It isn't a secret that I have a type-A personality when it comes to work. I've had to curb that itch (as much as humanly possible) while on this journey we call Peace Corps Burkina Faso. But, if I am completely honest I must admit that I can never and will never shake it. I am not sure that I have ever wanted to change my work ethic except in Burkina as a method of preserving my mental health (it is a necessary tactic when the pace of life is close to molasses).As responses from graduate school applications begin to roll in I can feel the familiar push. My Close of Service Conference is nearing, which means the inevitable plane ride to an as-of-yet unknown destination. What will be my next big thing?I can't help running the scenarios through my head. What if I attend this program or that one? What if I apply to this summer Arabic program or that one? (We're talking Summer 2013.) I know... I have a problem. My name is Casey D. Hall and I am a relapsing workaholic.I can keep an endless series of simultaneous task lists set for different time frames ranging from the next three hours to the next 20 years. Maybe I took all the talk about time management too close to heart when I was working for my university. Does obsession with tasks and planning qualify as a desirable trait for employment? The renewed fixation has translated into immediate disappointment. I made a list yesterday of the tasks I wanted to get done: talk to the primary school director about the AIDS mural, talk to the head nurse about a variety of projects that are on the table and talk to the acting president of the theater troupe. I jumped on my bike and headed to the school. The director wasn't there and was in fact out of town. I brushed it off and biked to the clinic. The head nurse also had left. Lastly, I biked to the theater president's favorite spots. He apparently went away as well.I can't remember a single day in the U.S. when I failed to complete the vast majority of tasks on my list (unless it was one of those rare snow days in Washington State when everyone doesn't have any clue how to drive in the snow).Burkina has a life pace and subsequently a work pace that is closer akin to the saunter of a camel than the trot of a horse. It makes total sense considering the climate and resources available. Camels don't book it across the Sahara for a reason.So, the Faso puts my personality to the test especially considering the coming transition. My mind is racing, the calendar is steadily marching and Burkina is sauntering. How do I integrate the layers of my personal space-time continuum without rupturing it?Obviously I am joking, but I am definitely feeling a collision of worlds approaching. Somehow I will be coming out the other end as a repatriated RPCV graduate student. New labels for a new life, right?So Mr. Hall, what is your next big thing? Well, grad school of course. I don't have the details, but I can tell you I will have them soon. I'll send you a memo of my transitional to-do list as soon as the news breaks.

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Wednesday was my last meeting in village with my immediate supervisor. It was just a gathering of representatives of the village to discuss past and future projects. It went fairly well, although one village committee felt like they were out of the loop when it came to updates on my projects. It was a little frustrating for me to hear, since I had been inviting them to every meeting before but gave up after 6 cancellations.

At any rate, I would be happy to work with them in my last 6 months if they are good for their word. My clinic listed off all of my projects and we tried to discuss sustainability of projects and how to make sure that projects would continue after I leave. I am the last volunteer in my village, so it is a very important subject.

What I have slated for the last few months so far is: an HIV and AIDS mural, HIV workshops, nutrition workshops, the Hearth Model, a Family Planning theater presentation, world map murals, tree planting and a mosquito net campaign. I think that will be more than enough and likely is too much. I could get a lot more done on my own. Since my work is by definition community work I am at the mercy of community schedules.

I mean, anything we get done will be an improvement. So we will see.

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For our last jaunt we went up to Natti, a town where there is a house for Peace Corps volunteers. We stayed there and enjoyed the company of the local volunteers before jumping in yet another cramped car to head toward the Tatas.The car traversed the beautiful hills of Benin. Down through a town that was a series of mini-fortresses made from mud (the Tatas). We wound up in a larger town to discover we had already passed the town that we wanted to visit. With some patience and an odd French man we found a taxi-motorcycles that drove us across the border into Togo and through another series of Tatas.The Tatas themselves resemble the courtyards that we live in here in Burkina. However, the buildings are in closer proximity and the walls were 2 to 3 times taller. They were clearly meant to protect whoever lived inside. I kept saying that when I get back to village I would build a majestic Tata of my own. I am not sure what my village would think of that.The trip took us to a town in the top third of Togo. We were planning on staying, but the police station couldn't help us with our Visas (I was the only one that had a multi-country Visa). So, we ventured northward. It was rough getting a car for a reasonable price until one that was passing by stopped and gave us a good price. We couldn't take that car because we were still waiting for our friends to get back from visiting the police station. Once we got into a car we discovered that the road was terrible. It was less than a single lane and falling apart. Huge semi-trucks would be coming toward us head-on and our tiny car would be forced to off-road for a bit. At some point we passed the car that had originally given us a good price completely totaled on the side of the road. It was not a fun ride.We stayed in a town that I think is called Dapaong. Unfortunately, we didn't do any of the sight-seeing in Togo that we had planned aside from the Tatas. The town we stayed in was cute and compact. We were next to the marche and sampled some of their local cheese. People in Togo seemed markedly less nice than our Burkinabe brethren, but after all we were on the final stretch of our journey.The next morning we took a taxi to the border town and walked across the border without any problems. On the other side we met some Lutheran missionary students. It was funny to see the looks on their faces when I told them we were there for the voodoo festival.On the Burkina side of the border we immediately felt at home. The people on the car back to Ouaga were very nice. We were able to talk in local languages. All was right in the world again.

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We made our way northward and escaped the humidity of the coast. Abomey is a smaller town in the heart of the voodoo regions in Benin. Our hotel had the air of a jungle filled with wooden depictions of spirits with enormous phalluses. There was a live monkey at the entrance, crocodiles near our room and some sort of striped miniature dear by the restaurant. The dear licked my hand when I gave it salt. I stopped her when she started biting.We decided to take a late-afternoon stroll from temple to temple. Each household had a temple to communicate with their particular spirits. Each temple had its own legba which is a lesser guardian spirit depicted by a mound of dirt. The only discernible human characteristic was of course a massive phallus protruding from the mound.The temples looked remarkably modern to me, since the were build from cement and painted in acrylics. However, that makes sense since most architecture in the are is made of mud brick and any temple must have been rebuilt periodically over the years. We saw the courtyard of the previous king and some of the larger temples.The largest temple was white and sprawled across a large field. One passerby suggested we throw money in it to please the spirits (a suggestion I assume was only so he could retrieve the money). When my friends walked closer and closer to throw American coins in the voodoo believers around us looked increasing nervous. I guess that if you touch the temple as a non-believer you will be cursed and forced to ask the spirits for forgiveness through an elaborate ceremony. When the coins were tossed the man ran for the temple but was grabbed by another man and immediately scalded.It just so happens that we arrived in Abomey the night of a specific spirit's festival. On top of that, they had decided to film this particular night for posterity. The festival was one of the nights where spirits possessed the bodies of living representatives from their lineages. When we arrived a field was surrounded by a crowd of people. In the center was a sort of parade of people in elaborate brightly colored costumes. They were grass skirts, crowns, wings and sea shells (think carnival but on a smaller scale). We were told to cross the terrain barefoot with our heads bowed and we took a seat on the other side.It was dark out, but there were lights to aid the camera at capturing the ceremony. We were the only foreigners in a sea of locals. The audience was peppered with old women sitting at tables with their faces illuminated by a single candle before them. The people in costumes began dancing to the shifting rhythm of the drum. They took turns gyrating, flipping, shaking, flailing, and seizing. Sometimes groups approached and danced intricately in a dazed haunting unison. Some spirits were more mischievous than others. One approached the crowd smacking them with a wooden representation of a phallus and humping young men. Our guide explained that he taught the young men about sex. The same spirit smacked/humped my friend in the face, which was evidently a solicitation for money. When the spirit received less than he desired he smacked my other friend in the face with the phallus and continued on his way. The audience chanted out at the spirits and others responded with other chants in unison.We stayed there until about midnight watching the spirits take possession of people in the dark until the last parade broke into chasing people through the night. The screaming crowd dispersed and we snuck out on a small trail back to our hotel.

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After the voodoo festival we made our journey Eastward toward Nigeria. We went to Porto Novo, a city highly influenced by the Portuguese. The town overlooks green lagoons full of little wooden boats and people digging sand out of the bottom of the lagoons to sell on shore. The city itself is on a hill which adds to the slightly European feel. Ornamented, brightly colored buildings, museums and monuments mingled with shacks and street side vendors.We stayed at SONGHAI, a sort of agriculture/agro-business commune and education center where they promote local agricultural techniques. It was really quite astounding. You'll have to look it up, but I believe that the center has been there for approximately 25 years. It incorporates a wide range of agro-business: fish farming, soy, snails, bananas, moringa, essences, sales, edible oils, marketing, water sanitation, machines and more. They have a nice little hotel and several restaurants and their campus does give the feeling of an agricultural university. Although I didn't get to critically look at their statistics, they did claim to be 100% self-sustaining now. It gave me a sort of window into a potentially sustainable model of development in West Africa.In town we also ventured off to see the monuments and the big mosque. The mosque looked rather Portuguese in influence and had bright colors of paint that were pealing in places. Above the back door was an analog clock (no longer functioning) that looked like it could be from the 70s. On the way we found a large white stone monument of a man in traditional clothing. I am not sure who he was, but it reminded us all of statues in Lord of the Rings.Later that day we took a trip to a hotel bar that overlooked the lagoons. I had a coffee and fries while we lounged on leather couches and watched the boats pass by on their quest for sand.One of the days we took one of the little boats up the lagoon to a village built on stilts. There are several such villages in Benin that were built to avoid slave trade or for other defensive reasons. They are built in areas that are covered in water much of the year, so everyone has boats to travel from house to house. Farm animals are tethered to an island made of hay that they slowly eat as the water levels drop. Even the clinic is built on stilts and has an aquatic ambulance. It was a very different feel than my dry Burkinabe village.Porto Novo was my personal favorite city on the trip because of the architecture and the scenery. I have heard of others who didn't appreciate it as much. To each their own, I suppose.

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We made our 16 hour trek down to Lome where we were forced to rely on the advice of motorcycle taxis to find out hotel. They agreed on a price and we went. The ride was long and took as far from the centre of town. As it turned out they had some agreement with another hotel to bring them customers and brought us there instead of the hotel where we had reservations. It got ugly.Once we calmed down, rested and woke up we made our way to Ouida where the festival was to be held. We stopped for food and our worn out 50 piece was refuse for the second time by a street food vendor (something that doesn't happen in Burkina). As we ate a zombie came by. Not the American horror movie variety, but the returned from the dead spirit with colorful cloths and horns type. He had an entourage who requested money. We gave them the 50 piece and even the zombie refused it.The ride out to the beach was beautiful. The whole place was covered in palm trees and out hotel was built on the white sand. We had an olympic sized pool and there was the monument "The Door of No Return" on the beach withing sight of the hotel. The monument was beautiful and moving. It has depictions of slaves from behind chained and forced onto a boat. When you cross the door and look up you can see the pain and horror in their faces as they are forced to leave their home.We later learned that many captives would eat dirt to kill themselves. I had heard of people jumping ship, but not the dirt eating. The museum had artifacts like chains examples of voodoo implements. There were also a lot of maps and sketches of historical events. At the gift shop I bought a guide to Gris-gris, which are essentially spells or talismans.The festival itself wasn't as awesome as I had thought it would be, but it was still cool. I guess I wanted to see more vodu practices. I suppose I should have known that such a public event wouldn't be sharing intimate religious beliefs. There was dancing, the undead (which were masked and covered in long sticks or grass) and there was bamboo dancing where people did acrobats at the top of a timber bamboo trunk. Much of the ceremony consisted of speeches by various people, the king of vodu, a pop musician and an American representative of the African diaspora. The general message was to hold on to traditional identities and beliefs.Outside of the festival people sold many different artisinal items. A lot of it I have seen before. Some of the items is saw that I haven't seen in Burkina were brightly colored masks, vodu idols, gay sex statues (I know, odd) and lots of phalluses carved out of wood. After the festival we relaxed on the beach and swam. I am glad we went. I think that it is really important to recognize traditional beliefs and how they influence our lives today even an ocean away from their source. African diasporic cultures in the Americas are heavily influenced by West Africa. It is astounding to see the abundant influences on their home turf.

