Back in town for Mid Service Conference (MSC) and Thanksgiving! I hope all of you celebrated yesterday with lots of good food like we did. I think the only things we were missing were cranberries and candied sweet potatoes - we had turkey (3 Butterballs from America-land!), ham, green bean casserole, empanadas (delicious!), mashed potatoes, scalloped potatoes, 3 kinds of stuffing (I helped make one with green olives, artichoke hearts, chestnuts, and mushrooms), 3 green salads, 2 fruit salads, chopped veggies with hummus dip, a corn casserole, and a couple other things that arrived after I was too full to go back through the line. For dessert we made cinnamon sugar cookies, Dutch apple pies, apple crumble, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, and a rich chocolate mousse, along with mulled wine, bissap, and sodas to drink. As you can see, it was quite the feast! And the Transit House is bursting with leftovers today, some of which are going to be coming home with me in the form of a turkey and stuffing sandwich for the bus ride (yum!).

MSC was our chance to talk about our first year at site, celebrate our successes, brainstorm about our challenges, and make plans for the upcoming year, as well as get a general medical screening and dental cleaning. The dental experience was surprisingly different than US dentists in some ways (mint-salt foam blasted at your gumline that have made my teeth look slightly larger) and similar in others (those metal tooth scraping picks must be universal). We had two days of medical/dental (along with time to hang out, shop for the holidays, and catch up with each other) and one day of the actual Conference. We're all pretty used to the village work schedule by now - arrive late, 3 hour break for lunch, end early - so we were all dragging by the time we finished near 6pm (after starting at 7:45) with the more American one hour for lunch (plus the Burkinabe coffee break at 10am). This does not bode well for all of our discussions of plans for jobs/grad school! But we'll get there.

The information we got was useful and hearing other volunteers talk about things they do gave me a ton of ideas for simple things I can try in my village as well! One volunteer does daily teachings on warning signs in pregnancy and what to bring to the maternity for the birth before they start pre-natal consultations. One has taught the kids who come to her courtyard the importance of washing their hands to the point that they now ask for soap and water when they arrive and she offers them food. One has a counterpart who makes and sells baby weighing harnesses so that women can have their own, arrive with the baby already in it (saving time) and it's so much more hygienic (kids here don't wear diapers under their clothing. Thankfully, it's good luck if a baby pees on you, but I'm not too convinced about the luck if he or she pees in your baby weighing harness). We learned how to make water filters out of stacked canneries (round ceramic pots) filled with layers of sand, charcoal, and pebbles. We got a lot of helpful and motivating information on the new PC initiative to "Stomp Out Malaria" and heard of a village in Senegal that has lowered their cases almost to zero through massive pressure by village leaders to improve village hygiene, water storage, and early treatment of any fever.

I'll be back in a week to teach first-aid to the new stage and for a VAC meeting, so I'll try and have more by then. In the meantime I highly recommend reading Chad and Tana's blog - I was reading it while uploading pictures to Facebook (a very time consuming process, 5 photos at a time) and they are so funny! While some of their experiences are a little different down in south-west Jula-speaking land, most things are universal and will give you a different perspective on life here. Find them at http://mccoull.blogspot.com/

And on a final note, we've all been passing around this article by an RPCV (returned peace corps volunteer) published in the Huffington Post that has started a lot of interesting discussions on why we're here, what we can and cannot do, and what lessons we take away from our time here and how that impacts the kind of people we are when we return to the US. If you're interested, it's at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maya-lau/what-the-peace-corp-taugh_b_1099202.html

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello everyone! Sorry for the massive pause in updating - I got busy and lazy, to be honest. "Ca fait deux jours" means "It's been a while" or literally "It's been two days", and no matter how long it's been it's an appropriate way to greet someone you haven't seen for a few days/weeks/months. I'm headed back to site in a few hours, but I wanted to say that I'm still alive and chugging along here in the Faso. What have I been up to? Well...

-The bike tour came through my village at the beginning of September, to resounding success. I got to cook lots of food (lasagna, mac and cheese, cornbread, cookies), my village was very honored to play host, and I used it as a kick-off to generate interest in my meeting the next day.

-The general meeting the next day was to propose a project idea with Emily, the Kalsaka volunteer. We want to get community health agents into primary schools to teach the students about various health topics, and to convince people to go along with it (and to improve nutrition at the school lunches) we want to plant moringa trees, 5 for each student, as a growing competition. In April we'll measure the trees, give out prizes, and hold a party to celebrate the end of the project and to let the students show off some of the things they've learned. Moringa is an amazing tree with leaves that are packed with protein, vitamins, and minerals, and the powdered leaves can be added to just about any dish or sauce, including the daily student meal of beans and rice. We met with the representatives of the PTAs for each school, the health agents, and local VIPs who need to give their ok. It went quite well, and felt like a good start.

-My mom and uncle came to visit in mid September for a week! It was amazing to have them here, to let them see what my life is like, and to take in some of the more touristy things that I otherwise probably wouldn't have seen (like the amazing granite sculpture gardens at Zinare). They came to my village, met my host family in Romongo, and adventured around Ouaga with a good sense of humor and a willingness to go along with my crazy plans. It was a lot of fun, and Shannon has invited them to become Response volunteers. ;)

-Just after they left I had a VAC meeting and then we jumped into swear-in for the newest group of volunteers, plus a 3 day fair to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps. It rained like crazy the morning of the first day (causing chaos and confusion) but we got it together and overall things went really well. We worked hard, but got to go out and celebrate for a night before all heading back to site.

-At site I've been working a lot at the maternity and trying to get this moringa project going. We've had a few setbacks (our funding request getting caught in the end-of-fiscal-year shuffle, so we won't get the money for fencing for another few months, no more moringa seeds available for a few months, every decision requiring several meetings spread over several days or weeks), but we're slowly plugging away and hope to start the health lessons this month and wait to plant the trees until January (which is actually a better time to plant them anyway, it's cooler and won't cook the saplings). We've also done several Polio campaigns in the past few months, and I've enjoyed visiting the smaller villages in my area and meeting new people. Also, on the last campaign I got a bug stuck in my ear, but my CSPS staff drowned it and washed it out with a syringe full of water, and laughed at me for being worried about it.

-Halloween was a blast! Dave came out to my site on the 29th and spent the night in Kossouka, then we biked to Seguenega and hopped on a truck to go to Kalsaka to celebrate with Emily and JK. We carved a little watermelon to look like a jack-o-lantern, made lots of delicious food, baked a Funfetti cake (!), and danced under the stars.

-I've been in Ouaga the past day doing some work, following up on moringa project requests, and researching grad schools! I'm currently looking into programs to become a Women's Health Nurse Practitioner, which would allow me to work in a variety of settings (hospital, clinic, birthing center, private practice, college campus, etc) and do just about everything a doctor does (write prescriptions, order and interpret lab results) but with the nursing focus on holistic and preventative care. The degree is a masters or post-masters, and typically requires a bachelors in Nursing plus being a certified RN, but I've found several schools that have bridge or direct entry programs for people like me who already have a bachelors in something other than nursing. I'd have to take 2 or 3 classes before I can get into the program (Microbiology, Nutrition, Anatomy since I only took Physiology), but I'm really happy about the different possibilities and options that I have. It also looks like I might be back in Massachusetts, in Boston this time! A lot of things need to fall into place, but it's exciting to start looking and making tentative plans.

-And next on the list is back to village (for more moringa meetings!) and then Mid-Service Conference at the end of November, a chance to check in at our 1 year mark, get a health checkup, receive a little more training, and prepare for the coming year. In December I get to teach the first aid session at stage for the newest arrivals here in Burkina, and then I'm going back to the US for 3 weeks for Christmas! So much to look forward to. With that, time to go pack and catch a bus! I hope all of you are doing well in your various endeavors, and finding lots to smile about.

Regular updating is momentarily suspended to bring you information about the Tour de Burkina! You clearly don't have to donate if you don't want to, but should you have some dollars or euros or pounds or cfa lying around burning a hole in your pocket, this is a great cause. I'm not riding on the tour but I am hosting 11 riders in my village on the 9th of September. So, in their support, here's their fundraising letter:

August 19, 2011

Dear Family and Friends of Peace Corps Burkina Faso,

Beginning August 31, 2011, Peace Corps volunteers from around Burkina Faso will be participating in Le Tour de Burkina, the second annual country-wide bike tour to raise money for Gender and Development projects in Burkina.

Gender and Development projects encompass a huge variety of volunteer projects, be they organizing a girls’ camp to promote self-esteem and goal setting or helping a women's group conduct an income generating activity. These are of critical importance in Burkina Faso and represent a significant component of each volunteer’s work. The Gender and Development (GAD) Committee exists to support volunteer-initiated, gender equity projects around Burkina Faso; with Le Tour de Burkina we hope to generate funds so the GAD Committee can give small-scale project grants and volunteers can continue the essential work of promoting gender awareness and equality in Burkina Faso. We’re proud to say that last year’s tour raised nearly $5,000 – enough to fund 35 GAD grants.

Please help us reach this year’s fundraising goal of $6,000 by visiting our blog and making a donation: http://burkinabiketour.blogspot.comTo be certain your donation reaches Gender and Development projects, be sure to specify

“GAD Gender and Development” in the Comments section.

In Burkina Faso, one dollar goes a long way, so even the smallest contribution will make a big difference. Follow the blog to learn more about the tour, which projects were funded last year, and to stay updated while we’re on the road.

This year we will be riding for 23 days, covering 1,700 kilometers (that’s the distance from New York City to Orlando), and passing by 32 volunteer sites. In addition to kicking off celebrations of Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary, the tour will increase awareness of Peace Corps Burkina Faso’s activities and reinforce the relationships within volunteers’ communities.

Thanks for your support!

Sincerely,

Peace Corps Burkina FasoGender and Development Committee

July 31st

I woke up at 3am yesterday and couldn't figure out why, but then realized that my eye mask had slipped and there was so much lightning brightening the sky that it almost looked like day time. It was incredible. I could hear the wind picking up, rushing through the leaves of the tree outside and throwing gritty gusts of dirt against the tin roof. So I shut the windows, grabbed my pagne, and went outside to look. It was like something out of Fantasia – all it needed was a Beethoven symphony with lots of kettle drums to match the continuous rumble of the thunder. You couldn't see any individual bolts, but different bands and banks of the clouds along the eastern horizon would light up in succession, then all at once, back and forth like they were part of a call and respond song. It was even light enough to take pictures, so I did, but right before I went back to sleep as the rain was just starting to fall I realized I should have taken a video. It was amazing, I've never seen anything like it before.

It's been a pretty nice weekend, really. I thought it was going to rain yesterday so I was kind of lazing about, but then the sun came out so I got water and did my laundry. Just as I'd finished and was deciding if I was hungry or not for lunch, Ilias knocked on my gate. I was surprised to see him, but he didn't admonish me too much for not calling, and he came in and sat down. He stayed for about 3 hours, just talking while I did my chores, but it wasn't bad to have company, even if that company sometimes repeats himself several times, asks if you're listening and understanding, calls women cowards, and asks what you're going to feed him for lunch. I warned him that I wasn't going to cook until I got hungry, and he said it was alright, he'd already had lunch, he was just still not quite full. Boys. He passed his BAC, although he got a 6/20 on the English section. He's excited to spend the summer in Ouaga, and starts school in December at the University of Ouaga to study medicine. In the meantime I weeded my yard, did my dishes, took down clothing as it dried, swept the house and patio, and translated English song lyrics for him into French so he'd know what they actually meant. Thankfully he didn't ask for translations for anything that I wouldn't want to translate! We talked about music for a while, which was fun. He saw my book and asked about it, and if I knew how to read. In French and in English? Yes, I know how to read, in both, although English is easier being my first language and all. Oh really? Yes, really.

After he left, Drissa came over for a few minutes, but it was mostly to say hello and tell me about his week at the mine. Then I could shower and yoga – I've figured out that it's a lot easier to do tree pose if it's still light out, but by the time I'm finishing the stars are all out. I saw three shooting stars while I was stretching! One was particularly bright – it was beautiful. I hope I never stop feeling that jolt of happy surprise when I see one. Speaking of tree pose, I not only have finally gotten to the point of holding my foot against my thigh (instead of my calf), but I can hold it almost to a count of 20 before I start to fall over! :D It's the little things here.

Today has been lovely and lazy. I've written some emails, I've read a little, I've drunk tea, I've greeted a few people walking by on their way to church or their fields. I just talked to my mom, and very jealous of the fun they're having in Florida. I'm sitting in the shade on a sunny warm day, so why can't I quite convince myself that my courtyard dirt is as enticing as the ocean waves?

I think there are little red birds living in my secco, the woven straw covering my hangar. I'm ok with this – they're pretty cute. I wonder if birds eat flies? I seem to have a lot of them in my yard, it would be awesome if the birds would eat them.

I think it's time for another cup of tea and some yoga before it gets too dark for me to find my balance. Leaving for Ouaga tomorrow!

July 29th

I'm sitting on my patio drinking my breakfast tea and getting ready to start cooking. It's very gray this morning – it rained like crazy last night. Just as I was getting ready for bed the wind picked up, to the point that I had to shut the windows and even my front door to stop the dust from swirling in. But at least now I don't have to water my garden! I've already got watermelon, honeydew, cantaloupe, green beans, and butternut squash sprouting, and possibly basil, although that could just be the little weeds that are impossible to pick out until they get a bit bigger. I'm slightly worried that my tomatoes, cilantro, sage and onion seeds were just too old, but we'll see – it's only been 6 days after all.

I guess I should get going, it's 7:30. Time for the tortilla-chip extravaganza! Cooking with Sali yesterday was a lot of fun, and we made, rolled out, and cooked about 25 tortillas, which, along with 2 dozen cookies, took a little over 2 hours. I'm afraid it won't be enough for all of the people I want to feed, but everyone will at least get a little.

July 27th

Another evening under the beautiful stars – I wonder if it's possible to ever get sick of looking at the stars? I mean, I know there are some nights I don't sit outside even when the stars are out, and some nights I sit outside even though it's cloudy, but whenever I do look up when the sky is clear I can't help but be almost overwhelmed at how beautiful it is. It feels like I could fall into it somehow.

