellier. Je suis content avec mon niveau. Mon examination est le Jeudi.

( My french is better. I am content with my level. My exam is on thursday.)

(if you know I made mistakes by the way, I don't care, so don't post them. :)

Also one last note of business. My parents are not terrible people and I just spoke with them this evening. I was just kidding with my parents because the two times that I have not called them it ended with my mother calling the cops on me and the second time receiving a voicemail that said my father had died and I missed the funeral. Maybe I should call home everyone once and a while. So when they did not call me for a while, I decided to work my revenge on my blog, and I want to thank you all of my loyal followers for shaming them. It worked like a charm and my mother congratulated me on making them seem like awful parents. Thank you loyal followers I really could not have done it without you. I love my parents and appreciate there sense of humor.

Just like they appreciate my humor when they go out and get a 23 lbs cat named Fridge and say that they replaced me with it. That is what I am glad about, if we can't have Trent at least we can have a huge ass cat. (pardon my cursing grandma)

Thanks again for all your love and support

Trent.

So because my language level is only at inter low (at the last Language proficiency something (aka LPI) I had to stay in Ouga. I am hoping to get to my site by the 20th. I am already at least one level up. I just have one more level to go and I think I can make it by the time i need to leave.

Now ouga is it's own monster. I have to ride my bike around it was is most likely the moto capital of the world. I have already been clipped by one because I didn't stick my hand out to signal. I spent to much on food the past couple of meals. I'm going to start going cheaper.

So I had a quandry. At the end of the day, after i take my dirty shoes off and just sit in bed, I smell like something. I could not figure out what it was, but now I know. I smell like a wet dog. which both disgusts and intrigues me at the same time. I am wondering how I got this smell. I bathe daily and even shave and sometimes spritz with cologne. It just interests me.

I have also decided to write about books that I have read while i am here, seeing as how I am going to be reading alot and giving a very short review.

Blindman's Bluff by faye Kellerman- It was interesting and tons of plot twists. Not hard to follow, but fun to read. Murder mystery about a rich family that gets slaughtered. Good fun.

An idiot girl's christmas by Laurie Natoro- I enjoyed this book too much. Stories about someones family around christmas time is always great. I could see myself saying and doing alot of these things in this book. My poor mother. Yes, mom alot of inserts about the evil things that she does to her worrisome mother. Just promise me that you won't start watching dateline specials and we should be good. Anyway my favorite line from the book. (about a note)

"Laurie," it read. "We know that you don't have your keys, so knock when you get home. If you're still sober enough to read this, do NOT do your drunk dance on the door, and if you're on angel dust, the front window is not a liquid pane of glass as it may appear in your druggie state, so do not crash through it. You will be grounded."

Needless to say I had to cover my mouth in laughter through much of the book. Its a good one, that I would suggest. Its probably like a buck on amazon.. get it.

Other than working on language 8 hours a day, I have been catching up on movies and television that has been given to me. I am already caught up on season 2 of true blood and some of season three. Isn't africa just the greatest?

Now I know you people are expecting me to be all.. I rode a giraffe today, but I didn't. You can pretend I did and you can tell your friends that I did, I might even lie for you and say I did. I even have my own giraffe harness made for my giraffe night rides through the desert. Why not. But no, I have been studying french and watching movies in a town the size of indianapolis... kinda. Just not as many levels, or electricity.

If you are wanting me to tell you tales of grandeur... wait. I hope to have something soon. I did tell you about me nearly sitting on a crocodile. you people expect too much from me.

Ok thats it, now a few shout outs.

Dear Bank ladies that I know and love. I know and love you... hmm.. I think that covers it... oh and Whitney please post on my comments a countdown for your wedding day, because I'm sure that above your work station there is a ribbon that is held up by doves and each day you remove one the numbers and release a dove as you slowly approach that final date. LOL. I love you and miss you whit and I do get your emails. ;)

Dear Jenn- Please keep my brother out of trouble.

Dear Brad- Please keep my jennifer out of trouble.

Oh and thanks again for the scott pilgrim vs the world.

Mom- I love you!

Dad- I love you!

To both my parents- WHY HAVENT YOU CALLED ME!!!!! I AM WORRIED SICK!! HOW DO I KNOW YOU ARENT DYING IN A DITCH BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD... THAT DOES HAPPEN YOU KNOW...

To my grandma- Thank you for keeping me updated that my parents aren't dead. Love your emails.

To anyone else still reading- thank you for putting up with my absent minded rambling.

I am going to eat now.

I love and miss you all.

TRENT

p.s. see no french this time jenn. Just for you.

So tomorrow is swear in. I will be moving from a lowly stagiare to a real volunteer in the Corps de le paix. I am very excited about this, however; I have to stay in Ouga for three weeks and work on my french, because I am not at level. I am at inter low and I need to be at inter high. but I am ok with this. I really think I could maybe be at inter mid, so we will have to see. I am going to be living with another host family. This puts me up to three. Ca va allez.

I am going to be enjoying eating some pizza in Ouga though and I can't wait to see Marina market. I hear i can get real soft serve ice cream. SO SWEET! I am also going to be given my moving in allowance and going to be able to buy the stuff for my house. That includes my fridge that I am planning on buying. Nothing big, just a little dorm fridge. But that is a premier luxury item here. I am going to be able to buy real cheese at marina market and take it and have it at my site as long as I can cooler it to Kaya. Two hour bus ride and cheese.. hmmm.

I am all excited and my swear in outfits are amazing. If I can find someone to take a picture of my five shirts and me you guys will think they are uber gaudy, however they are very in fashion over her. Well Swear in will consist of me going to the embassy and saying the same pledge the president takes, which is cool to think that Barack Obama and I have to take the same pledge, then I will smooze with the VIP's at the party. Leave the embassy and then go out and celebrate. We then get one free day in ouga to do whatever we want, then its AFFECTATION!!!

Affectation is where they move 70 some people all to different sites. Its crazy.

Well thats all for now. I need some love and comments, be sure to give me some.

Love all you beautiful readers!!

P.s. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BROTHER!!!! Your getting old just like me. MWAHAHAH!!! Love you.