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Before making my first trip across a border in Africa, I figured that there was very little to see in the sliver of a country on the other side of the line. 1) it is tiny. 2) I had very limited historical knowledge to discern Togo from Benin. 3) Most people couldn't point at either on a map. I decided to go to Benin and pass through Togo because I had never been to either, I had volunteer friends in both and they are 2 of the 4 countries that border Burkina that are considered safe.On arrival Benin was instantly distinct. The beginning of the road through Benin went over hills with beautiful rock cliffs. I was shocked and delighted at the sight of varied elevations. Although I have blood in Kansas, the idea of living somewhere flat never appealed to me before moving to Burkina (and still doesn't). Burkina is beautiful in its own way, but hills and mountains make my heart sing in a way that rolling fields never will.On my trip through Benin I realized that the country has a lot more to it than I previously thought. It is very different from Burkina Faso in many ways: geographically, culturally and religiously. Aspects of development in Benin seemed to be less and more than Burkina at the same time. (Burkina volunteers like the street cred that we get from volunteering in the Peace Corps country with the lowest Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index rating, but they aren't clear-cut measurements.)So a tad bit of history on Benin:It is the beating heart and the home of Voodoo. Something like a third of Beninois and Beninoises practice the traditional belief of vodu. According to the C.I.A. Factbook, Benin was a former French Colony (beginning in 1872) later to become a republic, a Marxist state and democracy. Benin was also home to much of the slave trade which subsequently spread Voodoo across the world to Brazil, Central America and the American South.I went to Lome, Ouida, Porto Novo, Abomey and Natti before crossing over to Togo. Benin seems to have a variety of landscapes from arid flats (like much of Burkina) to plantations of palms along white sandy beaches. In general, the vegetation seemed to be more abundant than Burkina after hitting Central Benin. The country actually has two rainy seasons, unlike Burkina which is dry for more than half of the year.The food was also instantly different. There was a form of local cheese almost anywhere you went (as our director would say: score!). I became a glutton for fresh coconuts. We also sampled the variety of bean cakes to the delight of onlookers at the marche in Porto Novo.The following blog entries will be a summary of my trip.

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I got back to Burkina from Benin and Togo about a week ago and have been busy since my return. Benin was awesome! I will be describing it in the following entries.

I returned to village after having a series of meetings in Ouaga. There was a networking dinner, my Community Health and AIDS Task force meeting, an all-committee meeting and lastly a meeting with the new response volunteers.

The networking dinner was really great. I was lucky to hear the stories behind two successful women in international development and rack their brains for advice and insights. The dinner seemed to reaffirm that I am on the right track based on the responses I received.

The CHAT meeting went well. We welcomed the new members, reviewed the AIDS Day project, talked about Coaching for Hope, advertised the Malaria/HIV trainings that are coming up and discussed our plans for Malaria Month in April. Sounds busy, right?

The AIDS Day projects seemed to have gone very well in the communities where it is complete. We received the last grant last week, so we'll be starting the last leg of the project this week. We are planning at least two partnerships with the UK-based NGO Coaching for Hope which integrates HIV education with soccer drills to create a 8 day camp. We train facilitators and volunteers how to do the camp and they recreate it in village. In conjunction with our new emphasis on the "High Five" (those activities that are required of every volunteer in Burkina) we have began the planning of a training that will reinforce the abilities to address malaria and HIV in communities. Our Malaria packet is finally drafted and available on pcburkina.org. We are encouraging volunteers to participate.

It is only 2 months before my Close of Service Conference which means only 6 months until my pinning ceremony. Scary! I am still waiting on information before I make a decision about what my next step will be. It will be very exciting, though! Keep your fingers crossed.

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I am gearing up for my trek down to Benin for the voodoo festival. Benin is known as the birthplace of voodoo, so I couldn't pass up this opportunity.

The plan is to head down to the festival and spend some time on the beach there before heading over to Togo to meet up with a friend I met at the Stomp Out Malaria Boot Camp.

Benin and Togo aren't the top of the list of many travelers, although they have their merits (beaches, cultural attractions). Voodoo and having a friend in Togo were enough to push me to go. (That and we are only allowed to go to 4 of the 6 neighboring countries to Burkina all of which I plan on visiting).

Based on my observations while I was traveling through inland Senegal the climate seemed relatively similar to Burkina. The coast seems to be the difference. Cultures on the surface level seemed to have a lot of similarities and some differences. Food seemed to be similar in structure but very different in taste. I loved the food in Senegal. There was also a lot of islamic influence in Senegal. The health care system was very similar, although they had what is called a "health hut" which we do not. It was also evident that Senegal has more money and/or uses their government dollars differently (as evidenced by their roads and the giant statue in Dakar).

I will have to report back with my observations of Benin and Togo.

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Yesterday a couple women from the soap making group came by to officially welcome me back to village. I had worked with them last year before going on vacation, but hadn't had a real meeting with them since my return. To be honest, I was sort of at a loss with them.A challenge in this development game is finding the group you are going to work with. I imagine as a Peace Corps volunteer that experience is very different than being an NGO that is passing through. I am here for 2 years and when I am in village it is 24/7. Volunteers are desperate for motivated people. But, working with the community is a negotiation. You have to negotiate your needs, their needs, your resources, their resources and the perceptions of all these things. I am often seen as a walking/talking dollar bill or some sort of anthropomorphic version of Mary Poppin's magic bag. I have sat down to the clinic management committee meetings and when an expensive suggestion comes up they say that I will help with it. I shouldn't be blind-sided anymore, but there reaches a point where you think you've finally established your role. The truth is that it is a cycle of understanding and misconception.At any rate, our negotiation took us through a phase of tree planting (resulting from pressure by my botany-enthusiast/translator). The tree planting didn't work so much because I don't think the women were highly invested in it. We then did liquid soap making, which seemed to work. It met their need for income, my need to incorporate hygiene, their need for improved hygiene and a community need for affordable soap. The problem was introducing a new product to the market and then my translator decided to produce his own and compete with the soap group (causing much stress and awkwardness in my life).The translator sort of gave up on the soap bit. I tried to help the group with marketing (without a translator). But, the group still didn't seem fully invested. I never saw them sit down on a market day and sell the soap. They put them in boutiques (local stores). They made it on their own, but the marketing seemed to be a road block. That was about the time that I got preoccupied by the gender camp I was helping with, then my vacation, Senegal and subsequently my Peace Corps funded/established obsession with malaria (Stomp Out Malaria).So, the group came to visit (strangely enough the translator planned a meeting with the group that is associated with his family just afterward). They brought me gifts of papaya and cabbage. We chatted pleasantly and then were left with some awkward silence. Where do we go now?Their original idea was to start a small bee farm, but I didn't feel comfortable just trying to find money for that. (It isn't really health related and I never jump straight to looking for funds or to an expensive project). So, the compromise was the soap to raise money in the meantime and gage their investment in the project. Which leads us back to where we are today.My translator put it this way: "They want to say 'Hello' and if there are other projects to be done, then maybe we will work on them." He is invested in the structure of village politics and has frequently worked with foreign types (the hit-and-run sort of development workers). So he is prone to trying to work the negotiation out as an exchange of projects i.e. we'll do your project (that they are not invested in) if you help us do ours (primarily financially). Something I made clear was not my intention. My metaphorical Poppin's bag very much has a bottom when it comes to health-related income generating activities. I can definitely see the appeal in hit-and-run development practices or one-time workshops. Trying to affect and maintain change is often uphill. You rest for a minute the boulder starts rolling down hill. It is also very foggy in this metaphor so you are never really sure when you will hit the top and the boulder will start rolling on its own.For instance, with my moringa group I thought for sure I was leaving the boulder to roll back down hill. But, when I checked in after vacation they had done much more than I expected. They kept pushing that boulder themselves (and the clouds parted and golden light shined down on the field as angelic voices sang accompanied by harp).I guess I need to re-assess the situation with the soap group. Little, by little the bird makes its nest.

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One of the biggest misconceptions there is about Peace Corps is the idea that every moment is an adventure. But much like life state-side, my life in the Faso is a mixture of both the magnificent and the mundane.Sometimes I wonder if when my loved ones think of my service that they imagine me with a malnourrished baby in one arm, a dying woman over my shoulder on my way to the clinic digging wells along the way. I think I have lost all the upper body strength to be capable of such feats (if I ever had it to begin with). In reality, Peace Corps has a lot of in between spaces. Don't get me wrong. There is a higher density of new experiences than at home. There are adventures and excitement. There are mysteries and exploration. But, these are not the typical days at this point in my service. Life has become familiar and my days are punctuated by those silent moments where every dormant thought can arise from the neglected ashes of that metaphorical back-burner.In a way this altered sense of time (due to the lack of discernible seasons and the natural ebb and flow of village life in Burkina) has it's it appeal. I get daily naps and the longest nights of rest I have ever had. Sometimes I hope my excess of sleep will counteract the hyper-aging effects of the harsh Burkina sun. I also have an intensely flexible schedule, so flexible that--to my utter delight--it sometimes changes on its own. Days run into each other in village.The contrast is my time in the city. Whether I am doing malaria workshops, having a committee meeting or just taking a mental day my time in the city is never slow and never enough for the task at hand. I can feel the weight of the rigid schedule on my frame. An environment that I once thrived in and still long for is now foreign to me until I have settled into the rapid pace.Both realities have their mundane moments. The rapid-fire tasks of the city and the slow swagger of village life are exceedingly normal to me. Gone are the days of wide-eyed bewilderment as I wander the pathways of village or the bustling streets of Ouaga. I see familiar faces in familiar situations and familiar ways of life. I derive satisfaction in knowing that I have immersed myself in an over-stimulating and completely foreign environment (about as far removed as possible from my home). So much so that it has lost its novelty and has become my life as opposed to the grand disorienting adventure it began as.I suppose the flip side is that my world is no longer obscured by a lack of cultural understanding. I can sense motivations (good or bad). Cultural misunderstandings and quaint yet obnoxious local customs become frustrations without an excuse of naivite (on either side of the exchange).I suppose it is all a part of the natural life cycle of the PCV. It is the period of unparalleled comfort in my not-foreign-anymore surroundings. It is time for productive projects and small vacations.I suppose that leaves me with the mandatory panic and elation of returning home and forging a path to my somewhat-new American life.Why is I that I don't get an American culture class when I get back?