It somehow feels like today was especially long, but I'm not sure why. Not in a bad way, certainly, in the way that you suddenly try and tell someone about your day and can't quite recall if what you did this morning was this morning, or maybe it was yesterday morning?

Where was I? The morning. We were supposed to have an inspector from the world food program come to see the food distribution so we had brought all the records up to date, cleaned the supply room, and even hauled out the scales, yardsticks, and arm bands so we could take all those measurements that we're supposed to. I was really excited because I'd mentioned a few times that it wouldn't be too hard to add those in, and certainly would make it simpler to see if a child was actually improving on the program or not. Plus, how could anyone reviewing our paperwork not be suspicious that each child grows exactly 2 cm over the 3 months, and gains 100-500 grams every 2 weeks, and each woman gains 2mm every week on her arm circumference?

When we finally started (a little late but nothing terrible, perhaps 8:30 or so) she called to see if the person was coming soon. They told her they'd get back to her and she told them we were starting anyway – the women wanted to get back to their fields and wouldn't stick around if we were just sitting and waiting for an hour or two. So I started weighing children and she started weighing women, and the end was in sight by the time they called back and said that the inspector had gone to Rondo instead. We laughed, and I pointed out that things had actually moved really quickly even though we were doing the measurements for all 60 people. She told me that when she'd been working alone it had taken her until 2pm every distribution day to take all the measurements herself, and it was because there were two of us. So I said something along the lines of it being easier to just have the real numbers instead of having to make them up, especially now that she had me and the interns and Julienne, and she agreed that we could keep doing them properly. I almost felt like jumping up and down and saying “Victory!” but I confined myself to mental celebrations of finally having seen something I had tried to change happen.

I understand why she had stopped doing the measurements – if I were there by myself every week for 6 hours straight in the sun I'd be pretty grumpy and not as concerned about doing it right as much as getting it over sooner. But we finished by 10am on a moderately busy day, showing that even if I'm not around she just needs one person to help her for 2 hours and then they'll both be available to help with the rest of the work at the CSPS, plus the data collected will actually be useful to people further up the line because it'll be true instead of unnaturally perfect and expected. I also realized that I've never seen anything change just because I said “Hey, why aren't we doing this?”, but now I'm starting to see changes when I start helping and show an interest and things get done faster so there's suddenly room to do the things we weren't doing. I think I could probably guide the process a little more than I did in this case (unfortunately there aren't inspections for things like CPNs or baby weighings, to the best of my knowledge), but I'll be thrilled if we can get into the habit of taking PAM measurements every week, not just when we expect someone to come watch with a check list. Then – on to the next goal!

By 11am the place was deserted – no women waiting to give birth or have a consultation, no patients waiting with fevers or injuries – and we all went to the marche. Occasionally it's annoying when I feel like I'm in a hurry (why?), but today it was a pleasure to spend a few hours sitting and talking to people. Alimata said she'd come visit me tomorrow with Fati, her daughter who is feeling much better and has even gotten to the point of not being scared of me anymore! Odelle must have been around, but even though I kept checking on her coolers and even asked the men standing around where she was (in Moore!) I couldn't find her. But I ran into Sali who introduced me to a man selling very tiny overpriced but worth it green peppers, and we wandered around for a little bit, stopping to talk to people. I bought some rice and chatted with the spice and fish guys (I've seen them in Seguenega too – they always set up right next to each other even though they seem to sell separately), and Sali confirmed that they sell the best rice in the marche.

So then I went home and read and drank my tea and ate my samsa – what a lovely afternoon! I left again after the repose with the intention of getting some water to do dishes, but ended up helping Julienne plant part of her peanut field. Well, actually, I planted about 10 peanuts and realized that unless I was going to go get another daba (a planting implement here, consisting of a narrow wooden handle with a short flat blade that angles back towards the handle, making it look like a “7” with the top being the metal blade) I was kind of holding her up since she could somehow dig, seed and cover 3 or 4 holes to each of mine, so I gave back the daba and started pulling weeds instead. We attracted quite a lot of attention and I got a considerable Moore lesson/mental workout in vocabulary surrounding planting and fields and working and obscure greetings that I still haven't quite figured out the proper response to. Still, it was fun, and when I finally broke away to get the key to the robinet from Luddie, I found out that Julienne had brought back a puppy! His name, of course, is Rex, the other two options being Lulu and Bobbie (the latter is one I've never heard, but Julienne assured me that it was one of the three approved dog names when I joked about the popularity of the name Rex). He's so tiny and cute! I was a little concerned at his apparent lack of curiosity when I went to interact with him, but eventually I convinced him to come say hello and he even started trying to catch my hand when I was scratching his ears and nose – not with a ton of enthusiasm, but he seemed to be getting the hang of it. I'm so excited that we'll have a puppy around! Even if his name is Rex.

And with that, it's bed time for sleepy village-time PCVs who have to get up and weigh lots of babies in the morning. Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to start cooking for the polio campaign, and Sali said she wants to come help! I'm excited to get to share with her, and to get help on making lots of tortillas and cookies. Maybe we can make it a regular thing and I'll get her to teach me how to make that awesome spaghetti sauce she had one day when I shared lunch with her.

July 26th

Today was a rather unusual morning at the CSPS. I got there at 7:30, as usual, and Sali wasn't there but I decided to go ahead and start without her so things would be ready to go when she arrived. Normally we have 20-25 women waiting for CPNs or birth control, but today we only had 6! I think it must have been the rain last night – it had been so long since the last rain that people had stopped working in their fields, and with the sudden ability to start planting again most people must have decided to come another day. I handed out the numbered cards anyway – people have a tendency to keep showing up until about 8:30, and started weighing and taking blood pressures. Two women had come in a month before their next scheduled exam, so I gave them the anti-malaria and anti-parasitic drugs that they were due to receive, and asked them to wait for Sali so that she could give them their tetanus vaccine injection. The 6th woman said she was ill, and I tried to figure out if she meant ill as in pregnant, ill as in aborting, or ill as in having malaria, mainly so I could determine if it was necessary to give her a maternity carnet and weigh her. I asked the major to question her further, and after he just said that she would wait for Sali, so I figured the carnet could wait as well.

Then we sat. Sali showed up for half a minute, but left again and didn't return. I was surprised at how frustrated I felt – I logically knew she probably had a reason for being at the CSPS but doing something besides her regular routine. But I also felt annoyed that we'd been sitting for over an hour waiting for her when these 6 consultations would easily take less than an hour, allowing her to go back to whatever she was doing and allowing the women to get back to their families and their fields. She came a bit before 9am and we were pretty much finished by 9:45, even with a surprise walk-in who requested a Jadell birth control implant which typically takes a little bit of time. I asked where she had been all morning and she said she had arrived at 5:30 to clean out the PAM (world food program) room, since they're coming to inspect the food distribution tomorrow. It made me somehow feel better, and guilty about being frustrated, to know that she'd been working and not just refusing to come to work, but then I wondered why having a reason should make me feel so differently when I logically knew the whole time that she probably had a reason for not coming on time. I also was surprised she hadn't asked me to help, but I guess between cleaning spider webs and sitting listening to the women I'd prefer to sit.

So instead of leaving early after we finished I ended up sitting and talking to my major, which went surprisingly well. Recently I've tried to avoid being around him too much because he irrationally annoys me, but one on one he's a lot easier to handle. I think when he's around a group he has to entertain and joke a lot, and I tend to feel like the butt of his jokes, or as though he's using his joking to criticize something I've been doing or not doing. I'm probably overly sensitive about it, I just don't like the constant implication that I'm not working, or that I have so much time on my hands that I won't mind doing his work for him. We talked about batteries (I'm thinking of buying a small one so I can have a lamp, not just my lantern), and I asked him about housing people on the Tour de Burkina fundraiser bike tour and who in the community I needed to officially inform about the arrival of a dozen nasaras.

We had just started talking about the possibility of me doing a sensibilization on baby-weighing days when people from the schisto campaign started returning. I swear, the poor ASVs have been doing campaigns almost continuously since I got back – first it was polio, then it was lymphatic filarisis, now it's schistomiosis, and while we were talking the major said that another polio is starting on Friday! While I'm typically of the mindset that vaccinations are a crucial part of public health, and getting vaccinated more than the minimum doesn't hurt, it seems bizarre to re-vaccinate the exact same population a month after the last campaign. People are in the fields and take their children with them, meaning that we have to go field to field and somehow try and make sure we're getting the people in that village (and not the neighboring village, or the percent coverage numbers get messed up), as well as attempt to determine what house they belong to so we can write down the number of children vaccinated on the side of each concession. The ASVs do get paid to do these campaigns, but I'm sure they must be kind of sick of them at this point – I'm tired of them and I haven't even been going out with a team since the polio campaign when I first got back, just collecting papers and adding up totals. So I promised that, for this next campaign, if the major helps me find flour (or buys it in Seguenega for me) I'd make snacks for everyone on Friday morning (I'm thinking of giving tortilla chips another try, and possibly the lemon cookie recipe in the cookbook).

I've been talking to Emily and I think I'd like to do a demonstration at baby weighing on how to make neem cream and use it in conjunction with other measures to prevent malaria, but I realized that to actually get the majority of women I'd need to do it every week for a month or two. This isn't a big deal, and I really mind paying to make small batches to demonstrate every week, but I was also debating trying to use neem cream as an IGA (income generating activity), possibly for someone like Colette or Koka or one of the other women who is an ASV and/or CoGES member and is already invested and active in the health of the community and familiar with the CSPS. I didn't think it would be very nice of me to do a demonstration every week and then expect someone to try and sell the same product the next day in the marche. But I realized that perhaps if I teach someone to make it and ask them to help me do my sensibilization and use the opportunity to sell neem cream (the batch we demonstrated with the week before, since it has to set at least overnight), it would be a way to pay for the materials for the next week, earn some money for these women who work very hard and often without pay at the CSPS, and offer a product to women that they may not have the time or motivation to make on their own.

Now, to present the idea to my staff and the 5 women I suspect might be interested in doing this.

I'd ideally like to get started right away, but with yet another campaign starting I think I'll have to wait. Plus next week I'll be gone nearly the whole week. I'm working stage the 3rd and 4th, but because of MSC for super stage, Sylvie can only meet with Anna and I to go over the first aid material on the 1st. So I'll take the bus in on the 1st, be in Ouaga/Saponey until the morning of the 5th, and return to site on the 6th by way of Nongfaire, Alicia's village. She didn't say why exactly, but she invited a handful of us to come visit and I'd love to finally meet her family and see where she lives. Thus, neem cream will have to wait for a little, but with any luck the campaigns will be over for a little bit and we can focus our energies on other things. The major did say that everyone is really tired of doing campaigns, especially polio, but that a child in Mali (or maybe a child in Burkina who recently came from Mali) had been diagnosed with polio in the past week, so the North region is doing an extra polio campaign in response to make absolute sure that everyone is covered and the disease can't possibly spread. It makes sense, I just wonder how people in the village think of it. Do campaigns lose a bit of their effectiveness when they become routine, when seeing vaccinations come to your house is no longer an interesting and unusual occurrence worthy of curiosity and attention? Do mothers lose their faith in the usefulness of a vaccine or medication if it's being given to her child on a monthly basis to prevent a disease she hasn't seen a case of in years, possibly her whole life?

July 24th

Today was a very calm and lazy Sunday. I turned over the soil in the garden and planted all my seeds. I baked banana-nut bread to take to my CSPS, but no one was there so I decided to save it and give it to them tomorrow. I talked with Sarata and her friend, who hung around for quite a while, playing with my hair and examining my bug bites. I forgot how much I like having my hair played with – short hair can be good for getting people to run their fingers through it, but long hair inspires playing. She tried to braid it, but told me I should grow it longer so it'll be easier – I said I'd think about it. They were fascinated by how white my scalp is, and how it got red if they pulled my hair to the side and then let it relax back into place. After they left I read, and drank tea, and took pictures, and made pesto macaroni, and talked to Emily for a bit. Overall, a very satisfying day.

July 23rd

I was challenged to do something unexpected today. “Unexpected?” I thought. “Well, I'm already planning on doing my laundry and digging up and watering the places where I want to plant my garden tomorrow, so what can I do that is unexpected with that?” I decided that while I was thinking I should go get water, since the hour to think was bound to help. I had to go searching for the key (not unexpected), but did find out that nearly everyone was at work, even though it was a Saturday. So I asked Sali for the key, got my water, and came and sat down to chat with Ken, one of our interns, and his friends. Salim (the pharmacist) came and sat down with us, and we talked in a very strange combination of French/English/Moore, which lead to a lot of confusion and laughter. I asked Ken if he would take me to see his family again since I'd really liked meeting them the last time he was home, so we're going tomorrow or Monday afternoon – he said his father was asking after me, which made me happy.

Julienne came back last night, so we sat and chatted a little but avoided anything too serious. I'm glad she's back – I'm surprised to admit that I missed her (her humor tends to have a bite to it) but I did. I headed home to start my laundry and promised a surprise for everyone. Laundry and dishes went pretty quickly – music helps. ;)

So then my adventure with tortillas! I had noticed a few weevils in my flour the last time I checked, but there didn't seem to be too many so I didn't worry. I decided to go ahead and sift all of my flour and put it in a new container, and removed a surprising number of little bugs and larvae, but hoped that it would still be ok for cooking. I rolled out all the dough and started to fry it, and noticed that it smelled kind of funny, so I only made three to start. I ate one, and while it was ok, I noticed that it tasted a little odd, especially after I was done eating. Maybe it'll be better once they're fried into chips, I thought. So I added more oil and cut up the tortillas I'd cooked and tossed them in. They turned into beautiful looking chips, but even over the fried salty deliciousness I could taste that they were off somehow. It might have been the sudden influx of fried foods after not eating a lot of oil for a while, but I wasn't feeling all that great, so I decided to be on the safe side and scrap my project rather than foist off dubious chips onto my friends. I'm disappointed that it didn't work out, but I'll buy new flour and try again – it really was old flour and about time to get rid of it anyway, I guess.

What else? Unexpected. I sat out in the light rain talking to Drissa, the miner who has come over a few times to say hello. He repeated a lot of our last conversation, but I didn't really mind. I suddenly realized sitting there that I'm really tired! I thought about it, and I guess I've been on my feet getting water or doing laundry or cooking for the past 7 or 8 hours, so it makes sense – I'm just surprised I didn't realize it until I finally sat down.