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Out with 2011, a complicated year for my humble patch of West Africa. In with 2012.

What does that mean for villagers? Excessive benedictions.

It is safe to say under most conditions in Burkina name-dropping God is not only possible, it is preferable. God is an active part of every conversation. I mean, the poor deity is attached to every other verb "giving," "helping," "curing," and "accompanying." It must be exhausting.

However, the New Year is the opportunity to come up with new, exciting and outrageous ways God can help the lives of your friends. New Year greetings usually begin with the standard "Happy New Year" and "I hope you are in good health!"

Then there are the personalized greetings. God might be curing a particular person with a particular illness, providing an ample harvest or granting a promotion.

The serious personalized greetings are sometimes followed by outrageous comical wishes (my favorite part). It might be a new motor cycle, a mercedes or that every dollar becomes a hundred dollar bill. There should be appropriate chuckling followed by the "wa-iee, wa-iee" or "aiee-yuh" sounds that are the Burkina equivalent of a verbal knee slapping.

This of course gives me great occasion to wish my PCV friends well in the most imaginative and ridiculous way possible. Among my wishes for my PCV friend Naeta were freedom from faux types, a unicorn,. a magical polar bear chariot, a world where equality is more than a buzz-word and a giraffe that lactates chocolate milk.

I can only wish you the same as you enter this New Year (maybe I'll add a semi-truck of glitter and a permanent personal entourage that coordinates with your outfit and strikes poses to punctuate your sentences). Happy New Year!

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My New Years Eve was fun. I let my hair down so to speak and had a little beer in village. Every person in village is aware of my dislike of drinking in village under most circumstances, so they definitely knew it was a special occasion.It was fun to just chat and eat some grilled mutton. However, towards the end I witnessed something that reminded me of a serious beef I have with Burkina (and the world, really).A close village friend of mine was being jolly and inviting everyone over for the elaborate--often comical--well-wishing rituals."Happy New Year! I hope this new year brings you health, money and a Mercedes! But, most of all that Mercedes!"But, one encounter was much more of a sexual proposition despite the fact that my friend is married. A painful reminder of personal experiences from the past year that I am specifically trying to let go of. I mostly just froze and changed the subject (my ex cheating on me for 3.5 months before telling me). Witnessing this interaction was another example of when being integrated sometimes means getting more information than you are comfortable with.Being in Peace Corps has meant being much more what us gender studies geeks call "homosocial." In other words, I have been much more exposed to the social world of men, which has led me to believe much more than ever that current variances on socialized masculinity are one of the things fundamentally wrong with this world.So many gender issues that we face in the U.S. are more explicit in the context of rural Burkina. In some ways culture here emphasizes some behaviors and perceptions more so than on the states side. One example is men having what they call a "second office." Cheating is considered a completely natural behavior of men by many people here. Many men are also often vocal about cheating. Men in traditional faiths and under Islam are allowed (and sometimes encouraged) to pursue multiple wives. This is religiously sanctioned and understood, but this mentality bleeds over into nominally monogamous relationships and Christian marriages. People even go as far as to say that there are 3 or 4 times as many women in the world to justify it.The interesting opposite end of this is the intense jealousy and envy that is accepted as a normal masculine trait. When I suggest that women have multiple husbands it is the number one most shocked/indignant/disbelieving reaction that I receive for all my crazy foreign suggestions (second would be that 2 well-educated healthy daughters are better than 7 lazy, uneducated, illness-prone sons). Men always respond that men are naturally too jealous to handle such an arrangement as a woman having multiple male partners. This jealousy permeates masculinity. Whether it is having a nicer motorcycle (or scooter), biking faster or providing more for their family many men are constantly jealous of other men. Everything is a competition and everything is a display of a man's assets. Even cell phones are constantly visible in a man's hands (obviously this has partially to do with socio-economics, too).Then there is the sheer space that a man takes up regardless of his stature. There is this "man stance" that nearly every man takes regardless of where he sits where it seems like he is trying to take up as much space as physically possible at the evident expense of people (particularly women) around him. The most recent experience I had with this was on a bus back from Christmas when a man was taking up a seat and a half. I asked him politely to make room for my friend who was sitting next to him. He refused and accused me of imposing on him and suggested (I am using a polite term) that as a Burkinabe man he should be the one imposing on us.I have heard of men imposing themselves on female friends of mine (whom--I should note-- have a higher status than Burkinabe women based on cultural standards). Some extremes have been attempting unsolicited kisses, verbal propositioning and a refusal to take "no" as an answer due to an idea that a man's interest is the only relevant to a sexual or marital decision. (One of the reasons we teach the concept of consent and saying "no" at summer camps.) I can't count how many times my friends have told me about men being completely surprised or oblivious to their disinterest--even to the point of following them around despite repeated refusals. The most extreme (and unusual) case was a friend of mine being groped by a stranger and being told that one of her breasts was his. (Again, an extreme example).I guess what bothers me most is that these issues are not unique to Burkina. They may be exaggerated due to circumstances and cultural norms, but these tendencies all apply to many American men on some level or with varying levels of visibility. I mean, as a male I have an intimate understanding of male socialization. I am not saying that men are inherently bad, but I believe whole heartedly that we tend to encourage or tolerate negative behaviors in men as opposed to discouraging or even addressing them. Women are capable of these behaviors such as cheating and getting jealous, but these behaviors (for women) are intensely discouraged and policed by most social standards, societies and men. I am only touching on the surface level of this issue, but it was just something rattling around in my head. Food for thought.

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I have a love/hate relationship with this year. It is the only whole calendar year that I will spend in Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer. It has been one of the most challenging years and most rewarding.

Over the past year I have faced many physical and emotional challenges. Some of them normal for Peace Corps in Burkina (cultural misunderstandings, missing home, bad phone service, strange foods, tropical illness). Others were a little unusual (such as civil unrest). Then some were personal (breaking up with my near-fiance and family illness).

I've also accomplished and experienced a lot whether or not all things are evident. I lived in a mud house without running water or electricity in a rural West African village for more than a year. I've had failures (my initial moringa field, care groups) and successes (Camp GLOW, my second moringa field, theater tour, little workshops). I've been working with the Community Health and AIDS Task force as a member and as President. I went to Senegal for the Stomp Out Malaria Boot Camp and have been working on malaria trainings and materials ever since.

I got to know some close friends and during the harder times I realized that I have a great support group here (much better than I could have imagined). My vacation to the U.S. gave me a chance to see my loved ones back home. Serving in Burkina has given me a lot of time and experience necessary to evaluate my future. Despite the challenges of limited access to slow internet and the endless paperwork I managed to apply to graduate school.

I am looking forward to the next 7 months. There are projects to be done. Small vacations to be taken. Graduate application responses to be read. Future decisions to be made.

My Close of Service Conference is in March. Sometime in July I will likely be pinned.

But, today I am saying adieu to 2011 and all the related smiles and tears. Here's to my wholly African year.

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My friend Halley likes to say that in Burkina you often have conversations that begin harmless before becoming strange and uncomfortable. Usually they are with a special class of stranger known as the infamous "FAUX TYPES" (false/fake types). These interactions generally go a little like this:1) First it seems nice. 2) Then you don't get why the person you are talking with is saying what they are saying. 3) Then it seems a little off. 4) Then it gets weird. 5) Finally you feel very uncomfortable.We have many examples. But, I have a mild one for today.Stage one:I was sitting to lunch with a friend yesterday at a restaurant when the phone salesman walked up to us to try to sell something. We said no (as usual) and he complimented my phone.Stage two:He passed by again trying to sell memory cards. This time he said something under his breath along the lines of "Are you going to sell that to me?" He then walked off as though he hadn't said anything. I was confused and not sure what he meant.Stage three:Then he comes up to me and asks if the man sitting across the way could look at my Blackberry as I am using it. I often freeze in this stage because I am not sure what to do in such an odd situation. I figured there was no harm in him looking, so I reluctantly agreed.Stage four:He then says to me. "You, him and I should sit down and reach an agreement and you can buy a new one in Europe." At this point I was so weirded out that I didn't bother saying that I am not French. I just politely refused.Stage Five:After saying no, he insisted. Burkina is known as "The Land of the Upright People, but my friend Naeta and I often call it "The Land of the Persistent People" because of interactions that don't seem to end at the normal ending point. I often feel like a dead horse that is becoming concave from the impact of endless persistence.This time I said "no" in sets of three like a chickadee. I swear I said "No, no, no" four or five times. Then he insisted that I can just buy a new one in Europe and that it is difficult to get them in Africa (I have 7 months left and don't live in Europe normally). I responded saying that I don't have the money or time to do so. He persisted. I continued my triple refusals.Finally after the awkward dance, he walked away. I had stopped acknowledging his requests. The cycle was complete and we were both left shaking our heads.Later that day a man complimented my blackberry and muttered something about buying it. I just said thank you, kept drinking my juice and talking to my friend.

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A few friends and I decided this Christmas that it would be better to spend our time on safari than in village.

So Christmas Eve we arrived in the big city to make a fancy dinner with stew, cheese, bread, pumpkin pie, cherry pie, egg nog and maulled wine (also known as glogg). On arrival we discovered that there wasn't transport down to Po on Christmas day (go figure... it was bad planning on our part).

So the following morning we made it down through a series of Christmas miracles. We found a car to Po and then found a 4x4 to take us on safari.

Within an hour of entering the park and before arriving at our lodging we saw mongooses, warthogs, monkeys, and elephants. Throughout the trip we saw 3 varieties of antelope, baboons, 3 varieties of monkeys, crocodiles and tons of elephants. Even on our way out we saw a group of mama elephants that were extremely close to our car. They began to get angry and made a circle around the tiny baby and one chased us off and trumpeted. It was pretty awesome. Earlier we had seen a male elephant hanging out on his own in a pond eating all the water lillies.

It was by far a better Christmas than last year. Now I can say I spent Christmas with the elephants.

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So my best friend at the clinic whom I fondly call Semde "the terrible," because of his naturally choleric disposition asked me to teach him how to make neem cream.

It is really quite easy. All you have to do is mix crushed or chopped soap, boiled neem leaf water and shea butter. That is how I found myself showing a group of macho Burkinabe men how to make neem cream to repel mosquitos (therefore decreasing chances of getting malaria).

It sounds easy right? I mean, it is easy. But, the next day when Semde was insisting that I stop by I didn't get it. He kept saying "I really thought you'd stop by and see how it went."

So, finally I followed him to his house. He went in and carried out the bowl. He sat it on the ground, uncovering it with a flourish.

It looked normal: creamy, white, lotion-like. It looked normal until I dug a spoon into it and. a green blob monster emerged from below the surface to devour its maker.

In true Casey fashion I laughed uncontrollably after the shock had subsided. Apparently the soap/neem water mixture and the shea butter had separated due to lack of stirring. Semde hadn't tried to mix the two substances together (one being angelic and the other being nothing short of satanic). I didn't blame him.

With Semde and his two daughters watching, I stirred out of desperation. I know that Peace Corps teaches you how to fail gracefully, but I wasn't about to fail at one of the most basic projects. Luckily, the solution was as simple as the mistake. It blended together and produced a slightly less viscous neem cream than normal. It was a Christmas miracle considering it's previous condition as the special effects for that blob movie.

Luckily before I came to Peace Corps I had already learned how to succeed awkwardly. With my powers combined I have managed to survive village ...even when blobs attack.

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The leaves fell. Well, some of the leaves fell. The crops were certainly harvested. The ground isn't white, unless you hit a particularly sandy spot. But, it certainly isn't green anymore.

Winter in the land of eternal summer is sort of silly really. It almost feels like time doesn't pass because I keep waiting for the summer to end. I suppose that is why "winter" doesn't really mean anything here.

So, I am sitting on my mat, enjoying Christmas butter cookies and sipping loose leaf tea on this chilly 80 degree morning. If I were a child it would probably be ideal: no school, summer weather and Christmas treats.

I am not so sure I am longing for snow, because it very well may kill me to be that cold. A cloudy day might be a welcome change. Believe it or not, blue skies do get old.

Aside from the obvious obligatory response of "loved ones" I think I miss the smell of the holidays. Warm beverages, pies, and pine trees. The cold clear breeze. Heavy blankets and layers of clothing. No matter what I stuff in my mouth, Christmas isn't Christmas without the smells and textures I am used to.

Instead, I'll be spending this Christmas--my last Peace Corps Christmas--under the sun with the elephants, baobabs and palm trees. I suppose it might be closer to the ones that Jesus was around for anyway. There were camels last year. Part of my house looks like a manger. I can wear foot-length (lavender) robes without standing out (anymore than usual, anyway). Maybe I don't live too far from Bethlehem, after all?

On the bright side:

I get to eat locally grown produce. Guavas are abundant. I am not exposed to any risk of getting frost bite. I don't have to wear any ugly sweaters.

Who needs a sled when I can snag a camel, anyway?

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Many people who think of Africa in the U.S. may think of a wild, untamed continent or a monolithic intact indigenous tradition that is suppressed by remnants of colonies and the modern global economy. Neither is strictly true.From my experience in Burkina I've learned that Burkinabe populations and the Burkinabe landscape are facing modern challenges such as deforestation, waste management, population density and others. The idea of a nearly virginal landscape was quickly dashed upon arrival.Cultures in Burkina seem to be neither monolithic nor intact. It is true that permutations of precolonial cultures continue (particularly in the rural setting, although urban culture has distinct influences such as the common belief in voodoo); however even these traditional expressions were not left untouched by colonization. Magic divinity stones are attached to modern chain necklaces. What is thought of as traditional textiles have significant modern influences such as the material (as evidenced by finding glittery strands and images of table fans on said fabrics). Although, the term commonly used to describe a quantity of fabric literally translates to "loin cloth."The shapes of houses (square as opposed to round), the non-indiginous staple foods (tomatoes, cabbage, corn, eggplant, mangos, guavas) and the presence of modern technologies (run off solar power or a gas generator) are all examples of permanent changes that permeate even the most rural portions of Burkina. Of course language is affected. In Lyele many original words such as "dinjiru" (airplane) are replaced by French imprints such as "avioni." The commonly used term "Nasara" apparently has its origins in a Hausa interpretation of the Arabic "Nasr" meaning victory (a not entirely comfortable history considering that every time I bike down a street in Koudougou I am called a nasara about 100 times). When I handed out candy canes last Christmas I was told by an older man in village "That is what the colonials used to hand out."

Again, an uncomfortable comparison.But, that is an important reminder of how brief the modern independence has been in Africa (51 years for Burkina). I can nearly see colonial ruins from my hut, because my village was home to a colonial leper colony.

Volunteers don't want to be compared to colonials or called "Nasara," but the truth is that colonialism is still fresh in the minds of Burkinabe, especially those who were alive during it.Sadly, Burkina can never return to the precolonial trajectory it was once on. But, I am happy to report that the modern Burkinabe interpretations of western influences are still distinctly Burkinabe. The most evident example is the accent and vocabulary of Burkinabe French. Most clothes that are tailored in Burkina would be a difficult sell in America even if one can see the modern influence. What is considered "cool" is definitely not a universal. You might also see music videos that look much like a rap video in America until people start dancing (I am pretty sure I saw a group of men in rapper-style clothes do the African equivalent of jazz hands and a high five in one video). The implications of African-influenced diasporic cultures coming full circle to influence Africa again is enough to make a race studies minor tingle with research potential.There is also the all-too-evident physical affection of male bonding (pinky holding not excluded). It is not uncommon to see men holding hands, squeezing each others' thighs when seated or putting their hands on the lower back (sometimes rump) of a friend (or two). Local religious traditions are both practiced independently and as an integrated part of the lives of Christians and Suffi Muslims. Magic rings, hexes, animal sacrifices, scarfication and healing tinctures are all present in Burkina. Even the stiffest of Christian services incorporate local instruments and elaborate clapping. Many Burkinabe Muslims also can't foresake the taste of the local millet beer "Dolo" or in Lyele: "Sin" (pronounced like "sand" in english but without the "d").So, no part of Burkina is free of Western influence, but the reverse is true, also. No part of even the most modern/urban corner of Burkina is free of African essence. It will be interesting to see where Burkina is after the next 50 years, although I am fairly certain it is on a westernizing trajectory. I hope I am at least partially wrong.

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Bringing envelopes with you is a great idea in theory, however there are a few things to consider. You can get envelopes in country (possibly cheaper) and during your first few months you will be lugging a monstrous bag around with you so you don't want to over pack. Also, if you do want to bring some amount of envelopes to get you by until you can say "May I please have an envelope?" (In Burkina we say "You must give me that envelope") then you might want to bring the kind that have a film over the seal that you peal off before it adheres to the envelope. Why? Because humidity is a reality. Humidity is a reality that sealed hundreds of envelopes that I foolishly brought to Burkina during the rainy season.

Caution: You will have very little spending money but equally little free time during training. Bring a few envelopes in case you can't sleep one night or there is a family birthday.

Note: Most volunteers actually just write e-mails. Letters are romantic and great for that older generation that just never logged in (or for those hippie friends of yours that live off the grid in a log cabin). Otherwise you may find that people respond quicker to e-mail. Still, as a volunteer it is great to receive a letter and sending them means a higher likelihood of receiving them..

Tip: Envelopes in Burkina that have African themed scenes or details can be purchased and may actually be more interesting to the person who receives them than a generic American envelope. You (if you are ambitious, have a lot of time or are extra sentimental) can also bring or buy larger envelopes and send letters in bulk to the states to be sent on arrival by a loved one. This can be cheaper and works great for holidays. Volunteers often also send envelopes with American postage with other volunteers who are heading to the U.S. This system isn't always reliable, but more and more volunteers vacation in the U.S. making this an option. (Another incentive to be nice to other volunteers.)

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It is funny how over the course of the same day in Burkina that I can feel incredibly frustrated and completely inspired. It is why our Country Director calls it "the roller coaster."Over the last week I've done enough to make me feel satisfied. I haven't felt this productive while in village in a while (it is hard to compare village productivity to productivity in the city or the U.S.) At mid-service things felt like they were starting to click. Mobilizing small projects is definitely doable now.What made me happiest this week was seeing the moringa field that I planted with Mr. Bassole (you may remember him from previous blogs as the stubborn farmer who wouldn't build a fence or water the trees). I had neglected visiting the field since I got back in country from Senegal (I know, shame on me), but I didn't know if my little heart could handle seeing a dry, barren field chewed to pieces by goats. I was sure that this jolly farmer in cut off shorts with a daba (an African hoe) over his shoulder would just shrug and say the Lyele equivalent for "C'est l'afrique." I would then fight back a mixture of frustration and tears and later contemplate my meaningless life in my hut (PCVs can be dramatic).To my utter surprise and delight the field was more than intact--it was fenced! They also started planting onions around the moringa trees, so the ones that had received companion plants were being watered. Given the plants that had been eaten by goats were replaced it was actually a heart-warming sight for a well-intentioned PCV stranded in a little stretch of Sahel.I've been starting to lay the ground work for powdered moringa demand at my clinic. We normally do nutrition sensibilisations in Fridays, so I incorporated moringa sales. My counterpart insisted we start selling the powdered moringa at the pharmacy, particularly to children who need to gain weight. I like to describe it as organic vegan protein powder (to Americans, obviously). The proceeds from sales will go toward the clinic management committee, particularly toward public health workshops if I have any say.I had a bit of a talk with my counterpart about sustainable projects and responsible use of NGO partnerships. He was trying to tell me that the solar panel project that had been originally brought to the maternity didn't need to be mentioned when requesting funds. I said that I will not be involved in a project that does not specify previous funding. I also explained that the managing committee needs to have a maintenance plan set in place where they set aside a small portion of their funds every month to pay for replacement parts if they break. Even if it was 2500cfa per month (the equivalent of 5 U.S. dollars) they could have enough money set aside by the time they need to replace the car battery that they use to run lights in the maternity. Instead they have ran themselves into a tight spot where they already had support from an NGO and now need funds to help replace a battery and parts to a system that they had neglected.So, I am trying to encourage ethical NGO partnerships and some health related income-generating activities. As my counterpart reminded me today I have "so much to do and so little time to do it." Amen.