I had a really long talk with Ebben last night – he called because he was looking through his phone for people he hadn't called in a while. We agreed that the longer we're in Burkina, the less solid our post-Peace Corps plans seem to get, as though we're losing the ability to predict what we want to do or where we want to end up. It's sometimes so easy to daydream about the future, and yet other times it's hard to imagine anything past the next day or week or season. I think it should have a name. Burkina Time. Or maybe Volunteer Time – I wonder if this happens in other places too?

While I was doing my laundry I found the tiniest little lizard in my bucket. I picked her out and she just sat on my pointer finger, no bigger than the space from the first joint to my fingertip. She seemed pretty content, so I went and got my camera and took her picture. I could feel and see her heart beating. I finally convinced her to climb off onto the seco of my hangar, and she quickly scuttled away into the layers of straw – I hope I see her again.

July 22nd

I feel like I want to use this time here in Burkina, here in my courtyard, here during rainy season, to allow myself to be introspective, to ponder, to write, to try and continue the long road to figuring out who I am and molding myself into who I want to be, but I also want to live in the moment, to experience what is here to be lived and learned. I know by shutting myself off from my village, I'm cutting myself off from those potential experiences, but some days I can't seem to get myself out the door. How do I become the person I want to be, the person who has the courage and the drive to leave the sanctuary of my courtyard and my books and my thoughts? Do I force myself out? Give myself goals? Re-read old journal entries? Make deals with other friends who do the same thing? How do I change, and hold onto those changes? Is each time I do force myself out of my gate an exercise, a repetition, a flexing of a muscle that will get stronger? I've gotten to the point that I can leave my courtyard every morning because I've set up expectations that I'll be some place. Could I do that with my afternoons? Do I want to?

I know I'm enjoying all the time to myself, away from people laughing at me for no obvious reason or telling me to learn Moore or asking me what I've brought them from the US/Ouaga/Europe/France/Etc. But could it be more valuable, more worth it, to just spend a few more hours outside my house every day? What could I do? I can go to the library and hang out at the maison des jeunes. I can find a Moore tutor. I can go sit out under the tree and read there or talk to my neighbors. I can study French. I can ask Ken to take me to see his family. I can go visit Simon's family and help in their fields. I can go on bike rides, although it's a little hot. I can leave my gate open. I can go visit Colette and the other ASVs. I can plan sensibilizations with my CSPS staff and the schools. I can finish my Etude. I can have more to tell my friends and less time to do it. Is it bad to make changes you want to make to yourself if they're motivated or inspired by the need and desire to impress someone else?

Three little baby lizards are running around my hangar. Two just jumped/fell off, and I can hear the third trying to decide if he's going to follow. The first two landed with a bounce and scuttled under a piece of seco.

July 20th

Today I finally was out of oatmeal, so I went to 'Starbucks' (the coffee hangar behind my house that I've privately nicknamed) to buy bread. Everyone was surprisingly warm and welcoming, although I think it helped that there was only a handful of customers instead of the usual crowd. There's something to be said for getting up earlier now, and being forced to get dressed and out of the house quickly meant I had a luxurious amount of time to sit and drink my tea outside (English Breakfast). They welcomed me back, and as I expected, asked where I had been. I had considered trying to plan a response to this in Moore, but never got around to asking someone to help me with it. Thankfully I was saved by one of the friendlier older men who I've spoken to a few times (in French he almost understands and Moore I barely understand), who seemed to be explaining my reason for being away in the US accurately (I caught the handful of key words I would have been trying to use). I was really glad that word had gotten around since it helped me avoid having to say it again, and everyone was very sweet and didn't even ask me what I'd brought them (I don't know if they will ever know how grateful I am for that, but I am).

July 17th

I intended to go into Kongussi today, but after talking to JK and realizing that some places would be closed on Sunday, combined with the fact that my laundry still wasn't dry when I went to bed...well, I decided to push back my adventure by a day. So I slept in a little (I've discovered the secret to sleeping better – earplugs and an eye mask!), took down my laundry as it dried (it was too cool and damp yesterday afternoon when I hung everything up), went over to check on getting a new bottle of gas and stayed for a bit to talk to the people at the restaurant, finally put away all of my clothing and wrapped the shelves in an extra sheet to stop them from getting dusty, swept the house, did my dishes, read a little, went back to the maison des jeunes to ask again about the gas, convinced someone to bring it to my house and hook it up for me, made tea and dinner, showered, yoga-ed, and now I'm sitting outside counting shooting stars (2 so far, plus a satellite). I always feel good when I end my day and feel like I got a lot done, even if it's just chores that I was putting off. Plus now I can cook again! It wasn't the cooking so much as the inability to heat up water for tea when I wanted to – sitting a metal dish in the sun only heats it to about lukewarm, and I missed my tea.

July 15th

Today alternately felt good, long, dull, sad, irked, happy, accomplished, amused, and calm. So, it was a normal day. I've really been having trouble sleeping through the night, with or without the melatonin that I got while I was in Ouaga and absolutely unable to sleep. I suspect the problem now is that it's because I'm too warm inside, but every time I'm ready for bed it's cloudy and I don't particularly want to risk sleeping outside if it means I'll have to wake up at 3am to move inside. But tonight it's quite warm inside, so I might give it a try since tomorrow I can sleep in if I want to (or if I'm able to ignore the sunlight coming in the door). Anyway, once I got over being grumpy about my alarm and sat up, I felt pretty good and even my gas tank running out didn't really bother me too much, probably because it had at least finished boiling the water for my breakfast and tea. I've been drinking tea almost constantly – it's somehow very comforting as well as delicious.

Sali got a call yesterday saying that Julienne's mother passed away, so she left to go pay our respect and give the condolences on behalf of the CSPS. I kind of wish I could have gone, but I guess I'm not particularly close to her like Sali is, I just feel compelled to reach out to her. I imagine losing a mother is a lot different than losing a father, but I'm sure it all depends on the person and how she relates to her parents.

The effect of her leaving is that we now have 2 people staffing our CSPS when there's normally 5 (our other nurse, Djeneba, just gave birth to a healthy baby girl, so she's on maternity leave in Ouaga for 3 months), so they're both very tired and feeling overworked. The major was working in the maternity and told me to go weigh babies and take temperatures at the dispensaire, so off I went. A surprisingly large number of people were there for wound care – I was very proud of my stomach for being able to look at wounds that, when I arrived, would have made me nearly faint. I still haven't figured out why so many children seemed to have deep gouges out of the back of their heels, it seems like an odd place to get injured. That part was interesting, but sitting and listening to consultations (and taking more temperatures) got very long and dull – about 10am I seem to get very sleepy if I'm stuck in a room sitting down.

When I was walking home, I was stopped by two ladies who came up to me as though they knew me, I was a little concerned since I didn't recognize them, but they responded to my hello and were asking something about why was I, the nasara, here? Do I speak Moore? I laughed and explained that I'm not a nasara, I'm a Burkinabe, I'm learning Moore, and I live here in Kossouka (Right here? Yes, that's my house. That's your house? Yes. Ahh, very good) and work at the CSPS but I'm not a doctor. We were already laughing at this point, but when I told them my name is Alimata they were thrilled, with the first one hailing me as her friend and the second one telling me that her name is also Alimata. I declared that we must be sisters, we all laughed some more, and they said goodbye and kept walking. It was so nice and amusing to have what felt like a real conversation in Moore and not have them realize that they had just heard a good majority of my vocabulary.

I tried to get a new bottle of gas, but they said the brand I use is all out for the moment but maybe tomorrow or Sunday. I'm a little bummed since most everything I eat seems to involve hot water, but I think finding cucumbers at the market right after made up for it. Speaking of which, they moved my marche! It's right next to where it used to be, but now there's just a bunch of empty hangars chilling out next to all the new ones. The new setup is a bit more open and the stalls are tall so you don't have to hunch over anymore, but now I have to find everyone again. Still, there are worse things than market adventures. I did manage to locate my peanut ladies, the dried fish man who I sit and talk with, and one of my veggie guys (who sold me the cucumbers and gave me onions for free – perfect!). I couldn't find Odelle, the woman who sells bissap, but a few people asked around for me and said she was there but must have been going around the marche at the same time I was instead of sitting with her coolers. Maybe on Monday.

While I was doing some laundry this afternoon, a head popped over my wall and started talking to me. I thought it was someone I knew, so I laughed and pointed out that he should use the door next time, not the wall, when he wanted to talk. So he came around and sat down and introduced himself. His name is Drissa, and he's a miner in Gambo (Rondo?). He's 20, his family lives just on the other side of the CSPS, he bikes to and from the mines every day, and apparently people are afraid to come talk to me because they think I'll keep them prisoner in my courtyard. I told him that if his friends would prefer to come and sit with me outside my courtyard to prevent any imprisonment, that would work for me. It wasn't a particularly deep or thoughtful conversation, but it was nice to have someone to chat with while I was taking down dry laundry.

July 12th

Apparently all I needed to do before now to ingratiate myself with my staff was to do just this, being somewhat more active in helping them with their work. I'm only weighing women and then writing down the observations that Sali calls out to me from the other side of the curtain in the exam room, but my major seemed quite impressed when Sali told him that I now know what medications a woman is going to be given based on the size of her uterus. There were quite a lot of women and we got started late because Sali was attending a birth and I was speaking with Abdoulye (the owner of my house who helped me remove all my weeds), so we didn't finish until nearly 1pm but we did manage to see all the women who had been waiting. On a tangent from the morning, I wasn't sure about proper protocol for thanking the owner of the house you're renting when he does your yard work for you, but he refused all offers of coffee, tea, breakfast, and only used the water I left for him to wash his hands when he was finished. Hmm. Still, he was very nice. He said a woman asked if she could plant peanuts in the plot of land next to my house, and I said that would be just lovely.

Instead of going home and taking a nap, I headed to the marche, but got waylaid talking to Alimata for an hour and decided that I didn't really need onions that badly so I headed home with my samsa and galettes. I'd missed talking to her – it was really nice, especially the Moore/Francais mix that lets me try and pick up new words a little easier. We talked about what I did in the US (didn't work, just was with family), Lauren's visit (her Moore was very impressive), my eating habits (I've gotten skinny and should never travel again – I need to stay in village and get fat and strong so I can find a husband – have some more galettes), and her family (her daughter is sick, they just started planting a few weeks ago but it hasn't rained in 4 days and everyone is a little worried).

July 11th

Today was a really good day. While my weekend of hiding in my courtyard was helpful in it's own way, getting back out and feeling like I was accomplishing things made me a lot happier, just settling back into a familiar groove. I got a call from my major at 7:20am, which kind of irked me, but he was just checking up on me and I told him I'd be there soon. So at 7:30 (my usual time) I went over and helped Sali weigh women and write down information from their exams into the carnets. We didn't finish until noon, and so I went home to eat and relax before spending the afternoon at the maison des jeunes, waiting for Simon and talking to the people sitting at the little restaurant in the corner of the courtyard.

My conversation with Simon was really interesting and kind of surprising in a few ways. Dr. Claude and Emily both told me that he had come to IST in Bobo and was really enthusiastic about starting projects when I got back, but what they didn't tell me is that he didn't know I wasn't going to be there until he arrived. In my rush of leaving I asked Dr. Claude and Justin to call my homologue and let him know, but he said he was really confused and worried when he arrived and couldn't find me, until Dr. Claude told him what was going on. I felt bad that he walked into that completely unsuspecting – I'd assumed that they'd contacted him and told him to come anyway. Now he has a cell phone, but at the time he didn't so I guess communication was probably a factor. But he did seem to have really enjoyed the information they gave him, and thought the idea of Care groups was a good one and he's willing to help me find a good village or quartier for starting one, which was really exciting.

(A Care Group is a new idea that Peace Corps is picking up to use in spreading health messages. You survey a community and find 10 interested and respected women who then become responsible for 10 families each. They attend a monthly meeting where they learn to teach a simple health concept, like how to put up and properly use a mosquito net and why it's important, then they have the month to teach it to each of their 10 families, effectively reaching 100 families on a very personal level by a neighbor that they already know and respect. It also tends to give the women involved a higher level of status and respect by being visibly involved in the improvement of their community.)

But the theme of the conversation was, unsurprisingly, wait until after the harvest. I said I understand – a big spectacle can sometimes get people to come out after their work in the fields where a smaller gathering might be ignored in favor of going home, but he said that I should take the time to repose. I smiled and said that I'd done a lot of reposing this past weekend and was actually kind of excited to be out doing things, but he shook his head and told me that it's important to rest my spirit after such a long voyage. I was so shocked that I don't think I even responded to the comment directly – I've never heard anyone here talk about taking care of one's mental or spiritual heath. Thinking about it now, it makes me feel really happy to know that he's willing to listen and understand that I was away for something difficult that might take time to recover from, which is even more surprising contrasted with most everyone else who offers their condolences and then expect life to resume as usual (which, granted, it usually does for the most part in their eyes). It made me really happy to have found such an impressive person to become friends with, and I'm really glad he's agreed to help me in my work here as well as be my friend.

June 8th

Well, safely back at site. Emily had been planning a 4th of July party for longer than any of us could remember, so I got a map from Sali and hopped on my bike bright and early to go and find the bush route between our villages, in theory only 25 km apart. Well, it exists, and I suppose it could be 25 km, but on a flat paved road that would take about 60 or 90 minutes to bike. This took me 3 hours, mostly because there were a number of very steep hills that I ended up walking up, and several places where the road was flooded and I had to walk through the soggy fields until the path became passable again. Needless to say, I was very glad Emily hadn't told me the truth of how hard the route was, because I probably wouldn't have come otherwise! We had a lovely time though, cooking all day for a huge crowd and sitting and chatting while we snacked. They had made bagels! We also made guacamole, salsa and hummus for lunch, then fried chicken, beans and rice flavored with taco mix, mango fried rice, cookies, roast pork (we put it in the ground to cook but it kept catching on fire, so we gave it to the butcher to finish in the oven), and several other things I'm forgetting at the moment. I ended up staying a few days extra so I could help clean up and to avoid biking back on that terrible route.