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Let's face it: we as a world have messed up in so many ways. Our ancestors whether they were the oppressors or the oppressed (or some mixture of the two) have left us a mess to clean up and the fault lines get less clear every year. Colonization in its purist form ended nearly 51 years ago for Burkina. International aid has taken many forms since then, some more successful than others. Philosophies both internal and external to Burkina have fluctuated. But, we are still begging for answers. What is sustainable development?Sustainability to many is a buzzword, but if you can get past the glossy shine of present day political spin there is an important essence. The idea is looking beyond the initial spoils and looking toward longevity. The idea is leaving behind stopgap improvisations for lasting solutions. Putting a band aid over an infected wound will not heal it or cure the infection. Sustainability would be providing the care and preventing the wound from happening in the future with local renewable resources. Now, isn't that a fancy idea?But seriously what is sustainable development? As a Peace Corps Volunteer I am here with the best intentions (and as a race/gender studies minor hopefully with enough cynicism). The true value of Peace Corps service in my opinion is the unequivocal grass roots/first person daily presence in communities affected by development. We are (mostly) unskilled workers (often) fresh out of college given 3 goals of which two are focused on cultural/experiential exchange. We are the ones in village that despite our obvious differences are somewhat accepted as a sort of adoptive child. We aren't like normal NGO workers who spend most of their day in an office looking at projects on paper and show up to do supervisions where people will make unused equipment look useful, unsavory uses of financial resources seem scarce and further need coupled with community motivation seem abundant only to drop this exaggeration of reality as soon as the supervisor leaves. I realize this is an extremely skeptical picture that I am painting, but it happens at some level at every supervisory meeting.I would love to tell you that every cent of your tax-deductable donations to any given NGO is going toward a sustainable cost-efficient community driven project. But, the reality is that your donation is likely in part aiding a project that is at least accepted by a community and either sustainable (with continued foreign aid) or temporary with some lasting benefits. Some money is misappropiated, some money is used for a project that doesn't have strong community involvement and most money is not being put into projects with a feasible goal of being sustainable with local resources. To find a solution to a single problem that would meet the definition of sustainability that I am suggesting takes more on the ground community involvement than most NGOs are able to provide and more time than most grass roots volunteers are willing/able to provide.Despite seeing clinicians eating Plumpy Nut (a nutrient rich product given by NGOs to malnourrished babies), seeing machinery that is poorly maintained or misused, seeing people treat foreign aid as a disposable gift or seeing aid money used for personal purchases being in Peace Corps (believe it or not) has still given me some hope. All of these issues are realities across the world and not specific to Burkina, but having seen the issues that sustainable development faces I think I will be less likely to blindly participate in practices that perpetuate a problematic system without trying to seek better methods and results.I can see that--like most things in this world--the success of development is not a black/white issue. Nearly every project has some benefit to its community and surely every project has at least one ethical problem. Anything that sounds too good to be true likely isn't (at least not completely). Problems can be anything from families not being able to afford soap for hand washing and therefore not using the information they are given to local community based groups using large sums of money for personal gain. But, is that surprising when you take into account the "post"-colonial, impoverished rural setting of these projects?Things I have seen work inside a Peace Corps setting have been small, sustained explorations of health topics with individuals or small groups. I've seen the incorporation of simple changes such as planting a moring a tree in an existing garden or adding information to an already programmed health service. Little self-contained activities like this can make small accumulating impacts in the lives of people with real problems while keeping ethical issues to a minimum. Unfortunately the number of people interested in donating their time and the number of aid dollars/resources available for such projects are limited. Development is still a big experiment and I can't pretend to have all the answers. I don't mean to be discouraging, but I do intend to honestly raise the question that is on the mind of many if not all volunteers. Like I've said before if there was an easy solution I wouldn't be here right now.At least we can take comfort in knowing that there are thousands of people seeing the realities of development and hopefully contemplating changes. I think that is in the least a startling contrast to even 50 years ago.

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My village is not on the grid. What little energy you see is either powered by solar energy or by gas generators. Even my clinic is not fully powered. The main building where we treat any wounds or illnesses has lights at night, but the pharmacy and the more importantly the maternity do not. So, women have to give birth by flashlight.So, the previous volunteer got funding for a battery, a solar panel, and the necessary materials for installation. I haven't seen the budget, but I am assuming the expected contribution from the community was the cost of installation. When I got to village the panel was not installed and was being used to charge other things. My amateur electrician friend said he would install it for free and offered his services to the clinic. They were reluctant, but eventually agreed. The first thing he needed to do was test the battery that had been funded by the previous volunteer's efforts. The neglected battery could not hold a charge.I am not sure where the process broke down, but it did. Now, my counterpart suggested (without consulting me) that I will be getting money for a new battery since they had neglected the first. Not exactly ideal. It is one of those ethical dilemmas where on one hand the resulting product of a project would be very important, but on the other hand the project would be essentially paying for something that should already be provided.I don't necessarily blame my clinic, I mean none of them are electricians and maybe the volunteer left before the project was done. Or maybe the panel was installed in the old maternity, but was not transferred when the new maternity. That is a common issue I have seen in development is that projects often help with an initial cost but the maintenance costs are either not accounted for by the project or the receiving group does not hold up their end of the deal.Maybe I need to do more investigation to see what really happened and what can be done. I guess I am at the point in my 2 year crash course in development where I see a lot of the issues that prevent successful, sustainable projects but I don't necessarily have easy solutions. Then again, I suppose Peace Corps and other NGOs wouldn't exist if there were easy solutions. It would be great if I could solve all the problems in my village, but I am not that capable despite the confidence of my friends and family. I'll keep you updated on this one.

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I stopped by la nuit atypique de Koudougou (The Atypical Koudougou Night) yesterday. It's an arts festival in my regional capital Koudougou which is one of the largest cities in Burkina known for its rebellious tendencies. The night was certainly atypical in the sense that there were more foreign people than normal (mostly French folks) and the traffic seemed more life-threatening due to the influx of tourists. Although even more atypically the traffic parted almost biblically just as we needed to cross the street to the festival.I didn't go last year so it was very surprising to see stages and booths set up in a city that I frequent. It had a sort of county fair or folk festival feel--an eerily Americana-like atmosphere with an African flare. The booths were packed with art, crafts, foods and clothes. I bought some shiny fabric for a shirt (can't get enough loud fabrics) and a large bag of garlic/parsley cashews, which will probably only last for one sitting because of how delicious they are.What little we saw of the music and performances was a bit strange (maybe more appropriately labeled atypical, although I am not sure they are atypical for Burkina). We did not actually stay for the headliners. When we arrived there was a lot of booty shaking with strange sound effects and a cigarette swallowing magic act. It's just better not to ask what exactly that means.We went into the fair with some friends of the Koudougou PCVs including a former university English Club president, a current university English Club president, an artist/comedian and a colleague. Due to the reputation of pick pocketing that high-density events have our friends took on the role of mother hen coralling us to each booth and pecking at the ankles of the stragglers. Our friend who is away to recover from an illness was sending us public service announcements about theft via text messages. It was rather comical.I was glad to spend part of an evening checking out the festival and I would recommend it to people who happen to be in Burkina in early December, but I wouldn't say it is worth flying to Burkina to see (unless you think a county fair is worth a $3,000 plane ticket). But, I'd say that's atypical.

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I know it isn't the 60s/70s, but here's the thing: hand washing pants is painful and West Africa is dusty. If you could get rusty/brown colored pants you'll minimize the embarrassment of biking to a meeting and having your pants streaked with kicked up dust. On some days I wake up, put on clean clothes and by the time I leave my courtyard my pants already have dust stains. I'm not necessarily advocating wearing the same unwashed pants for weeks on end (especially not during the hot time of year), but having a pair of anachronistic pants will make you look cleaner. Honestly, sometimes perception trumps reality.

Caution: Rust does not coordinate with all outfits. Also, even if something looks clean it might not smell clean. Don't be a dirty hippie stereotype... this isn't your mother's Peace Corps, remember?

Note: Bell-bottoms, flares and otherwise undesirable or costume-esque clothing are welcome in Burkina villages. If you've had a desire to wear those ugly outfits that Aunt Delila bought you or if breaking as many Western fashion rules as possible gives you a thrill, now is your chance. Carpe diem!

Something has been tugging the past few days and I can't put my finger on it. Maybe I am having sympathy seasonal depression for all of you that are up in the frigid north.

Maybe it is because we've already began a transitional period, but it seems early to be mourning my limited time in village.

Maybe it is because I am wrapping up a particularly difficult year. I am definitely ready to close the chapter on 2011.

Either way, it is weird because I was just feeling great I had a great vacation in August, attended an awesome conference about malaria in September and have been busy, busy ever since. The beauty of the second year is although you are a bit jaded, you now know the system and how to get work done. My counterparts are starting to suggest projects of their own accord. Oh, and it is so cold at night I have to sleep with a blanket inside of my house.

Standing at the cusp of 2012, I also have tentative plans up to 2013 (something that anyone who knows me recognizes as a very positive thing for my type A personality). For the first time in my Peace Corps experience I am starting to emphasize my limited plans for fun. We are given vacation days, after all.

I suppose it could be the holiday season, something I've never been particularly fond of because of the stress of expectation that is placed on it. Although, I don't have many seasonal expectations when it feels like August in Seattle.

Missing the people I left back home is pretty much a given. I'd be heartless (or maybe distracted) if that wasn't on my mind. Although about mid-service the letters and emails from friends become a bit sparse (hint, hint).

Maybe it was all of those things, because I feel better after typing it all out.

Well, time for another sunny day in the land of perpetual summer.

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So, in Burkina we don't exactly do "rubberwear" parties (what some folks like to call safe sex workshops...I believe Babeland in Seattle has them). And admittedly, my safe sex workshops in the states were much more entertaining. That being said, we started off World AIDS Month earlier by having an HIV workshop and condom demonstration with women at our maternity.

I was so proud of my midwife because she requested to do the sensibilisation and did most of the talking. She did so well! She covered destigmatization of HIV positive people, common myths, how HIV is transmitted and a condom demonstration. The women were giggly and shy (keep in mind they were all pregnant and there to get an HIV test as part of their prenatal counseling). One woman even refused to squeeze the condom package. But, overall they listened and participated.

It is a challenging topic for any situation, but I think it went well for what it was. Next step is to get all the materials ready for our World AIDS Day/Month murals. The money came in a little later than expected. I am coordinating the materials for 15 of the 70+ communities. My committee (Community Health and AIDS Task force) is overseeing the whole project so we are all a little stressed out. If all goes according to plan 70 communities across Burkina will have had at least one workshop and one mural about HIV by the end of January.

How are you celebrating World AIDS Day?

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Thanksgiving is an interesting time of year with its plethora of connotations. Most people in the U.S. seem to think about food and family. There are others who think of the colonial implications of the holiday. And of course those who drum up their list of things they are thankful for.

Perhaps people cling to Thanksgiving as a symbol of plenty and comfort whether they are nervous about the global economy or if they are an ex-pat. Our lives are--as always--rife with uncertainty. When talking about the recent debates about money distribution in the U.S. I can't help but think about a few things.

I am thankful to be of a socio-economic level, nationality and education level that allow me to voice my discontent. Those people most affected by wealth distribution in the U.S. are too busy trying to survive not to mention those outside the U.S. who are so disproportionate affected by wealth distribution that the average person in the U.S. could not fathom their experience.

Maybe it is momentarily easier for me to compare myself to others who have not and will not have the same opportunities as me. I'm writing a blog on my blackberry in a community in which the majority of adults would not even be able to write let a lone own a blackberry.

I know I sound preachy. I don't think there is anything wrong with expressing discontent or personal hardship, but I think it is important to think of others whose voices are not heard. The majority of the world population's experiences lean toward those in Burkina Faso more so than those in the United States. It is a fact I can't get over.

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Airtel Burkina Faso.

I was in Ouaga this week working at MSC. I worked with Dr. Claude (my awesome boss) to present about Malaria to the first group of volunteers who came in after my group. It went really well, but I can't help but feel like my workload has been quite American lately. That is certainly not a negative comment, but it is definitely a big difference from my first year in village. The malaria work mixed with my responsibility at the trainings has been keeping me busy.

Because of my workload, I wound up staying in Ouaga for Thanksgiving which was really great. A group of us helped our Country Director cook. We made apple pies, chocolate mousse and stuffing. The whole thing felt more American than my Thanksgiving in Koudougou last year, but I missed my Koudougou Crew since they were all out in village.

We just got the word that the money is coming in for our World AIDS Day (it'll be a whole month or two in this case) project that will be reaching 70 different communities in Burkina Faso. It is the largest project that I will likely be involved with before the end of my service. I am excited to see how it turns out. We are painting murals in each community and teaching the communities about HIV and AIDS in the process. It is the first time I've been part of the leadership for a wide-spread natonal-level campaign. It's exciting, but we've already realized a few logistical changes we would make for next time. For instance, the leadership is a little too centralized. We wanted to make the project as accessible as possible because volunteers are often intimated by the grant application process.

I can't believe that it will be December any moment. I'm already planning details for January...

Surprise! Internet capability is nearly as widespread as influenza. If you plan on doing Peace Corps service (even in Burkina Faso) chances are you'll have internet capability even if it means biking a bit or putting your phone on top of your hut to get service (my personal strategies).

Now, I know what you are thinking in that precious unadulterated idealistic pre-service mind of yours: "Smart phone! I want the pure Peace Corps experience!" 1) This isn't your mother's Peace Corps (the old school Peace Corps only exists in select countries or in obscure regions of countries). 2) Easy communication (within reason) means sanity and more time in village.

Cautions: Make sure your phone or device will work where you are going. Certain phone companies might not have contracts with certain companies such as Blackberry's creator. (I have a Blackberry in one of the poorest--if not poorest--Peace Corps countries). Also certain phones are more complicated to get working in other countries. You might want to look for "world editions" of phones. You can also potentially buy a knock off in your country of service for cheaper, but the quality will likely be lower.

Integration is really important and if you know that you have very little self control than you might want to delay getting internet until after you've been in country for a while.

This is the first installment of my personal packing tips. Stay tuned for more.

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Airtel Burkina Faso.

Ever since the Stomp Out Malaria conference in Senegal (@stompoutmalaria) whenever anyone says malaria in a group of volunteers they all look at me. When I had a prolonged fever a few weeks back I was worried that my mephloquine could have somehow failed me. I mean, how embarrassing would it be for Malaria Casey to actually get malaria? Luckily. (And I never thought I would say this) it was a sinus infection.

Peers' stares and personal neurosis aside, I think we've got the ball rolling. The Community Health and AIDS Task force is on board with doing a Malaria Month campaign in April. The packet is almost in a drafted state and will be finalized/distributed after our January meeting.

I've worked pre-service training and in service training over the past few weeks. I even got to watch the health trainees teach other trainees about malaria and business related malaria prevention activities. They did a creative mosquito net activity at the local primary school, too.

During pre-service training we met with a nurse that is working on studying the effects of asymptomatic malaria carriers on a community. They are testing people without symptoms and treating those that test positive. I still want to go and visit the testing site for the malaria vaccine in Burkina! I need to look into it.

On a personal note, I'll be teaching more people how to make neem cream tonight. It takes about a half hour and is nearly effortless. Just need about 500cfa ($1 US) for soap and shea butter then you need free water and free neem leaves. Poof! Mosquitoes be gone! It looks a terrible atomic green at first, but it looks more like lotion by the end (which makes for a much easier sell).

At any rate, I've got malaria on my mind (but not in it). Cerebral malaria is no joke.

If you want to know more about Peace Corps' malaria prevention activities across Africa check out Stomp Out Malaria on twitter.com and tumblr.com

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Airtel Burkina Faso.

So, I spent the morning at the clinic. I talked to my counterpart about the rest of my service. I told him that my host mother just informed me that my host brother had to move to Koudougou (40 km away) to be able to continue high school. He is lucky my host mother could afford that.

At any rate my counterpart sat me down and told me he had news: he is leaving. Honestly, I didn't know how to react because I thought he was staying for sure, but apparently they are moving him to some tiny village in the middle of nowhere. My new counterpart will come any day and she will be who I work with the rest of the 7-8 months.

I am sad because my counterpart has always been the model. Everyone here really likes him and all my volunteer friends are jealous. Maybe it will be easier for me to define my work for the last months and maybe it will be cool to work with a female head nurse (a rarity), but I will still miss him. He's always had my back and really seems passionate about his job.

In terms of the potential famine things sound bad. My village isn't doing as poorly as some others., but there really wasn't enough rain. I guess the food security world says that it takes 3 bad rains to have a serious famine. It was a bad rain the year before I came. My first rainy season was fine. This season was bad. So, I am not sure where that puts us. It sounds sure that some parts of Burkina will be facing serious food insecurity.

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Airtel Burkina Faso.

I am done working at the pre-service training where I spent 3 weeks staring into the face of what I was like a little more than a year ago. Coupled with glancing at the calendar and my graduate applications it had the effect of revealing the changes I've experienced.

I would say that working at training made it even more evident than my trip home. It is hard to judge how you've changed when reuniting with an environment that has changed just as much or more. Working at training was the last item on my long list of goals that I wrote during my first 3 months in village. I turned in all my graduate school applications last weekend. This feels like a turning point.

So now what do I do with 8 months? I am trying to be realistic--a skill I thought I had mastered from living in Africa, but you know, old habits. I have World AIDS Day coming up this December. We are going to test 100 people for free, do safe sex workshops and paint a mural. In February I would like to do what we call a Hearth Model which is an 8 day nutrition workshop for mothers of moderately malnourished children. I think we are going to try to do a family planning theater tour for Women's day in March. I want to do a Malaria theater tour in April or May. Lastly, I might teach English in July before I leave. I guess I want to build hand washing stations sometime between all of that... So much for scaling back?

I guess I am going to have to relearn how to manage a busy schedule. Every calendar day is my last of its kind in Burkina. You know, no pressure...

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Airtel Burkina Faso.

Now that I am on the other end of the first year and working at a new pre-service training I am reminded of a phenomenon in Peace Corps that reminds me of reality television. It isn’t the funny anecdotes or the blunt confessionals. It is the “show no weakness” mentality that seems to be an unwritten oath among Peace Corps volunteers.

It makes sense if you think about it. When you come into Peace Corps you feel a bit like you have the cards stacked against you: you are going to somewhere you presumably never have been; you will be learning a new and likely obscure language; you’ll have limited contact with everything and everyone you ever loved; and you’ll be living in conditions you might not have even experienced when camping. So, a prospective volunteer signs up for this grand adventure knowing the odds. The last thing they want to do is admit weakness.

It’s funny though, we aren’t in reality TV game show where we will be voted off one by one from the land-locked stretch of Sahel we by necessity began to call home. Yet, some trainees look at it with this mentality asking questions like: ‘who will be the first to go?’ Maybe it makes them feel more safe to consider someone else to be the ‘limping gazelle’ because we all secretly fear that it is ourself. We don’t want to admit what could be perceived as our fatal flaw: a lack of travel experience, an ill loved-one, a flare for the extravagant, a long distance relationship, a periodic voice that asks ‘Why are you here?’ I didn’t admit my long distance relationship for several weeks for fear of being seen as a potential early termination and most volunteers don’t admit their ‘ET’ voice unless in confidence in the dark corners of local buvettes.

Looking back it is clear to me that this fear is not necessary. Early termination isn’t a contagious disease, it’s a personal choice made by a volunteer. Isn’t it better to take a good hard look at your feelings surrounding your service while they are manageable instead of waiting until they explode from the proverbial can of worms? Everyone thinks about going home occasionally from the time they find out they have an invisible auto-eject button. Under the stress of the rollercoaster that is Peace Corps, I think it only natural. Personally, I say that sometimes the best thing that prevented me from going home was just talking about it with someone who didn’t have an equally low morale. We sorted out the feelings and moved on.

So, I say abandon those parts of your brain that reality television shows have infested. I mean, I don’t even know where to get a tiki torch in Burkina Faso to put out at the closing credits, anyway.

The Community Health and AIDS Task force meeting has been crazy this weekend. We have three awesome new members whom I am already getting to know, we got the significantly reduced budget for this year's grants and we've been trouble shooting a World AIDS Day. I forgot how difficult it is to plan such a huge complicated project. In addition none of us have constant access to internet and we only meet every three years. This definitely creates a time crunch every time we are in the meeting.

This time around was different because our fearless leaders have fled and somehow I found myself as president. It has already been a lot of problem solving with a lot of different little metaphorical explosions, but I am happy to do it.

The new trainees are here somewhere and I'll be meeting them when I come in to work training. I'm excited to see all their bright faces, but nervous about working intensely for three weeks. The pace of life in village is just so different.

On the other hand it is sort of fun to feel sort of like I am working in Americaland again.

If you want to check out some of our activities in Burkina in moving picture go to our youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlhOZaIkKAs&feature=related

I figured I would update you on my famine theory. Things are looking a little better. There was actually some rain as soon as I wrote my last blog about the lack of rain. It is too late for the corn (all of which has been harvested), but there is still a chance that the millet crops could improve with a little bit of rain.

When I was bumming around village lately I asked neighbors about their crops and how their yields are looking. It is hard to fish through the "life is hard in Africa" and the "It'll be ok" mentalities (AKA "C'est L'Afrique" et "Ca va aller" ). Yes, life is hard in Africa and yes, I am sure things will be ok but neither of those responses give me a very clear idea of how hard or ok things are going to be.

What I have gathered so far is that some families are fine. They have grains from the year before that are still well preserved and maybe even beans. Other families that are less adept at conservation are likely to have issues later on this year. On the other hand I found out that bean prices are 800 CFA per yarba when just a year ago they were 300 CFA (500 CFA = 1 US Dollar and a yarba is a unit of measurement about the size of a fruit bowl). This is the time of year that bean prices are their lowest, so if they are starting at the peak price of last year then you know that something is up. I was talking to my closest neighbor and he was saying that he isn't so confident in market prices. Maybe the spike is just based off of perception? We aren't talking about a union of bean growers; we are talking about little cute raisin-like grandmas that are just selling a few beans to get by.

It seems that north of me is going to be a serious issue. Rumor has it that it has only rained once in Niger, but I am not sure if that is accurate since it is coming from worried village dwellers. Exaggeration and indirect ways of phrasing certain concepts are a fairly cultural phenomenon ("2 days" can mean many or "tomorrow" can mean anytime in the future before you die).

Ok, so I am looking at the famine watch web site and the summary for Burkina is "The end to an uncertain season," but I am not entirely certain what that means. It still says that poor families in the northern regions will be having problems. There also is not a long term forecast. I guess I will just have to wait and see what the millet harvest looks like.

If you want to see more about famine in Africa and the rest of the world check out the following link:

http://www.fews.net/Pages/default.aspx

I spent the morning at a lazy pace. I hung out with friends and visited the marche. Some people are still discovering that I am back, since people who haven't seen me assume that I am still gone. Yesterday I talked with my village counterpart AKA "l'Infirmier Chef de Poste" about my remaining 8 or 9 months in village. He wanted to have a good idea of my plans since we are slowly running low on time.I have the new volunteer training coming up in a couple weeks. After that I plan on looking into "Care groups" again, which is basically a peer-education network that meets once a month. I want to do some school sensibilistations in November and then I have to do the Mid service conference malaria training.In December I want to prepare for a hearth model, which is basically a 2 week class about proper nutrition for women and their babies. I will also be doing an HIV education tour and HIV awareness mural. For Christmas I want to go on safari.