Twice a week there's transport that leaves her village, so I took the 5am camion to Seguenega, then biked back to Kossouka. It might have been that I had significantly less to carry, or that it was earlier in the morning, but the ride back was a lot easier than I remember it being when I returned from our language IST. I got to the CSPS just in time to be informed that the entire staff was going to Seugenega for a formation (I had passed Sali on the road and wondered where she was going on baby weighing day). So I stuck around and helped our visiting nurse from a nearby CSPS, taking temperatures and listening to consultations. He was nice and seemed to actually care about figuring out the correct diagnosis for each person – I found myself wishing that he worked here all the time and could be a motivation to the other nurses. I went back in the afternoon, but the staff hadn't come back, so I went home and started The Invisible Man, and talked with people who poked their head in my gate. Check (the boy whose name I thought was “Crash”) came to say he'd take me to look at paint tomorrow, and his little brothers came and walked with me to get water.

I was finishing my shower and getting ready to yoga (which I had actually been looking forward to all day) when someone knocked on my gate. Normally people will knock continuously until I open the gate or they'll open it themselves, but this person waited and it made me curious. It turned out to be Ilias, my petit Africain, who again started out the conversation by saying he was mad at me for neglecting him. I was going to stand outside my gate to try and keep the conversation short, but he told me to go ahead and get dressed, he wasn't in a hurry. We ended up sitting down and having a pretty nice time talking, although he did stay a lot later than I really wanted (I think he finally left around 9:45, which left me a little cranky because I was tired and didn't feel like I had time to do anything before going to bed). It was nice talking about life here compared to life in the US, and it made me happy to hear him say that he was proud to be African and he wants to live in Ouaga and help the country develop, even if it means getting affected to a village even further en brousse than Koussouka. We talked about why I like living here, about what he wants to do after he takes his BAC this weekend, living in a global society and the importance of getting to experience a life different than your own – it was nice to actually have conversations that went past day to day living.

July 3rd

Another day of Polio campaign. We were supposed to meet at 5:30 at the CSPS, but the rain that started at around 3am (forcing me to quickly move my tent inside) and was still going when my alarm went off, so I went back to sleep. To my credit, I did re-set the alarm and peak out at the CSPS at the appointed time, and upon not seeing anyone in the drizzle, hopped back in bed. I was woken up a bit past 6 by Binta knocking and calling my name. As I was unzipping the tent to get up and go to the gate, she came around to my window to peak in! Oh dear.

We went to Iki, a village I hadn't visited yet. There aren't very many people, but all of the concessions (a cluster of houses, all part of one extended family, usually linked by walled pathways and/or sharing a common courtyard) were impressively large and well maintained, and I noticed that several of them also had very elaborate raised graves for elders, not just with signs but also with fancy black and white metal fences around them. Apparently all of the small children live in one huge concession – most had between 4 and 10 kids under 5, but one had 35! When they say it takes a village to raise a child...

I had a really nice moment today at the CSPS with the AVs (village midwives, who advise women in their villages and bring them to the CSPS to give birth). They were asking me questions and speaking to me in Moore, and I was actually able to at least hazard some answers to a few of them, but once it got to be too complicated I was rescued by some of the women on the vaccination campaign arriving. Koka explained to them that they were confusing me with Lauren, who was here and did speak Moore, with me, who is new and still learning Moore. She put it in a really nice way, so that all the women were very sweet and positive that I would learn Moore and they were glad I was here. Small but happy.

I had brought a Popular Science magazine with me and opened it up, feeling a little guilty to be kind of blocking myself from interacting with people, but they were all speaking Moore and the meeting looked to not be starting anytime soon. Lo and behold, my magazine started attracting attention immediately, and got passed around and started a lot of discussions – it was really neat and felt nice to share a little bit of 'me' with the ASVs and my staff. They were particularly fascinated with an ad for the Smile Train, the group that uses donations to perform surgery on kids with hare lips and cleft palates. Sali and the major kept telling me that there's a group in Ouaga who does that – those kids in the photos just need to come to Burkina! No one here has that problem, because NGOs take care of it. I pointed out that this was possibly the same NGO that does the surgeries in Ouaga, but that part didn't seem to sink in, that the NGO operating in Ouaga can do so because it solicits donations in the advertisements of American magazines.

July 2nd

It's funny, Sylvie was easy to call by her name, but I don't know what to call my new major – everyone just calls him “Major”. I guess I can stick with that – he seems ok with it. I guess that might be why people persist in calling me nasara. It's crazy annoying, but I can think of a number of people who get called by their job or title, so I guess that could be seen as my “job” - I'm the foreigner, the nasara.

The latest and greatest Polio campaign started yesterday. The major mentioned when I got back that one was going to happen, but when I showed up at the CSPS yesterday morning he asked why I hadn't gone with any of the teams. The campaign started already? I love it how people tell me things after they happen and then ask why I didn't show up. So I got up this morning and arrived a few minutes before 6, as I was told, and discovered that everyone had already left at 5:30! When we have a meeting scheduled for 11am, it doesn't start until noon or 1pm, but suddenly when we have to meet as the sun comes up, everyone is in a hurry? The major came out of his house and told me everyone had already left (I gathered) and he took me to meet up with one of the groups. I went with Binta and Issac to Napalgue, a village so close by that you can't even tell you've left Kossouka (and, indeed, the neighborhood of Kossouka closest to it is also called Napalgue, just to add to the confusion). We finished quickly, and sat around with the other two teams for the village before, at some signal I didn't catch, it was decided that we were leaving. We stopped to pick raisins (they were small, grew on a tree, and the seed was nearly the entire fruit, but I guess it tasted kind of like a grape), which was fun although I felt bad taking some random person's fruit. Clearly we weren't the first ones – we had to bend branches towards us to find ones that were ripe.

I had child visitors today! Nice ones, that is, in contrast to the other day. Sarata came by to say hello, helped me pull a few weeds and promised to take me shopping for bug killer tomorrow to take care of the infestation in the section of my hangar that blew down months ago, so that when I put it back on it won't infect the rest of the roof. I realized that without the cats I could leave my gate open (I guess now I'd probably do that anyway since they're bigger and vaccinated), and as I was sitting reading while the sun was setting, 4 boys poked their heads into the yard. Normally seeing groups of young boys makes me a bit nervous since they tend to be the most obnoxious with their teasing of the uncomprehending nasara, but these were the sons of some functionaire (a government employee, educated in the city and sent to work in a village) and they were really quite sweet and patient with me. The smallest boy stood and let me hold his hand in mine for a few minutes, and when they left he kept looking back over his shoulder at me and smiling. The oldest boy said that during the summer they help at a boutique nearby that sells paint, so I asked him to come back next week and take me so I can start painting my house. He's in the 6eme and wants to practice English, so I said if he'd help me with Moore we have a deal. :)

July 1st

I guess I should catch everything up to this point, even though I did say most of this in my last post. Ok, so I left village for a VAC meeting. I went to Koudougou to visit Sunyata and drop off the cats, then returned to Ouaga for the meeting. After that I went back to KDG, and the day before I was going to leave, got a call saying that the people in KDG and the villages surrounding it were being consolidated as a precaution against rumors of a demonstration the next morning. So we got up early and caught the bus to a village called Sabou. We thought it would just be for a day, maybe two. But upon arriving, we found out that every volunteer was being consolidated into 13 locations around the country to ease the burden on the Bureau in locating and informing all 150 of us during the period of uncertainty and unrest in a lot of cities. We celebrated Easter, then all got to leave and head back to site. I was sick, so stopped in Ouaga at the med unit for 5 days – it was rather complicated with the cats, but we managed alright. I got back to my site, cleaned my house, and left 4 days later for IST (in service training) with the rest of the people in my stage. We went to Bobo, the biggest city in the southwest and second biggest in the country. It was fantastic to see everyone, and to be in such a big city with such wonderful food. A few days into our stay, I got a call that my Dad was in the hospital. I left IST and went back to Ouaga to make arrangements to fly back to the US on Emergency Leave. I was there for a week before he passed away, a time I'm so grateful for that words don't even begin to cover it. The next week was preparing for the funeral, then my mom and I flew to New Orleans to be with my step-family upon hearing of the illness of my grandfather. I returned to New York after a week, drove to see Katie (and hold her hand in the hospital – what is it with everyone?), then left for Burkina a few days before the funeral of my grandfather, the only way I could have stayed longer would have been to interrupt my service with Peace Corps and re-apply later.

So I returned and jumped into a shortened version of the IST I'd missed. I'm very glad that the Bureau let us make up some of the very useful information, but admittedly my head wasn't in a particularly receptive place – I'm glad we have handouts. I stayed in Ouaga for the next week or so, being with friends and helping Sunyata in her COS (close of service) process, mostly running around trying to determine if Air Burkina had a policy on pets, and what it was, and who we had to talk to in order to get the cats back to the US. It took a few days, but with some help we got it worked out, and now the boys are living in California, chasing field mice instead of waddling fat lizards that hide behind my furniture. I came back to Kossouka near the end of June, and now here I am! Who knew I could smash the events of 3 months into 2 paragraphs – I'm rather proud, despite the poor grammer.

And now I'm back in my village and it's raining like crazy outside! I spent the morning at the maternity with Sali doing CPNs (prenatal consultations), and leaned how to write down the results of the exam into the CSPS notebooks and the individual carnets that each woman has. I had a nice little conversation with a student who had come in for birth control – it always makes me happy when the 16-18 year olds are there with the green family planning carnets instead of the blue maternity ones. I wanted to do my laundry, but after getting water and sitting around at the CSPS waiting for everyone to come back from the Polio campaign it started to thunder so I decided to keep reading my book, and now that it's raining I'm inside typing this!

My little cement house with it's corrugated tin roof is like being inside of a drum when it rains – it's so loud I can hardly hear myself think. It would be a perfect time to call a friend, but even with our phones on the loudest setting it's pretty hard to hear each other. Still, the breeze coming in the windows feels cool and is blessedly free of dust. There's a cow somewhere outside who is clearly unhappy at the rain – I would imagine he'd be used to this happening, but maybe that doesn't make it any easier.

I said goodbye to a friend today – Moussa, the English teacher here at the middle school. I hope it's not for good and I know I have a lot of time left here, but I'm not sure when I'll see him again. He and I are occasionally of differing opinions on things, but he's probably been the person in village that I've had the best discussions with, the person I feel at least knows a little of who I am. He takes the time to listen, and lets me ask him questions about nearly anything. When I can't explain it in French, I know he'll understand when I say it in English, and he lets me switch back and forth so he can help me say what I mean in French. He's been teaching here for 8 years, but this year he's clearly been unhappy, burnt out and ready to move on. He was talking about staying for another year, but yesterday he said it was over and today he came to say goodbye. He's going to Ouaga for now to be with his family, then he wants to take a solo trip, possibly to Cote d'Ivoire or Ghana. He said he didn't know what he was looking for, and that people didn't understand why he wanted to leave. I said that sometimes we need change in our lives, and if he's not happy it's clearly time for a change – going to a new place is a good way to let you examine your life because you're removed from your routine. He said he'd be ok teaching if he could do it in Ouaga or Arbolay, but I suspect he might decide to go back to school pursue his dreams of becoming a lawyer or college professor. I hope he does.

I keep seeing this silly waddling little lizard all over the house! I miss the kitties – they'd have eaten him, or at least chased him outside. I've been cleaning my house from the accumulated 2 months of dust (disgusting), and every piece of furniture I move seems to be the one he's chosen to hide behind.

I suppose everyone who actually reads this is a friend or family member so you know what's been going on, but I'm feeling guilty that my last post was nearly 2 months ago. Thus here is the shortest condensing of 2 months that I can manage. I haven't been journaling for the last month, so it might never appear on here, but April and early May still have a chance at some point.

Since April 12th, when I last was in Ouaga at the VAC meeting: I left Ouaga to visit Koudougou, and as I was going to return to Kossouka I was consolidated to the large village of Sabou with 10 other volunteers from the region. We stayed in Sabou for a week, where we played cards and Bananagrams, cooked large delicious meals, and celebrated Easter with dyed pintard eggs and mimosas.

Upon returning to Ouaga on my way home, I was detoured to the med unit for 5 days and after I was on the mend I went back to my lovely village. I did my laundry and kind of tried to lay low, because 4 days later I had to leave again for IST - In Service Training, our chance to get our questions answered and begin learning ways to start the work we came to do.

The first few days of IST were lovely, getting to see all my stage friends that had been scattered around the country! The kitties came along, of course, so they got to meet all kinds of new people. :) I was sadly only there for a few days when I received a call that my dad was in the hospital, in the ICU.

I drove back to Ouaga and flew out the next evening, and I've been in the US since. I've gotten to see a good number of family members from my dad and step-dad's families, as well as a lot of friends at MHC graduation (congratulations 2011!). There have been emotional ups and downs, and I'm absolutely still in the raw stages of processing everything. I've been lucky enough to see just how many people around the world I have in my life who love and support me. I've gotten a bit of a chance to continue to reflect on my time thus far in Burkina and many opportunities to practice determining what I truly want. I've had hugs and tears, good days and bad, support and stress. It's been worth it, and now I'm getting ready to return to Burkina tomorrow (well, today I guess, it's past midnight), to begin rebuilding my life and my life there. I'm excited to sit in my courtyard at night and watch the shooting stars.

It's been so long since I've seen internet! I'm in town for a VAC meeting, and I promise that I will finally work through all my emails and messages and write you back, either this trip or next week when we start our IST for two weeks. I hope life is going well with all of you, and thank you for the outpouring of love on facebook and in my email and mailbox - it made me so happy. Here's what I've been up to in the past 6 weeks, and there are officially photos on facebook - go check them out at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=95185&id=1081920025&l=3ca61d72a5 .

8 April – Kossouka, 9:53pm

It's amazing how much I seem to have to say when I actually get back into the habit of writing it all down! This morning was amazing, followed by the rest of the day that was just busy busy busy. I was just finishing my breakfast and contemplating starting to pack up when Simon knocked at my gate a bit before 8. I told him I would be right out, I just needed to get my bag and greet people at the CSPS. He went over there to wait for me, and suddenly not two minutes later I had children in my courtyard! Three or four, to be specific, that I don't think I've seen before. They said hello, I introduced them to the cats, and proceeded to continue packing up my tent, putting air into my bike tire, putting on my sunscreen, and getting ready to leave. We went outside, they said goodbye, and off I went. I greeted everyone, told them I was leaving, and hopped on my bike to follow Simon.