In January I want to go to Togo and the birthplace of Voodoo (Benin) for the voodoo festival. I also want to prepare for a family planning theater tour and women's day events.In February I think there is a mask ceremony in Dedougou that I will have to attend.In March I have women's days events and I hope to take a trip up to Bamako, Mali to check it out and see a friend (I'm coming whether you like it or not, Sam...haha). April and May I will start to hear from grad schools. It makes me nervous to think about it! The plan is to do some door to door mosquito net inspections and make a lot of neem cream in preparation for the coming rainy season. In May or early June I want to head down to Ghana and check out the closest land mass to 0 latitude 0 longitude... and see the ocean.In late June and July I will be moving out of my house to go teach English in Ouaga or Bobo if it is possible. I really want a chance to teach English in a structured setting.So, in late July or early August I'll be on a plane home. The idea is to stop by Morocco and maybe Spain, France and/or Iceland on my way to wherever I end up getting into grad school or getting a job.Those are the broad brush strokes of some of my work and travel plans. Of course if there is anything I have learned in the past year it is that nothing is sure and anything can change. It is nice to have and idea what I will be doing in these last months as my service rolls down the hill. I somehow barely noticed the peak...

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Airtel Burkina Faso.

I spent the morning at a lazy pace. I hung out with friends and visited the marche. Some people are still discovering that I am back, since people who haven't seen me assume that I am still gone. Yesterday I talked with my village counterpart AKA "l'Infirmier Chef de Poste" about my remaining 8 or 9 months in village. He wanted to have a good idea of my plans since we are slowly running low on time.I have the new volunteer training coming up in a couple weeks. After that I plan on looking into "Care groups" again, which is basically a peer-education network that meets once a month. I want to do some school sensibilistations in November and then I have to do the Mid service conference malaria training.In December I want to prepare for a hearth model, which is basically a 2 week class about proper nutrition for women and their babies. I will also be doing an HIV education tour and HIV awareness mural. For Christmas I want to go on safari.

In January I want to go to Togo and the birthplace of Voodoo (Benin) for the voodoo festival. I also want to prepare for a family planning theater tour and women's day events.In February I think there is a mask ceremony in Dedougou that I will have to attend.In March I have women's days events and I hope to take a trip up to Bamako, Mali to check it out and see a friend (I'm coming whether you like it or not, Sam...haha). April and May I will start to hear from grad schools. It makes me nervous to think about it! The plan is to do some door to door mosquito net inspections and make a lot of neem cream in preparation for the coming rainy season. In May or early June I want to head down to Ghana and check out the closest land mass to 0 latitude 0 longitude... and see the ocean.In late June and July I will be moving out of my house to go teach English in Ouaga or Bobo if it is possible. I really want a chance to teach English in a structured setting.So, in late July or early August I'll be on a plane home. The idea is to stop by Morocco and maybe Spain, France and/or Iceland on my way to wherever I end up getting into grad school or getting a job.Those are the broad brush strokes of some of my work and travel plans. Of course if there is anything I have learned in the past year it is that nothing is sure and anything can change. It is nice to have and idea what I will be doing in these last months as my service rolls down the hill. I somehow barely noticed the peak...

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Airtel Burkina Faso.

The disturbing development of the moment is the utter lack of rain. I may be mistaking, but I remember rainy season seeming a lot more... well, rainy. Last year the farmers in my community (99.9% of the population) were complaining about the rain, but even then the harvest seemed a bounty. So, they are just complaining, right?

That is the thing, even the most agriculturally-challenged person could take a glance at the millet and see that there isn't any millet on it. I have photos from this time last year of millet that was toppling over from the weight of the seed. The corn barely grew this year and the cobs were dry before picking. You can see the red dust resting on plants from the extended period between rains. I felt asmatic on the ride home from Ouaga.

Looking at the news about Kenya and Somalia really makes me concerned. I checked a famine watch web site and so far it says that only the northern parts of Burkina are under mild threat. But, what about the long term forecast?

Prices of dry beans are already 30% higher than they were this time last year. Some families have grain left over from last year, but even during a normal season grain runs out before harvest. I don't want to over react, but I am really concerned about when it hits about April or May and some families will already be running out of water and grain.

Hopefully a few good rains are left and we won't have to worry, but I am not so sure. The last thing I want to see is Burkina Faso facing further food insecurity.

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Airtel Burkina Faso.

It is funny how familiar Burkina is. I’ve been back for about 24 hours and I am already getting to work. I may have slept in until noon (I guess I was excited to be home, because I couldn’t sleep), but now I am catching up on some tasks.

It is strange to get back into the swing of things. This week is our 50th Anniversary of Peace Corps celebration. I rode in the plane with my immediate supervisor and a regional adviser. We made our way to the Director's house and I got to briefly greet her before seeing everyone at our Transit House. It felt mildly similar to when I landed in the U.S. for vacation. It felt familiar and exciting to see people that I hadn't seen in a while.

Ouaga is buzzing with the preparation for this epic weekend: the end of the bicycle tour, the swear-in of the newest stage and the 50th Anniversary extravaganza. My head is still spinning from boot camp and I will be a permanent PCV facilitator at the upcoming stage for incoming health volunteers. I am very excited to be involved and have some sort of lasting impact on PC Burkina. But, I'd be lying if I said I am not overwhelmed at the moment. I can definitely see how my second year might fly by quicker than the first.

I've always preferred to be busy, though. Maybe I can hold on to the hint of my American reality that I felt when home before I slip back into the sway of my African life. Ca va aller, right?

We took a break from our busy schedule at the Stomp Out Malaria Boot Camp today to go to a local beach. It was amazing to put my feet in the Atlantic. We even went on a short hike to the place of the last siting of the "black madonna." I am not entirely certain what that means or who she is, but I guess the Catholics of Senegal make a pilgrimage there, now.

Aside from dazzling me with beach-side views, I must admit that this conference is reinforcing my interest in public health. Maybe public health really is what I should be studying and doing? The past few educational activities focused on the existing Peace Corps initiatives in all the countries, HIV and malaria, the potential vaccines for malaria and social marketing. So, basically some of my favorite subjects.

As a side note, we learned that if cows eat garlic their flatilation (aka farts) would be less harmful to the environment. Ok, so maybe that was just an example during the marketing section, but it certainly stuck. We also learned that the best places to get the skinny in Lousianna are with the Pastors and at hair salons. It sounds entirely unrelated out of context, but there were reasons these concepts were brought up.

On a more serious note, Saturday we heard from a representative of PATH, which is a Seattle-based organization that is working on malaria vaccines. It was a fascinating talk because I was left feeling very optimistic about the future of malaria vaccines. The one in process may be available as soon as 2015, but wouldn't likely be an end-all to the malaria. It isn't showing 100% efficacy. However, there could be a potential vaccine that would rendor the belly of a mosquito uninhabitable for the malaria parasite. (I suppose I should give background to those of you who don't know much about malaria: it is transmitted to human blood by mosquitos.) The controvercy is that the second sort of vaccine wouldn't protect a human it would subject the mosquitos to a substance (I believe a protein) that would rendor the belly of the mosquito uninhabitable to the malara parasite, thus slowly eliminating hosts for the parasite. If the both types of vaccines prove viable with a combination of traditional preventions and curative pills we could potentially eliminate one type of malaria. This was a much needed positive not after focusing on the struggles and likelihood that malaria will be around for a long time.

Perhaps the most promising correction to my knowledge of the vaccines is that so far they don't seem to be susceptable to a developed resistance. Some folks worry that a vaccine could generate a developed genetic resistance. One thing to note is that there are actually multiple types of malaria with different characteristics. The vaccines are focusing on a single type currently. They could potentially make the biggest strides toward eradicating malaria, but the other strains could fill in the gap left behind.

Another interesting piece of information is that there used to be malaria in the United States as evidenced by this disney propaganda: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y68F8YwLWdg. The 7 dwarves never seemed so creepy.

Here is some info on malaria in the states: http://www.malariapolicycenter.org/index.php/resources/a_history_of_malaria_in_the_united_states

Just finished the first day of the Stomp Out Malaria. Boot Camp Although I had trouble keeping my eyes open due to jetlag I was very interested in the topics we covered. Something we covered today is social media.

I never thought I would do much online social networking in Africa, but we are using social media during the conference as practice. I had to dust off the old twitter account that I used for about 5 minutes before letting decay over the past few years. Actually, Boot Camp is technology heavy with all the presentations on powerpoint or skype conferenced. It is actually really excited to skype some of the major players in the global health field.

It is funny because before coming to Africa malaria was not the first thing on my mind. Now, I see how Malaria effects many more people on a daily basis then a lot of things that Americans like to fund. It just doesn't affect as many Americans. You should check out "Stomp Out Malaria."

I made it to Senegal. Thankfully I was greeted by other volunteers and

a Peace Corps representative at baggage. I suppose wearing an Obama

shirt helped identify me.So far it is remarkable how organized and smooth the conference has

been. There was actually a representative waiting for me with my name

spelled correctly. We were only missing one bag and had short delay

before we made our way to the training site. We were given delicious

sandwiches and bottled water while we waited. The training site has

showers and toilets. It also has "real" beds with mosquito nets and

wireless internet.The conference is meant to connect and train volunteers who are placed

all over Africa in strategic malaria prevention. I guess it is one of

the few times, if not the first time that Peace Corps has started a

continent-wide initiative involving major networking between current

volunteers. So, I guess I am little piece of Peace Corps history. Most

volunteers here seem to be either 3rd year volunteers or returned

volunteers who signed up for another term as a Response Volunteer.

After a volunteer has done a full service they can apply to

job-specific positions that typically have a shorter term. In Africa

there are a lot of these positions that are opening up that focus on

malaria. Unfortunately, Burkina didn't get one of these volunteers due

to a complication. I am a little disappointed because I was hoping to

have someone new who focuses on Malaria. I guess I will be picking up

some of that slack with the Community Health and AIDS Task Force.So far where I am in Senegal doesn't look drastically different than

Burkina. There might be more trees. I haven't seen much since I

arrived at night. The training site is inland. If we were closer to

the beach it might seem a lot different than Burkina. We will be doing

some field trips which might reveal some of the major differences

between Senegal and Burkina as well.

I'm sitting in Paris slowly going crazy from lack of sleep. My layover turned out to be only 8 hours which didn't really seem long enough to see anything. I took a very brief nap and ate what was my fourth meal since waking up. I thought about buying espresso, but decided against it because I probably should sleep eventually.

I'm wearing the blue Obama shirt that Jaron bought me (as to encourage me to fit in with my fellow Burkinabe that love rocking Obama shirts, pants... underwear). An unintended consequence is that nobody is speaking to me in French. The woman at customs even said "You are wearing a very good shirt." I mean, it really is a much better design than most of the ones I've seen in Burkina.

I can't decide if I should try to sleep or not. I am a bit worried that I won't wake up for my flight or that I will get to Senegal and not be able to sleep. I think I will try to hold out for the plane and then sleep during the flight. Going more than 24 hours without sleep before starting a conference would probably be a poor life choice (as my friend Heidi would put it).

It turns out that we have a day off during the conference. I think this means that I will be able to see my friend Amanda and I might be able to see the beach and/or a tourist attraction. It all sort of depends on the situation once I get there. It could be one of those decoy days off, too. It might just be time to do group work or homework. Maybe I'll just catch up on sleep... I doubt Amanda wants to have a cuddle party.

I was oddly moody on the flight. It couldn't have been the lack of sleep at that point and my chair was relatively comfortable. I feel like I left with a positive outlook. Maybe there is something about stuffy cabin air that makes me grumpy. Nothing a romantic comedy, the X-men movie and a ridiculous Arabic movie couldn't fix. Plus, I got to see what seemed to be the northern lights from the plane (an elderly couple let me hover over them like a creeper... they actually invited me to which is probably creepier than the act itself). Way to go arctic circle for being rad.

There were new American pop music videos in the selection this time. So I didn't have to stare at Katy Perry being an alien/deer again. Beyonce's brand of "girl power" sort of puts me off or maybe it is her hair. Suddenly Beyonce looks like Shakira and Shakira has a brown bob? The world is falling apart... seriously. Beyonce's persuasion can build a nation and Facebook can tear it back down again. (Can you tell that I was in America too long?)

Either Air France's food isn't as good coming from the America side of the flight or having a seriously expensive (like an entire month of living allowance) dinner with my friend Amber and her boyfriend Blaine successfully ruined all food for me. A curse on both your houses! And I thought eating boiled gelatinous millet couldn't get any more difficult.

I need to get my cranky sleep-deprived self off my blog before I complain about anything else. I'll try to update you in Senegal after I come out of my coma.

I'm just waiting to get into the car and take off for the airport. I must say that my trip to Americaland was fruitful--if overwhelming. I saw quite a few friends, sampled many a cheese and apparently gained a good 10 pounds.

Packing up to head out a gain was oddly reminiscent of the first time for a few reasons. One reason is because I waited until the morning-of to finish packing and weigh my bags. I am also anxious like the time before, but there is a whole lot more of known on the other end of this flight then there was more than a year ago. I have less things with me, fewer people taking me to the airport and much less time left in Peace Corps.

It is really weird to think that the next time I am here I will be back for good (whatever that really means). I used my trip back to Washington as sort of a short-term goal to soften the weight of the difficulties I faced in the first year and shorten the wait to see my beloved cheese. Now, that is gone. Sitting here in my parents' living room makes me feel like it will be a blink of an eye before I am here again. Maybe that is naive of me. Maybe Americaland has restored a bit of a rosey tint to my metaphorical glasses. I'm thinking "Whatever gets you on the plane" to the tune of "Whatever Gets You Through the Night." Baby, it's alright.

Even if I get off the plane and realize that it was perhaps a more difficult decision than I thought--and perhaps that cheese is the fuel to my optimism--then I still have mini Africa vacations to look forward to and to break up my work. Somehow, I doubt that it will be necessary but you never know. If Burkina has taught me one thing it is that you never know what is going to happen. You can plan your heart out, but whatever you plan will happen 5 hours later, be a different topic, have more barnyard animals than initially planned and end with a rainstorm. Maybe I should plan on being upset?

I'm super excited to go to Malaria Boot Camp and partially using it as a trick to get myself on the plane. I'm going somewhere new: Senegal. As opposed to going somewhere that I've lived for more than a year. Trust me, demystification has come and gone. I danced on its grave. It is unmarked at this point. So instead of getting on a plane for an unknown African adventure, I would be boarding a plane to go live in a familiar hut made of mud and manure. But instead, I have homework for a conference in a new and exciting country that I've always wanted to see. (Not that I need to trick myself into going back... I'm just saying it is easier this way.)

At any rate. Au revoir Americaland. A bientot.

My trip to Americaland is drawing to a close. I've eaten my way through the month and checked off my bucket list. I even got to see the majority of the friends that I wanted to see (although there are so many to see that it just isn't possible).

Despite the fact that my trip wasn't what it was originally meant to be, I must say that I've had a really great time. I've taken care of some unfinished business as well such as graduate school research. But, I keep thinking about everything I need to get done in Burkina. I feel like I have been gone forever.

Sunday we had a little game time with my older brother and bestie/sister-in-law. We also decided to go on a random geocaching trip through my home town. I've heard stories about geocaching, but never realized that this first-world nerd sport was so exciting. The thrill was probably mostly due to the fact that there were so many "muggles" around and because it was night time. I wasn't sure if I was creeping other people out or if I should be creeped out under the circumstances.

Our first cache was foiled because there was some event at the location. We had to move on to another location which was foiled because it required a tool to access the cache. Despite our initial setbacks we stopped by one more which was a long one of the busiest streets in town. We creeped until we found what we were looking for.

Using my older brother's phone we discovered that there are more than 100 within biking distance of my parents' house. I can't believe that my little hometown would have so many geocachers coming through. The frivolity of it makes it seem like such a "first world" activity to be doing, although I have heard of some Peace Corps friends that are caching in their host countries.

In other news my little brother turned me onto the term "first world pain" or "first world problem," although my friend from University, Amber, and I tried to come up with alternatives. "Western" seems to be as problematic. "Occidental" confusing. "Global North" cumbersome. At any rate, they are those things that only people in the first/occidental/western world would complain about. For instance, "I ate too much" or "There are too many meals to choose from!" would be complaints that you only hear in the "Global North." Maybe complaints like "I can't choose what to wear!" or "My shoes don't go with my outfit!" might sound odd to people who wear whatever has the fewest holes in it.

I'm not saying that problems in the U.S. are not as important as problems in Burkina, but in some ways a lot of them aren't. It really changes your perspective about eating too much or obesity when you've seen children who are dying from malnutrition. I've certainly complained about eating too much several times on this trip and the cognitive dissonance is nearly painful.

At any rate, I'll be kissing my first world problems goodbye when I hop plane tomorrow. I am heading to the Malaria Boot Camp in Senegal before making my way back to the Faso. Maybe ten months will be enough to work out some of the damage this trip has done to my concept of reality.

I thought I started planning for my time after Peace Corps early, but I must say that deadlines are creeping up on me. I am looking into graduate school options and have been since January. Now that my service is more than a year over these plans are becoming much more real. Sometimes it seems difficult to wrap my head around my multiple realities and future plans simultaneously.

Here I am in the U.S. on vacation. Now I will be going to malaria Boot Camp in Senegal before returning to my village. Then I have about 10 months of work to do before I will be shipped back--hopefully to begin working on my graduate studies. Everything seems to move faster in the U.S. or maybe time is just catching up with me. I guess everyone asking when I will be back permanently is reminding me that so much time has already passed since those first moments at the airport when the power went out. Even just the socio-political and economic climates are so different now than when I left. I think most volunteers are wondering what sort of work or school options are even going to be available for them when they return to the U.S. On the bright side I am now accustomed to living with very little... a disposition that may be handy in the near future especially during graduate school.

At any rate... we'll see.

I'm still in the United States and it is beginning to catch up with me. The initial flirtation with various cheeses and abundant coffee is growing like a baby bump and I've managed the majority of my bucket list for this visit. The rosy glasses of my first few days in the U.S. have worn off, but I am still surprised at how little culture shock I am actually experiencing.

At first I was waking at 6 a.m. every day like I do in Burkina. My dad's dinosaur phone that I am borrowing confused me just about as much as all the touch screen phones everyone else has. Everything seems to be in 3D and I am starting to catch up on the youtube sensations I couldn't have loaded in Burkina without waiting most of the day.

Have I ever mentioned how strange it is that ice falls from the sky in northern countries? I love to use that fact to discourage people from asking me to bring them to the United States (or to France since people generally forget where I am from). Nothing terrifies a Burkinabe more than the idea of sub-zero temperatures except maybe the ocean. I saw and touched snow on Mount Rainier last week after a terrifying gondola ride to an adjacent peak.

We made a pilgrimage out to the ocean as well and visited the grandparents. It was great to see my family together next to a body of water that does not rely on rainfall or retaining walls to exist.

The readily available technology and the relative fanciness of most things have certainly been astounding. There are screens everywhere just waiting to distract me from the conversation that I am having. People have 5 different devices that generally do the same functions (especially if they are apple products). I am embarrassed to pull out my pleather-protected dinosaur of a phone that my dad was generous enough to loan to me while everyone is reading their e-books and typing on their touch screens. Now people don't even have to lift their finger to type because they can just drag it over the touch screen keyboard and the program figures out what they meant to type. Are we really that lazy? Yet it is sort of amazing that it is possible.

I spent time in Seattle this weekend and was struck by the improvements in public transportation. I am envious of the kids that live in my small home town who have daily access to affordable public transportation to the city. My childhood would have been much more cultured and interesting had I been afforded the same options. It certainly is much more than any Burkinabe teen has at their disposal as well.

I spent some time watching Harry Potter in 3D at the I-max in Seattle this weekend. It was amazing, but I can't help but feel the disonance between my life in Burkina and my visit here. My friend said it well: "It is sometimes hard to believe the two worlds exist on one globe." It really is.

On another note, it turns out that I will be going to Senegal in September on my way back to the Faso for the Peace Corps "Boot Camp" for addressing malaria. I am more than excited!

Finally, I made the disorienting 24 hour flight from Ouagadougou to Paris and Paris to Seattle. The immediate difference between Burkina and the Western World is food. Air France practically tries to stuff food down your throat (and I'm not complaining). Instead of the delicacies of village (gelatinous flour blobs, stringy sauces and over-cooked rice) we were served brazed beef, sauteed summer squash, Camembert cheese, mini tarts, yogurt and a lot more.

I would just like to take this moment to thank France for existing.

I am pretty sure I had 7 meals in 24 hours because of my flights. Looks like I'll be packing on those 25 pounds I lost in the first 3 months in the Faso. I think my text to my family from the Charles De Gaulle Airport explains my interaction with the Western World clearly. It was as follows:

"In France. Looks like my flight is on time. Lots of white people. I ate cheesecake for breakfast."

I mean honestly, who thought of combining two of the world's most precious inventions: cheese and cake?

The other immediate difference was between the people on the flights. The first flight from Ouaga was mostly well-off Burkinabe. People were talkative and open. On my flight to Seattle packed with Americans and French the woman next to me was silent even when she couldn't figure out how to control the computer screen and like a well-integrated Faso PCV I helped her figure it out.

Compared to cramped rides in metal deathtraps packed with goats and urinating babies flying Air France was top-notch.

Immediate observations of Americans lead me to believe that they are high maintenance and heavier that most Burkinabe. I'm pretty sure everyone looks like they gained weight whether they have or not. Apparently after the scrutiny of my family I was approved as skinnier, but not a "skeletor." My eyebrows are bleached, my face is browner than normal and my hair looks frosted. I guess Peace Corps does change you. (I'm being factious.) I suppose no one has commented on any personality changes except my occasional lapse into French and my dad's comment that I've become a "Buddhist monk."

I've only been home for a couple days, but everything seems strangely familiar. Other than feeling more tired than normal, understanding everything most people say and being confused by the sheer quantity of material goods changing hands ever day in the U.S., I feel pretty relatively at home. Although, it is difficult to wrap my head around two worlds that both feel equally dream-like to me. Oh, and it is FREEZING in Washington!