We went past a big fenced in forest, which of course caught my eye and reminded me of the big forest in Ouaga. I asked about it and Simon said that it's called Bilya (I think that's what it was) and it's a sacred forest where you go when you need to ask for something, and that they fenced it in to protect it from animals. We pulled up to his house and greeted his wife and 5 kids (Claire, Bernadette, Michel, and I forget the last two, maybe Clarissa), his mother?grandmother?, the wife of his brother who is in Cote d'Ivoire, and his neighbors, the patriarch is the retired catechist. We had coffee, and then zom-koom (with rice flour – a very different flavor but I liked it), and then they gave me a big bag of peanuts, and then they gave me a rooster! I was beside myself I was so honored and pleased, and I can't wait to go back, although I hope they won't be giving me things every time or else I'll start to feel guilty indeed. We left after about 40 minutes to go home, but on the way he asked if we could stop at the PTA meeting at Kossouka D, where three of his kids attend. I of course said yes – anything to meet new people. We went in, greeted everyone, and sat down to listen. At first glance everything looked nice and new, but then I noticed the extensive cracks that had been re-cemented in the floors and the walls. The meeting was gathering money from all the members in order to help construct a latrine, something lacking when they built the new school. They also want to build a teacher's lounge, but that can wait. It was so encouraging to see their motivation!

The rest of the day was work. We vaccinated until past 1pm, with these terrible gusts of dust hitting us every 20 minutes or so, until I could brush the accumulated piles of dust off of my clothing and could feel it turning to mud in my nostrils. Gross. I was hungry and cranky and still had a long list of stuff to do, so I cut out pretty quickly and went to get some bidons of water. I swept and dusted, did my dishes, fixed my flat tire and cleaned and oiled the chain, ate lunch, tried to figure out how to keep enough water for the chicken for the week (I ended up giving him to the CSPS guardian to keep an eye on him), figured out what I wanted to pack, took a shower, and did my laundry. Whew! I ended up not going to the stations of the cross because I lost track of time when I was in the middle of finishing everything, and pleaded my apologies to Simon when he walked by the CSPS while I was on my way to get my chicken. He was completely understanding and we made plans for the next Friday I'm back in village, but I still feel quite guilty for not paying attention. I went and sat at the CSPS and chatted with an intern and my major until past 8pm, when I went home to cook my rice, listen to the BBC, take down my laundry, and now I'm finally sitting, finishing my tea, under the stars. Busy busy, but worth it, and tomorrow I'm leaving! I'm actually kind of sad that I'm finally getting somewhere in village and now I'm leaving it, but such is life – there's still time, thank goodness.

7 April – Kossouka, 9:09pm

Happy Birthday to me! I have officially graced the earth with my presence for 23 years. What did I do to celebrate? Well, I took the scones I managed to not eat to the CSPS this morning, arriving before 8 to things already starting since the interns are still new and eager to get going. Baby weighing went about as smoothly as usual and everyone seemed to enjoy the scones, although they told me to bring more next time. We planned out the vaccination campaign that starts tomorrow and continues for about a week (measles) and finally were free to go to the marche around noon. I had a lovely time – I was gifted a bunch of carrots (the guys have apparently forgotten that I haven't bought anything from them in over a month at least since all they have is carrots, which they keep gifting me), bought tomatoes, and turned around from greeting my peanut ladies to see a beautiful sight indeed – bananas and apples! Holy goodness, yes please – it's been a month since I've seen either. So I paid 200cfa for an apple and considered it well spent, as well as 200cfa for three giant mangoes the size of my hands, and 50cfa for some little bananas. So much goodness!

I went and sat with Odille who had brought me one of the books she uses to teach women to read (“Mam Moor Pipi Sebre” - My first moore book, or literally “My Moore First Book”). She seemed shocked that I could read the sentences and I explained that reading wasn't the problem – I know how to do that – but could she please tell me what the sentence I just read means? So we went through the first 10 lessons together (each one only has one main sentence and then becomes about practicing a certain letter) and she explained that when she teaches the literacy courses each one begins with a little health lesson since most of the example sentences have to do with health. I was thrilled, and said that perhaps after my training this month I will look for the literacy teachers here in Kossouka and see if they do the same, and if not see if we can change that. She was very supportive and said that if I wanted her to come do a project she would! She's also very insistent that she will teach me how to make degue (millet couscous in milk) and gingembre, and maybe tô if no one else shows me first. Just you wait – I'll come home and be forcing you all to try these strange Burkinabe foods because now I'll know how to make them properly! Although millet is oddly expensive in the US, unless you buy it as bird seed. Here it's a staple grain and is consumed in some form nearly every day, either as galletts (millet pancakes), degue (millet couscous), as a part of buille (porridge made of boiled flour mixture) or as the ever popular tô (boiled millet flour beaten until it becomes a gelatin-like solid). I had a conversation with a guy at Starbucks (the coffee shack behind my house where I buy bread) the other day about how you have to eat tô for breakfast, because nothing can “donne la force” (give the strength) for the day except tô – everything else just makes you weak and leaves you without force for the rest of the day.

Anyway. So had a lovely time with Odille, the rude samsa lady actually called me by my name today (!), fruit galore, and then I went home to feed the cats and eat samsa and degue and to make cornbread. I'm telling you, this dutch oven is amazing. I needed something to take to my prefet, and decided to give some to Simon as well, but also sampled quite a bit myself. By the time it was finished (talked to Doug most of the time – he's made a chicken pot pie at site! What?!) it was past 3:30pm. I waited for Lion to finish eating his lizard and left to battle the wind on my way to the prefecture. Asked about the list of community organizations, got some vague promise, was asked when I'm going to get more library books, and generally chatted. I don't think about it often, but the last time I was in his office I was new in town and could hardly carry on a conversation in French. Now I can chat politely and deflect rude advances for over an hour without problem, at least in bad African french. Cool beans.

I realized much too late that I intended to go back to the CSPS for food distribution, but I had already gone home instead and started my lasagna. All told, it took me over 2 hours from chopping the veggies to making the sauce to boiling the noodles to letting it bake in my oven, but it was delicious! I made too much, but it was my smallest pot, so I either need to buy a smaller pot or start making enough to easily share with many people. Talked with lots of people which made my day – thank you for calling! And now I'm going to bed to get ready for my busy day tomorrow!

6 April – Kossouka, 9:02pm

Up down. Well, today itself was pretty good. I managed to wake up before my alarm went off, but lounged in bed for a bit longer anyway, then got my breakfast bread and made my coffee and sat outside with the cats before heading to the CSPS at 8 instead of 9. I was apparently still too late and the women had already been weighed, but perhaps if I get there a bit earlier tomorrow I can help out. There weren't many women this morning – we were done before 9, a very rare event indeed. There was an inspection by the district and the NGO Medicus Mondi to check our staff's knowledge of the new national protocols for malaria treatment. I learned a bit more about malaria, they answered a bunch of questions and were told that they should have staff meetings to share information learned at formations and conferences, and then I left to go to the tap to get water.

In celebration of my birthday tomorrow I decided to bake! I finally got out the dutch oven, and I am happy to report that my first baking expedition turned out wonderfully and I firmly plan on doing so more often – next up, cornbread and lasagna! The lemon-ginger scones are delicious and I have eaten more than my fair share, but the rest are going to my CSPS staff tomorrow and I'll figure out something for the prefet when I go to bug him for that list of community organizations. I was going to go today, but just as I started baking Sali (my midwife) came to ask if I would take her to the mango grove Moussa had mentioned. I was a bit surprised, but said I'd be happy to, so an hour later, off we went. Walking, none the less! I think we got more stares from people accustomed to seeing her moto everywhere (even from one end of the CSPS to the other) than from me being the nasara. We decided that the mango grove was too crowded, so we sat under these two giant old twisty fig trees and I read and did sodoku puzzles while she studied for her concours that starts the 10th. I still don't quite get what it is, but I think it's a big test/training/application to continue on to the next level in the medical hierarchy, to move from an Accouseuse Auxilliare to a Sage Femme. We headed home when it was starting to get kind of dark and stormy looking, but it didn't rain.

5 April – Kossouka, 9:04pm

National News: Apparently the declaration of an annee blanche depends on students missing a certain number of hours of class time before the minister of education can begin to decide yes or no. If strikes would continue to the end of the week, they would meet the hours. If they go back now, they have to learn two trimesters worth of information in one, knowing that little to no real work will happen the first week as people get back into the swing, plus most students actually stop going to classes in the last month or so of school because they're needed to help plant the family fields. While an annee blanche would be terrible in a lot of ways, at this point it's likely that most students will fail their classes should the year continue, forcing them to repeat the year anyway. In secondary school you can fail a year once and transfer to another school to take it again, but after that you're done with your education if you don't pass. With an annee blanche, the year is erased and started over, no harm no foul. But if they don't declare it and kids who have already failed once fail again because they just weren't in class to learn the material, their education is over, unless they pay to go to private school in a big city. Basically, it's a bad situation all around, but a fair number of people think that it would be better for students if it were called.

My News: Today was a good day. I wandered over to the CSPS around 9, as usual, and had a decent conversation with my new major, who was actually in the process of fixing mistakes in the monthly report. I was convinced I was the only person who ever looked at them after they were (half) filled out, but here he was correcting the total columns, moving numbers so they lined up in the right boxes, and checking to make sure things were consistent throughout the report. What? He also showed me a section I had always ignored because it was always empty, but apparently the CSPS itself is supposed to be doing sensibilizations to teach people about health topics, and there's a place to report the number planned and the number completed for each month. I mentioned my surprise and asked if he could inform me of any upcoming ones so I can observe and learn how to do my own. He was incredibly enthusiastic and said that not only will I be observing the sensibilizations, but I'll be going on the vaccination sorties to the satellite villages (you know, what David has been assuring me for months he will do but then fails to tell me when he's going until after he comes back). I'm trying not to let my hopes get raised too high, but I'll admit that this is very encouraging.

He then took this all to mean that I'm too bored, so he called in the midwife and told her to make me weigh and take the blood pressure of the women who come for their pre-natal consultations. Well, that wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but it'll be nice to be useful, even if it means getting up earlier (I'm going to miss not having to set an alarm, but life is about compromises). I sat in on the rest of the morning's consultations, read some more of the obstetrics book, and went home for lunch. I played with the cats and called a few people, and then after the repose was over I went to the library.

Have I mentioned how amazing my librarian/counterpart is? He found me the written history of Kossouka (7 pages of handwritten Moore) and then told me the story - once I type it up for my Etude I'll definitely post it here because it's quite the incredible tale. He then taught me about the traditional fete's held by the different groups here, and a little about traditional customs and spiritual beliefs. After a good 2 hours (with interruptions to greet the gendarmes, students, and teachers who showed up) we called it an evening. I'm making an effort to try and be more social and bien integre, so I started by asking if I could come and greet his family sometime this week. He seemed delighted and we decided on Friday morning – he'll come get me from the CSPS and take me to his courtyard, and then I'll meet him again that evening at the library to go do the stations of the cross (for my first time, in Moore) with his church group.

If that wasn't enough of a good day, I then went back to my CSPS to say hello, even though it was already about 5:30pm. I was having such a good time with the major and our two interns that I ended up staying until nearly 7:15pm, well past sunset, because they were all so nice and engaging and wanting to help me learn new things about medicine and Moore and Burkina in general. What a difference! We had a late arrival patient, but since it was the father of the adjoint mayor we all went and the major did the consultation. Not only did he do a decent exam and create lots of teaching points for the interns, he did a malaria rapid test and when it was negative he did not prescribe malaria medications. While that seems pretty obvious, the vast majority of people who get rapid-tested are negative for malaria but still get that as part of their diagnosis based on their symptoms and are given the pills to treat it. I was so impressed I almost hugged the man, especially for teaching such a crucial lesson to the interns – when you have the technology to rule out a disease, it's a waste to treat for that disease when the test is negative.

So it was a lovely day, a lovely evening, and then I came home, showered, made garlic mashed potatoes while listening to the news, and typed a bit while drinking my tea under the starry night sky. *happy sigh*

4 April – Kossouka, 7:19pm

World News: Haven't heard yet, the BBC comes on at 8pm.

My News: Today was my major's first day. I went to CPN's, read my french maternity book and talked to the interns (both very nice, from the school in OHG, studying to become midwives), and watched him finish the monthly report that Sylvie kindly left him. Went to the marche and bought a bunch of veggies and made Emily (who had been in Seguenega and decided to bike back by way of my village) a delicious ragout with potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, onions, and garlic. It turned out quite well, if I do say so myself. Mangoes chilled in my cannery topped off our wonderful meal, and then she hopped back on her bike to continue home. After she left I swear I intended to go to the library, or go sit outside with my neighbors, but then David called, and then Steve was near the tree where he gets reception so we talked for another 45 mins or so, and by then the sun was setting and I wanted to shower, and now it's dark, and frankly I'm in my pj's and don't want to put on real clothing to go outside and talk with people.

Ok, so plan for tomorrow. Go to CSPS, work on the Etude, ask lots of questions of my new major – anything I can think of. Go to library in the afternoon and pester Simon for Moore and history help so I can finish Etude, and ask who the primary and CEG directors are (their names, I know who the first one is, on sight). Ask if I can come to his house to introduce myself to his wife and family, possibly Wednesday at lunch or Thursday at dinner since meals are so important and a good time to sit and chat. Ask if anything important in the village is going on. Confirm plans for Friday, go home to talk to the neighbors, and catch the news. Sounds good to me!

3 April – Kossouka, 9:20pm

World News on the BBC: The US has been at war for a decade. I couldn't believe it when I heard it until I started counting back and realized that for almost half of my life the US has been at war, not including the Gulf War which was when I was too young to really realize what was going on. Crazy. Now they're debating whether it was right or not to intervene in Lybia – did we prolong a “civil war” that had civilian casualties, or are we avenging and preventing further civilian “genocidal” targeting by Colonel Gaddafi's forces? Some pastor in Florida burned a Koran a few weeks ago and now 14 people including 7 UN workers in Afghanistan have been killed after the president there condemned it a few days ago and the protesting Muslim crowd was aimed by people in the crowd towards the UN building. Should the president of a Muslim country have said something? I think so – staying silent is accepting that, idiotic as it was, it's ok to do. But qualify the need for understanding, stress the uniqueness of his actions and condemn him and the action, not all Americans or foreigners, especially not those working for your own country and people. As an American living in a Muslim country, albeit a “soft” Muslim country, I would personally like to thank him for his inconsideration for the consequences of his actions while he is safe in sunny Florida. Next time someone asks me for money or a contact in the US to help them get a visa, I'll give them his address.

Village News: My major packed up her house today and my new major moved in this evening. Sylvie had two pickup trucks piled high worth of stuff, while new guy just had one. I contrasted this with the ginormous (I love that “ginormous” is a recognized word in this processor) moving truck that was maybe 2/3 to ¾ full when my parents moved, floor to ceiling, plus our three cars packed to the brim, with a few dozen boxes left in Denver for later removal to Tucson. Americans have too much stuff, but also bigger houses and furniture that isn't light enough to toss unpadded on top of each other and tied to the bed of a pickup truck. And, I think a surprisingly high percentage of the stuff on the truck was packing materials – every fork was practically wrapped in it's very own cocoon of 2 or 3 sheets of packing paper, ensuring many large boxes with not actually that many items inside. I'm really going to miss Sylvie. I'm finally getting comfortable joking with her! Well, we'll see about the new major. At any rate I need to go make friends so I can charge my laptop if we don't get to leave village soon. I was happy to help her pack and glad to be there to greet the new major. Turns out they're just switching villages, which made the move a little easier because the truck just had to shuttle items back and forth.

My Day: I arrived under the tree between my house and my neighbor's courtyard at exactly 9am, when the inspector for the primary schools walked out the door to come get me for our meeting. He invited me in and we sat on his patio and talked for a good two hours. I finally know the days when school are, for once and for all! For primary schools it's M,T,W,F,S(am), but CM2 kids who have to pass their exam at the end of the year often go to extra classes (formal or informal) Thursday and Saturday afternoon. At the secondary school level school is M-S(am), again with extra sessions Saturday pm if necessary. Whew! We went on to talk about colonization in Burkina (that's why old people are afraid of me because they think I'm here to demand the tariff the French used to levy on all families, except that old people are usually overly respectful and welcoming to me, although I guess it could be because of that), and why people call me “nasara” - apparently they all call each other by race/ethnicity as well. If you don't know a guy and he's a Peuhl, you call him “Peuhl” until you know his name. I said that's always been fine with me, it's when people who know me call me nasara that I feel hurt and upset. He kept repeating that it's normal until they learn my name – I think we spent a good deal of time agreeing on the same thing over and over.

We also talked about some pros and cons to education here. Pro – kids learn a lot about the world around them, at least they have to memorize every country in the world, it's capital and population, and the prominent figures of important ones. The problem – poor use of resources and overcrowding. Kossouka “A” is the worst off in our commune, with 107 students in one classroom of CM2 (traditionally the most crowded because students who don't pass the exam for CEG can retake the year and the exam until they turn 16), but other schools in smaller villages have classes between 40 and 80 students per teacher. The resource use part is evident in Kossouka “D”. The newest school, built last year, has three classrooms and was budgeted about 13.5 million cfa (say, $26,000) by an entrepreneur, but it's already falling apart with cracks in the walls and floors, etc. The going theory is that, with all the people who had to be brought in to consult throughout the process, the school itself got built with low-grade materials, and now a building supposed to last 30 to 40 years is falling apart before it was even dedicated or listed in the national free lunch program. This is also happening in Inou and Kiblega, schools built within the past 10 years that need to be repaired or replaced, instead of those funds building other new schools in Kossouka where they're badly needed to relieve overcrowding (see Kossouka “A”).

Overall, it was very informative and was really refreshing to have a real conversation with someone in my village, albeit one who is a functionaire and not actually from the village. Now I just need to track down the CEG director. Oh, and they are making Kossouka into a lycee (turning the CEG “middle school” into a middle/high school), adding a 2eme next year, but they need to build more classes and a science lab for the science track BAC students. After talking all morning I went home, made lunch (soy-ginger onion rice), and chilled with the cats. I read. I talked to Sunyata and Al. I made a list of all the things I want to do when I get back to Colorado. I talked to Robyn for half a minute, but I'm completely out of unite, so when she texted me asking for advice I couldn't even call for half a second to tell her I'll call tomorrow. Sophie threw up and had diarrhea, but seems to be doing better now – Robyn told me that cats are lactose intolerant so now I'll stop giving them milk so often!

I have a kitten sleeping on my stomach as I type this. Life is good. He's just so cute! The boys got quick baths today and smell so much nicer – at least clouds of dust don't puff off when I pet them. Lion fell asleep this afternoon curled on my stomach, head hanging over my arm – I got a picture. Soon I'm going to have more pictures of cats than of anything else in Burkina! Although a lot of them are pretty good photos, if I do say so myself. I'm reading The Idiot by Dostoevsky, and it's going better than I expected for a monstrously long classic. I can't believe I regularly used to read 500 page books as a middle-schooler – it's so daunting! So far it's been engaging, but is also a book I can put down if I need to do other things, and so I'm only about 90 pages in after a day and a half. I really want to finish The Lord of the Rings (I only brought the first two from the Transit House and haven't been back since), and David promised me that he has the other books in the Shadow series, which has me overjoyed. Still figuring out about visiting KDG around the VAC meeting. I'd like to go before so I can drop off the kittens, but either way I'd be gone from village for the better part of a week (5-6 days), then back for 3-4 days, then gone for 2 weeks for our next training. It's too long to stay in Ouaga or KDG between, but too short to come home and do anything besides say hello and sweep my house out.

Speaking of cleaning the house, now that I've started doing everything outside I had essentially stopped cleaning the house on any kind of regular basis. Then I was in my bedroom changing clothes and noticed the smell. I thought the cats had been peeing on the corner of the bed, but it turned out to be a dead lizard under the corner of my mattress – gross! So I deep cleaned the house (moving the furniture, mopping the floors, dusting everything), stripped the bed and leaned it against the wall, and plan on regularly sweeping and dusting again. It took me a good 3 hours to clean my little house, but now it is termite and dead lizard free. Speaking of dead lizards, yesterday Lion caught his first 2 lizards. He plays with them for an insanely long time before they finally (thank goodness!) die, and then he eats them, head first if you're interested. Sophie stole the second half of the second one and ate it himself. All these things I've missed never having raised outdoor cats before.

1 April – Kossouka 6:36am

Well, normally I wouldn't be up this early, but I had to send my MIF kit on the STAF bus and pick up my anti-malaria meds from the Med Office. I absolutely love the informal mail system here – what a great idea! The postal service is slow (rural offices get and send things twice a week), inconveniently located (the nearest one to my village is 11km away) and somewhat unreliable since, as we've found, people who don't feel like working just don't. Actually, I don't think I wrote down that story – basically, when we were trying to leave Seguenega after IST we all needed money, which we get out of accounts with the post office. It was closed all morning for an inspection, but they said they'd re-open in the afternoon. So we went after lunch and they were all standing there, but were “too tired” after the inspection to do any work, so they were closed again until the next day, when we had wanted to leave early, before the post opened. So we were obliged to wait, Emily and Alicia almost missed their bus, and I had to wait to pay our hotel bill and ended up biking home when it was getting hot instead of early like I had planned.

So instead of the post, you take advantage of the bus system, which, although sometimes quite late, is at least reliable in that you know it will eventually get to it's destination sometime that day. As I found out this morning, it's simple – you take a package to the stop with the name and destination written on it, pay a small amount (500cfa for a small envelope package the size of my hand – seemed a bit much but I wasn't going to complain) and off it goes to it's destination. I also picked up the bag the office sent me yesterday. I missed the incoming bus, but they just left it in the bus office until I asked for it this morning – much more convenient since the morning bus arrives within a 15 minute window, while the afternoon bus typically arrives within a 2 hour window. I know a system like this wouldn't really work in the US – the mail system is reliable and the bus system is under-utilized – but it's pretty handy for Burkina. So now my test is on it's way to Ouaga, and I have enough malaria pills to see me through the next three months.

In local news, the passing of power from my old major to my new major finally happened so now I officially have a new boss. His last name sounds like a mix between Sandwich and Samedi – I think it's Sanwidi, and his first name is Adema. He's young and seems nice enough although not a particularly forceful presence at first meeting. And, wonder of all wonders, I was sitting in my courtyard during the repose and David came to get me for the ceremony. What?! Something important was happening and they came to tell me? No, it couldn't be. Although that reminds me, I need to call Congo and tell him that I have a new major and thus a new contact person. They could call Sylvie in her new village, but then she'd have to call here, and it's just faster to go direct, you know? It wasn't very formal – we sat around and gave little speeches, then Sylvie stood up and handed the official CSPS books over to Adema and that was that – they went off to Seguenega to formalize the paperwork and I went to go get some water so I could shower and cook dinner that evening.

26 March – Kossouka, 9:17pm

The rest of IST did get better – I didn't actually improve the amount of Moore in my working vocabulary all that much, but I have a lot of notes that I can study and got a lot of clarification on things I say regularly, like the proper responses to greetings that we didn't learn in stage but everyone in my village uses regularly. I'm glad to be back in village, but it was fun to spend a week with Emily and Alicia and the kittens (yes, they came too!). I'll admit, I will miss getting to watch the news in English during breakfast with the fathers (we stayed at the Catholic Relief Mission), but otherwise I'm glad to be back to my routine.

Today was the marche and the Napusda (I think that's how it's spelled on the polo shirts), the traditional festival/fete held by the cheif every year. I had intended to go with my CSPS staff, but didn't talk to them yesterday and did a little laundry this morning (so I'd have something clean to wear) and by the time I went out, they had left! So I made the interns take me instead. :) We passed the parking lot of motos, bikes, and even 10 (!) cars as we walked up the hill to the cheif's concession. We followed the crowd into the maze of houses, and I was quickly greeted by Sarata (she's one of the cheif's daughters), which made me happy. Her new outfit (that matched the rest of her siblings) was lovely and made me smile because I could compliment it in Moore. We greeted three women from the family, all of whom were touchingly enthusiastic about meeting me and I made a mental note to go back, even if I don't want to be totally associated with the chief (you never know who doesn't get along with the cheif and will thus boycott your projects). We waited with our chairs while a flood of millet heads, woven together at the base so it formed fluffy bouquets, were moved past us before ducking into what surly must be a child's playhouse and out the other side into a huge courtyard. I was stunned at how many people had gathered back here, and couldn't tell exactly if it's normally a part of the concession or if it's just the open place behind it. Our chairs were placed near the other “special” people, although as late arrivals we weren't under the tent and actually were almost in an aisle being used by performers entering and exiting.

The singing admittedly caught me off guard. I saw a guy in incredibly elaborate formal bubu robes, and asked Ken who he was, thinking maybe some kind of dignitary. “That's the singer.” Eh? Lo and behold, he took a microphone and this unexpected high, nasal drone came out of his mouth as he sang – I don't think I've ever heard anyone sing like it before. All I could catch from time to time was “Naaba” (chief) and “Kossouka”, but it was pretty cool with the drummers (playing giant halves of calabashes on the ground in front of them) and the back up singers just droning the same sentence over and over, almost hypnotically. The rich people under the tent started coming up and giving him money while he was singing and it turned into this bizarre production, counting off crisp bills and stuffing them into his hand one at a time to show just how much they were giving. It got worse during later acts, with people being egged on to give more and more, carelessly flipping them into the air at the performer or even sticking them to the facial sweat of the singer and his drummer. One guy was right in my line of site and peeled off 8 2,000cfa bills. While 16,000cfa is only $32, it's an unimaginable amount to hold at one time for most people here. And this guy was peeling these off a stack of bills! The performers were being very well compensated for their time, let's put it that way – I'm sure the groups of dancing girls (especially the one with the little girl showing off amongst her teenage brethren) might have raked in 100,000 cfa. That's the amount given out as a national lottery prize! I later learned that this might not be completely normal, or at least is considered distasteful by the functionares when done in view of people who can't even scrape together 5,000cfa for a hospital bill, but here it is being thrown to the ground in a display of wealth by a few. Very interesting indeed, the giving and the reaction by people who aren't rich but are certainly very well off by village standards.

The dancing was incredible. There was one woman in an otherwise male group and I swear watching her dance made my breath catch. There were a few parts that were quite sexual, but she looked the best when she was just letting her body move in these great, huge, unconstrained swings of movement, arms arcing, feet pounding, knees kicking up high, head flinging back and forth with her motions. It was wild. One of the girls troups (the one with the little girl) were the same – smiling and feeding off each other's energy as they just let loose to the beat of the drums and the balafone. The men's troup was doing acrobatic stunts, building human pyramids and towers while still dancing all the while!

After the performances were over we all left in a cloud of dust and Ken took me to sit in the place were we'd had the CVD meeting. We sat waiting for the chief to greet him, but after an hour of texting Emily continuously we were still no closer to seeing the elusive head of the party, so we gave up and went outside to watch some of the villagers dancing. It was hypnotizing, with very repetitive drum beats and kind of cow-bell-like instrumental additions. We took a detour to meet Ken's family, just the next concession over, where he told me the blacksmiths live. Sweet! We greeted his father, who gave me an entire bag of onions, and then his mother who invited us to eat with them. Thankfully it was rice, and not only that, it was delicious! The sauce was a mystery, but very tasty, and there was some kind of mystery meat (not chicken or goat, but beyond that, who knows) that was very good as well. He told me to come back and chat with them, and I know it will be frustrating at first, but I think I'm going to try and get the nerve up to go again soon. I really want to adopt a family, and be forced to speak Moore, although it'll be hard if no one can translate from time to time. Still, I want a family that won't laugh at me when I screw it up, or at least who laughs in a nice way. But I have to give it a chance, no? Went to chill at the major's for a little, found out she's leaving Tuesday (maybe). I'm bummed, but better while I'm still here for a few days to meet the new one than while I'm away.

In other awesome news, Simon agreed to be my counterpart! I guess if I help him with the library, he's willing to help me with my health projects. And I talked to Odille (my bissap lady) today and she promised me green beans, and once I got home some random woman came and knocked on my door to offer to sell me potatoes (I had been asking around the marche), so now I have beautiful potatoes for dinner!

18 March – Seguenega, 11:00pm

Well, here I am at IST. My site visit went pretty well – Dr. Claude and Michelle showed up a bit later than expected and everyone had left already after baby weighings since it was the day of the marche. So we talked to Boreima (the treasurer of the CoGes, the group that handles all the $ of the CSPS), and visited the major and the mayor after doing the checklist of safety and integration things. While it was kind of like she was there to help, it was also a bit like taking an exam or being evaluated, to the point that I'm pretty sure she had a much more positive view of my situation than the reality. But they brought me a delicious salad and cold water for lunch, and drove me to Seguenega, so I can't complain much.

This language thing is hard. Our LCF, John-Pierre, is super nice and helpful, if a little too eager to speak English, but it's hard being with Alicia. She's amazing, I love her, but her level of Moore is so incredibly beyond mine that she jokes with the people we're talking to and then they look at me and ask if I understand or if I just don't talk. No, sadly, I don't understand, that's why I'm not saying anything, because my Moore is still just at the point of greeting people. I can almost say that I work at the CSPS, but I can't tell you why or what I do there. I don't understand your questions, I don't understand your jokes – trust me, I wish I did, but I don't. And it's frustrating because I know we need to practice and be in the community and such, but frankly it's just like what I do all day every day – I sit and listen to people speak Moore. Now two of the people are white like me, but I don't understand what they're saying either. And while it's nice that they can translate and tell me what a word means, 5 seconds later I've forgotten it, or written it down but still won't be able to remember it without looking. The formal classes are better because I can write stuff down, but doesn't take into account all of the little differences that come up in conversations. So if I could just tape the conversations and get someone to translate it on paper word for word that would be perfect. But the classroom lessons are rather boring and make me long to at least be interacting with people, even though it's incredibly painful. I know that some people never learn their local language, but I really want to – it's killing me that I just cannot seem to shove Moore into my head. I have to learn in an organized manner – I can teach myself French out of a well organized book – so this random list of words and verbs and greetings is just like drowning in paperwork. I keep telling myself it will get better, and I know it will with time and practice, but for the moment language remains a source of frustration.

We watched Friends tonight. I haven't watched an American TV show in 5 months. I miss America-land. And Robyn. And crew. And food, so much. And understanding people and situations and feeling in control of my life. I really think that's what it comes down to – I can't take the complete loss of control that living in this completely new culture entails. It'll happen, I know, but it's hard right now.

16 March – Kossouka, 7:29pm

Kittens, kittens everywhere and into everything! Good thing they're cute, that's all I'm saying.

Today was good. Woke up, ate, lounged, headed over to the community meeting at 9am (it was supposed to start at 8, but guess what?) We started around 9:30 or so, not bad. I got to introduce myself (I did a pretty decent job, if I do say so myself) and we were done around 10:50ish. The women sat in the back but there were about equal numbers of men and women, although only one spoke up in the big assembly while a couple of men asked a lot of questions (I really wish I could have understood what they were asking). I shook more hands than I can count, than headed home to get water and stopped and chatted at the CSPS.

I was pretty proud of myself, actually – there was a guy from Seguenega sitting at the dispensaire and I managed to carry the conversation in Moore past the greetings! Granted, that was because he was asking me to be his wife and how many children we would have, but I was able to joke along and tell him that 10 would be fine with me if he had the money. I lost it after that and we switched to French, but it was pretty cool to get a little past the routine greeting. I didn't understand every word, but I got the gist well enough, kind of like how I get by in French. He said he was coming for lunch, but of course he didn't actually come despite my genuine acceptance of his self-invitation.

I used up my veggies in a big stew again. I really need to vary my meals, but I guess I'll keep doing this until I'm tired of it or until the veggies at the marche change. I should experiment with different spices, and I think it really needs some kind of carb – I was still craving something, like bread or pasta or oatmeal.

When I finally went to the library I felt rather productive getting to talk to Simon. I asked him about the CVD members, and if he could hook me up with an homologue, and if he would come meet Dr. Claude and Justin tomorrow morning when they come for my site visit, and about the history and traditions and commerce of Kossouka. He said he'd get back to me on the homologue and history, but we talked about the rest, and it was thoroughly helpful. I really wish he could be my homologue, but I feel like he's already quite busy and honestly not all that interested in health. I came home and sat around the CSPS for a while – met the cheif's son and learned a little Moore from Ken, one of our interns, told people that I have my boss coming tomorrow, and headed home to set up my tent, shower, and try to call people back. And here I am, with my tea, getting ready to get my radio and hear the update on the war in Libya, the nuclear reactor meltdown in post-tsunami Japan, and whatever else the news has brought.

In Burkina news, there are peaceful demonstrations planned in Ouaga, and standfast is lifted so that we can all go to IST, and even travel through Ouaga as long as we're not staying the night.

15 March – Kossouka, 7:21pm

Here in village, life is calm. I woke up and went over to the CSPS to wait for Simon, who came around 8:15. We biked over to the cheif's concession, and the meeting started around 8:30 – not bad for Africa time. There's a village meeting tomorrow (8am at the mairie, but they explicitly told me 8am Africa time, so I'll go at 9:30) to tell people about all these new projects that are going to happen. I didn't quite figure out who all is paying for them, but we'll get there. I made a small speech about working together, but I figure I'll talk to Simon tomorrow to see about finding a good counterpart when I return my library book. After the meeting ended an hour later I went back to the CSPS and started making a list of things I need to do to finish my Etude, most of which involve asking questions of my CSPS staff or Simon, and then typing the whole thing up and translating it into French.

After lunch, Moussa showed up and we rode out to the mango trees. I have found heaven on earth, and it is in Kossouka (well, Napalgue) under a mango tree. The shade was thick, the conversation with Moussa and another teacher was interesting (politics of BF and Cote d'Ivoire, where Moussa is from), and I got to listen to my iPod and finish the chapter on the future tense and even use it a few times in our conversation. There were cows wandering around and one was licking the ears of another – the one being bathed looked so happy, just like the kittens when they're cleaning each other! It was adorable. It's maybe 1k from my house, so I'll absolutely be going back, and maybe find a way to take the kittens with me. Very relaxing and calm.

After I came home around 3:30 I got a bidon of water and sat with Sali at the maternity while she studied for her concours and I read my French children's book. Chatted briefly with Ilias, but he was the one to end the conversation tonight! What? Left around 6pm and came home to set up my tent and shower. Sitting outside under the half moon with two adorable kittens – life is good. I'm so glad that no matter what happens during my day, they almost always end happily in the calm of my courtyard.

NB – I've been here for 154 days. Only 650 days (give or take) left to go. Weird - I don't really know how I feel about it.

14 March – Kossouka, 7:38pm

I'm so glad the vaccination campaign is over! While it was amazing and energizing to see the sunrise again (I miss crew!), I loved waking up outside this morning as it got light out and then being able to roll over and go back to sleep for a little while. I sat outside listening to music, eating leftovers from dinner last night, and drinking many cups of coffee with sweetened condensed milk (sooo good and such a bad habit to develop). Dinner last night was every veggie I had (2 onions, 3 small eggplants, 4 small green peppers, 8 small tomatoes, 3 cloves of garlic) cut up and tossed in a pot with water, piemont (hot pepper), Maggie onion and spice, garlic pepper, Hawaiian seasoning salt, and the rest of a package of macaroni added at the end for good measure. A little overly salty, but delicious and it made enough for dinner last night as well as breakfast and lunch today. I was trying to read my book (All The Pretty Horses) but just couldn't get into it and listened to music instead. What a lovely way to wake up!

At 9 I finally corralled the cats and headed over to the CSPS to study and chat. Started on the future and conditional tenses in French. I will be ready for IST! (In Service Training, for language and technical skills) Came home, ate the rest of my veggie melange, went to the market for more vegetables, and got fish for the cats and munchies for me (gallettes and a gateau). Sarata came over a bit before 2, and we sat and chatted for a bit. When Ilia (my erstwhile tutor) showed up she tried to hide, then became really shy and reluctant to be around us – it might have been the subject, we were talking presidential politics and the protests, or it might have just been that she's a young teenager and he's a man. I worked hard to just listen and stay neutral in my own position (PC policy – we want to be able to work with everyone, so taking a political stand is a no-no), but it was still very interesting to explore the current situation here and in our neighboring countries. Sarata excused herself after a bit, but I told her to come back tomorrow.

Ilia left and I went back to the CSPS. I greeted everyone and started back on the French, but went to watch a birth with David and one of the interns. The mother was 17 years old, and at her last pre-natal consultation in February she weighed 107 lbs. I swear her stomach looked so small I was convinced the baby must be premature, but when David finally lifted him out into the world the baby was a healthy 3kg (6.6lbs) and hollered like crazy. The body can be pretty amazing!

Moussa showed up and we chatted for a while in our mix of French/English. Ilias (my petit african) walked by and said hello and it turns out they're brothers. Eh? How are they so totally different? The three of us had a nice conversation, and I found out that school is restarting the 28th. In theory. We're hoping to avoid the annee blanche, so we'll see how it all turns out. An annee blanche is declared by the department of education when school has been delayed for over 2 months, and it essentially wipes the year out of memory – every student re-does that class the next year instead of continuing on. After Moussa left, Simon, my librarian, showed up to tell me about the meeting for the CVD (committee villagoise de development) tomorrow. Sweet! Maybe I can find someone who wants to be my homologue for our technical training in April! Crossing my fingers.

Left around 6:30pm, greeted my neighbors, then headed home to set up my tent and chill. I have now mastered the shower with half a bucket of water, a necessity when your water barrel is running low and you forgot to go to the tap before the solar power cuts around 4pm. Watched the sun set and drank my bissap and gingembre that I bought at the marche. I hear my major talking with the inspecter (head of the primary schools for our district) next door, but I love having my quite evenings of solitude, sitting under the half-moon while listening to music or reading while drinking my tea (which I have yet to make). I'm finding it easier and easier to go to bed early – there's just no reason to stay up and let the mosquitoes keep eating on me.

12 March – Kossouka, 9:03pm

It's been a difficult couple of days. A door to door polio vaccination campaign started on Thursday, meaning I'm getting up much to early to go biking around to other villages, and nationally things with the students are just getting worse. Sunyata came and visited for 8 Mars (well, actually it just happened to coincide that her being able to visit was on the holiday) and it was lovely to have the company and see the village through new eyes. Now I have an extra kitten, and unfortunately we got put on standfast exactly an hour after she got back to Ouaga. The plan was that she would go to an art festival in her old village near Fada, and instead of leaving Lion with friends in Ouaga she would stay here with Sophie and me, to be returned when I went into Ouaga for my VAC meeting that was supposed to be tomorrow but has since been postponed. So she's stuck in Ouaga and couldn't go to the art festival anyway, and I'm stuck here and can't return Lion. Oh well, at least she's good company and keeps Sophie running around!

It's finally starting to hit me just how homesick I am, constantly thinking about my friends and college and crew spring break and skiing and Denver and camping and dancing to music I actually like. They told us this would happen but somehow I didn't expect it to be like this. Ilias (the boy who wants to marry me when he becomes a doctor) was saying that now that I'm going to be Burkinabe and live here for the rest of my life I can just forget about the US, and I had to leave abruptly since I could feel tears threatening imminently. It's been very sudden and really depressing – I want to go home so badly it hurts. I know I need to find a family here, but frankly, having a family involves opening up and having obligations – things I've enjoyed not having to deal with since I got here. It's lonely, but I don't answer to anyone about my time. I didn't feel like leaving my house this afternoon after biking around all morning, so I didn't. I didn't have to tell anyone, or feel like I let someone down by not showing up, I just was able to sit and talk with people and read and take photos of the cats and set up my tent as the sun went down. It was so nice!

And, a week later, I'm convinced that both of the cats are boys. I'm going to keep calling him Sophie.

4 March – Kossouka, 8:19pm

I think my kitten might not be a Sophie after all – she might be an Albert. While she's not exactly thrilled with me poking around her groin (in fact, she gets pretty annoyed) I honestly have no idea – I've never sexed a kitten, so I guess if in a few weeks it becomes more obvious, we'll revisit the issue of her/his name.

3 March – Kossouka 8:30pm

Dear America – eh?! I listen to the BBC World News Hour at night to find out what is going on in the world. This recently has been an hour about political issues and the civil wars going on in North Africa. Most “human interest” stories are short 30-second blurbs – i.e. Mazda is recalling a car prone to spider infestation (weird and terrifying) or environmental efforts in Spain. But the NFL dispute between owners and players who can't agree how to split 9 billion dollars in revenue got an extended 7 minute interview. I'm in my lovely little house in third-world Africa, without electricity, without running water, without internet or newspapers, but I know that if the NFL doesn't reach some decision by midnight there are concerns that the next season might be *gasp* delayed or even (don't even think it!) canceled. I agree with Obama – there are people in the US (let alone the rest of the world) who are struggling to pay their mortgage (or, you know, feed their children) and you can't agree on who deserves to be a billionaire vs a mere millionaire – you should really take a hard look at your priorities. I know everyone deserves to get paid for the work they do, but come on. Clearly I just don't appreciate the sport enough.

I'm enjoying having Sophie (the kitten) around. She's getting much friendlier and adventurous, and doesn't jump as much when loud or surprising noises happen. She still sleeps constantly, but that definitely fits me and my life. She has kind of a cute broken squeaky meow, ginger stripes with white patches on her shoulders, face, and paws, a bubble-gum pink nose, clear blue eyes that sometimes take on a gray tint, and a very loud purr. She likes to have her back rubbed, less so for her ears. She tolerates being picked up but doesn't like to be held for too long. Sometimes she wanders around the house meowing for no obvious reason. She likes to chase my feet as I walk (very dangerous!), play with crumpled paper, and chase a q-tip tied to a piece of dental floss. She clearly prefers fish, but I'm hoping to introduce other foods to her diet as well. Her first day she stayed hidden in a corner under my folded cot, but now her preferred place is under my reading chair, which is perfect because I can reach under and pick her up when I want to..

1 March – 7:08am

Busy last few days! After a short week at site (summery: my major was sick in Seguenega for most of it, I did baby weighings, World Food Program rations, wondered what we're going to do with Leukman the 13 year old who weighs 11kilos, kept missing my bissap lady at the marche, found that Alimata the galette lady had been getting her teeth pulled in Kongoussi), I headed out again to Ouaga on Friday for FESPACO, the international African film festival held every 2 years. I was afraid I wasn't going to get to go because of the student riots here – we were getting texts to stay out of the center of towns and to call Congo if we were going to be in Ouaga. So I got his ok and headed in. There were demonstrations and marches in a couple of big cities, and schools across the country canceled school until today (tuesday), but when I got into town it seemed completely normal and everyone I talked to dismissed it as not a very big deal.

I showed up at the Transit House and said hello to everyone. We chatted, went to the bureau to get packages, and then dropped stuff off at the TH. Lunch was attcheke, a shaved manioc cous-cous served with veggies in a mayonaise sauce. It was really good, but I got quite sick after, so maybe I'll be avoiding it in the future. Sunyata and I watched the new Alice in Wonderland and played with her kitten, Lion, but I fell asleep during the movie so at some point I'll have to watch it again.

Woke up the next morning feeling much better and after a shower I went to use the internet and consolidate my packages. I made brownies, much to the delight of the other people in the house, and we planned what we were going to do that afternoon for the festival. We missed going to the opening ceremonies, so we made plans for a late movie as a group at the French Cultural Center. When we got there we noticed the art gallery, so of course we went in to take a look. We assumed that the artist was a Burkinabe painter, but were then informed that actually it was a Frenchman. The paintings were absolutely stunning – strong women, stoic men, abstract figures dancing – all of them were amazing and somehow very touching and moving. I fell asleep in the movie a few times – it was called Visages des Femmes, a 1985 film being shown in hommage to the Ivoirian director who had passed away last year. It was honestly a bit confusing and I couldn't really follow it, but it was interesting enough. After we got out it was pretty late, but some of us were still hungry so we caught a cab to Chez Simon and had a midnight dinner – delicious!

The next day when I was leaving Ouaga I had some bus confusion, but made it to Sabce to see Wendy. It was nice to see her, and hopefully nice for her to have company. We made a salad of potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and mayo – very tasty - and I started playing with the kittens. Although I was a bit hesitant, I went with the one we caught first, who was very calm and relaxed when I picked her up and held her, and although she's no Lion, I think of the two I made the right choice. The next day we waited for her homologue to show up to take us to meet people, but he kept putting it off so we toured a little bit, bought lunch for the girl who helps out around her house, made ourselves lunch of bread with mayo, mustard, VQR, and tomatoes, and played with the kitties.

Once I made my choice and boxed up my cute gingery kitten (who was NOT happy to be in the box but calmed pretty quickly), we went to wait for the bus. We waited. And we waited. We drew a crowd. They finally dispersed. We stopped the first bus but they said the one to Seguenega was coming. Two blew right past town, leaving me in a bit of a panic. I called Salamata, the midwife at my CSPS, and then my major called me back to tell me that the bus was in Malou, about 30 minutes away. I don't know why it was so late, but was incredibly grateful! I hopped onto the seriously overcrowded bus with my boxed kitten, and off we went.

She was so good! Once I opened the box flaps she could peek out and was much calmer – I petted her the entire way home. We got to Kossouka and when I took her out of her box she ran and hid! So I got her, put her back in the box after showing her food, water, and new litter box, and she went to sleep. We played and she slept off and on, and then we settled into bed to go to sleep around midnight. I was worried that she still hadn't peed, but she made it until about 6am when she woke me up to play. I put her in her litter box, she hopped out, we went back to bed, and then she snuggled up next to me so she could pee on me. How sweet. Now we've spent the morning playing and sleeping (well, not sleeping on my part), and now she's in my lap as I type this. She's not immediately as playful and friendly as Lion, but I think she's going to be a nice character to have around.

24 February – Kossouka, 9:56pm

I'm sorry that it's been so long since I've updated! Internet access (particularly reliable, prolonged internet access) is very rare indeed. Life has been busy – up days, down days, lazy days, busy days. In general it's been good, a slow but steady sense of finding my place here. Talking to older Volunteers has also helped me to be a bit more realistic about my expectations for myself and my service here. What have I been up to? I've found our community library (started by the last Volunteer, the only library in our area) and convinced the librarian to be my Moore tutor, I've weighed countless babies every Thursday, I've helped in a door-to-door malnutrition campaign funded by a local NGO, I've biked to some of our satellite villages, I've been to a funeral mass in Moore, I've sat and chatted with my prefet and adjoint mayor, I've tried to explain why I'm not married and finally just started agreeing to marry everyone who offers (I do tell them that they will have to share my affections with their 4 co-husbands and can rotate cooking duty), I've adopted a group of old men as my “Burkina baab-ramba” - my Burkina fathers (who would very much like to meet and take a photo with my American fathers and send their good wishes for your health and wives and fields), I've watched births and vaccinations and no longer feel totally nauseous when watching someone get stitches, I've had discussions about International Woman's Day (March 8!) and about being white in Burkina vs. being white in the US, I've finally tried tô with a sauce I liked, I've learned to love any veggie available (even green beans – aren't you proud of me, mom?), I've read more books than I care to count (although I do have a list going, thanks to Bridget's suggestion), I've gotten bug bites while being entranced by all the stars I can see at night (I see at least one shooting star almost every night, sometimes up to 5 or 6 – it's amazing!), I've traveled by bike, bus, open-air camion, and jam-packed “car” (actually a van, supposed to hold 21 but they can still sell 30 tickets and we'll all be made to fit), and I've started listening to the radio (BBC, Doitchavella Radio – however it's spelled, it's in English from Germany, and occasionally the Voice of America) to get my daily dose of world news. Busy and happy - it's going. I miss you all, and if you have time you should write me (an email, a letter, a facebook message, a text, etc) and tell me what is going on in your life! I'm so glad I get to share my stories and adventures with you, so I'd love to know what's happening in your neck of the woods.

22 February – Kossouka, 8:53pm

Spent the weekend up near Ouahigouya. I was going to catch the twice weekly car between Kongoussi and OHG, but with many conflicting reports on the pickup location and time, after waiting beside the N15 for a while I gave up and biked into Seguenega. I had at least an hour until the camion left, so I took my time and in the cool morning air it only took me about 35 minutes to reach the center of town where a guy flagged me down to tell me that his truck would be leaving soon – 15 minutes or at 8am at the latest. Uh-huh. He knows Alicia, which was cool, so we talked about our IST in March and learning Moore. The thing I noticed biking into town is that everyone started greeting me in French instead of Moore, a welcome if unhelpful change. After the truck left and returned from picking up some bags of grain, a stop in the market to get lumber, a stop to get gas, and a stop to chat with some guys, we were finally leaving town at 9am – not bad, all things considered. I called Alicia and she met us in Nong-Farie and we sat and chatted the rest of the very slow, bumpy ride into the city.

Lunch at the Caimon was unexpected and fun. We met Mike Levoy, the President of Friends of Burkina Faso, who introduced himself and his Burkinabe friends in French, but when we were just speaking amongst ourselves without him we did tend to switch back to English. He's a very interesting guy – high energy, very enthusiastic. We also met Anne Knight, an awesome RPCV-BF 01-03 who had taught in Titao and had fantastic stories, advice, and food(!) to offer us, which we took full advantage of. She's been living in Germany working for the Department of Defense, which sounds so shocking for an RPCV, but she works for a sector that trains African militaries how to abide by international human rights standards. Perfect example of how PC trains you to work in anything. The Caiman was suggested as going along with Mike's theme of a crocodile having to follow the zig-zags of a river, which I still don't really understand in the context of celebrating the 50th anniversary of PC, but I like the restaurant so no complaints.

We stopped in the marche to pick up some veggies for dinner and I'm so jealous! I love that my market is right outside my door, but I might be tempted to bike 7 km each way like Bridget if it meant access to so many options. Not only was the variety there, but things were America-sized! Green peppers, eggplants, onions, tomatoes, green beans, potatoes, mangoes, oranges, bananas, cucumbers, fresh ginger – it was amazing. We parked our bikes at the STAF gare and hopped on the bus to Zogare. David's house is a bit away from the main road, like mine, but his village has solar-powered street lamps (Eh?). We went to meet David's counterpart Maurice, and drank honeyed dolo, ate tô with oseille sauce flavored with pork fat, bread dipped in pork fat, and the pork itself. I have never enjoyed tô up until this point, but this was fantastic. Tô is an amazing substance with the heat retaining properties of potatoes, leading to burning your fingers with every bite as each scoop sticks to your fingers before you can extinguish them first in the sauce and then in your mouth. David has developed scars and callouses from eating hot tô regularly.

The next day was the marche, so after blueberry pancakes (!) we walked around and bought gateaux to dip in our chocolate frosting (courtesy of Anne). We made lunch of taco-flavored veggie surprise and french fries, and planned a dinner of Velveeta mac and cheese (courtesy of Bridget's care package). Al came from Ouaga and David found he had to go to Ouaga, so the hand-off of Simba (Al's puppy who had been staying with David) was going to work out perfectly. We reposed for the afternoon, then went to work in the garden David's been planting with Maurice. We hauled water from the well, transplanted tomatoes, and talked in French, English and Moore. We went home as it was getting dark and spent the evening eating amazing food and talking late into the night.

Thankfully, coming home from a trip to a village is totally different from coming home from Ouaga and I was so happy to be home. It was a good afternoon, and today was nice as well – I met the superintendent of the lycee (yes, it's actually becoming a lycee – a high school - not just a CEG – middle school - like I'd been told) and the French guy from the transport yesterday made a surprise visit to my village. We said hi, he asked if I wanted to get tea, I said yes, after I talk to the librarian, and then after a brief visit in the middle of my Moore lesson, he and his friend were off. It was actually quite odd to have another white person who wasn't a friend of mine in my village – I guess I've become rather possessive of my status as the resident nasara even though I often wish my every move weren't so fascinating to everyone, something that would probably be improved if another foreigner were to settle here.

17 February – Kossouka, 8:36pm

I'm sitting in my courtyard, under the brilliant full moon. Today is our 2 month anniversary at site, or almost 5 months of being in the Faso. It's incredible how hard it is to keep track of time when there isn't the familiar pattern of the changing seasons accompanied by the ebb and flow of the academic year. How in the world do “adults” function without the schedule of first-days, exams, due dates and finals? :p

I don't do all that much talking in village besides a ton of greetings (have I mentioned that you stop and greet nearly everyone?), attempts at conversation in Moore (no I don't understand you, yes I understand when you tell me I don't understand), and occasional chats with my CSPS staff. But when Moussa comes to talk to me in English I finally get to expand on a topic, to the point that he now jokingly calls me “the philosopher”. He inevitably gets me onto a topic that I have trouble explaining in English, let alone French, so after trying for a minute and not finding the right words I switch back into English and he surprisingly seems to get most of it.

Today our subject was March 8. While this day doesn't really hold much significance for most Americans, in the rest of the world it's International Woman's Day. I always loved receiving my annual CD from Stephanie of music by female artists in celebration of the day, but admittedly didn't see the big deal until I got here and realized how much it means to Burkinabe women (and this is just based on what women have told me!). So when Moussa declared himself to be 'against' March 8th I was taken aback – I could hardly imagine anyone saying that, even if it was how they felt! I was really curious to see where he would go with this, so off we went.

His argument seemed to be that there are better things to do to advance women than to have an international day, specifically through pushing education for women. He said that he respects women who have an education, and that if the government gave more scholarships for women and if women worked hard to earn respect from men they would have it. He also was concerned that women who think they are better than men can't find husbands, because what husband wants to be pushed around by his wife? And finally, if there is a single day for women, does that mean the rest of the days are for men?

I started trying to share my opinion in French, but this was going to have to be another thing better expressed in English. I honestly ignored his joking comment about all the rest of the days being for men – I knew I wouldn't be able to argue it convincingly on the spot without coming across as totally defensive. While I completely agree that education is a huge factor in advancing equality and respect for women, I was a little puzzled that he felt it was an either/or situation – we can have International Woman's Day or we can have more women being educated, but not both. We got a little sidetracked on the subject of education and respect, with me pointing out that in the US there is also a severe lack of respect for the uneducated, and that without an education one cannot do much of anything in terms of work. He said “well, you know, you don't need a degree to work in a bar or something like that” and was shocked when I told him that, in fact, you do need to go to bartending school and be licensed to work in a bar – education is everything in the US and while it's legal to drop out at 16, you're going to have a very hard time. He was a bit surprised.

The issue of respect is an interesting one that I started thinking on more once I got home. Moussa, as a teacher, respects women if they are educated. What about Americans? Stereotypically, the person who garners the most respect is a middle-aged, well educated, decently but not obscenely wealthy white male, preferably who either comes from a well-off family, although a lot of respect is also afforded to those thought to have “pulled themselves up by the bootstraps” so to speak. People who are not “well spoken”, who have not graduated from college or high school, who don't move comfortably through middle class society or have the wrong skin color or the wrong bank account balance – these are the people who are not granted that “automatic” respect. The rich older white guy could be dumb as a brick, or cruel, or a criminal, but he will still have a measure of that automatic respect – people will pay attention to him and what he says. The poor immigrant woman who speaks broken English will be passed over without a glance, even if she has earned a PhD from her home country – until people learn that there is a reason to respect her (her high level of education), she won't be respected very highly.

The point that I did make to Moussa is that, no matter what their education or background or skin color or job or sex, people deserve our respect for being human. He said he respects the women of our CSPS staff because they're clearly educated. But we should equally respect the illiterate woman who never went to school sitting next to them, because she's human and her life has value. Burkinabe women work incredibly hard with very little appreciation for their work. They are the first to be pulled out of school when it gets too expensive, they are expected to do chores (and not easy chores – carrying water on your head when you're 7 years old is hard work) while their brothers play, they do the heavy labor of the farm (harvesting, threshing millet, crushing beans) while the men drink coffee and dolo and sit as Presidents and Treasurers on community committees.

So we find ourselves in a chicken-and-egg situation. Men will feel that women deserve respect if they are educated and demand respect. But women won't demand respect or be educated until men feel like they deserve those things. You see the problem. This is where things like March 8th come into play. Will a parade solve the ills of the world? No. But (and here is where I earn my nickname from Moussa and my staff) people need to be given hope. They need to have dreams and aspirations and examples that they aren't alone and that they are valuable and have potential. That is what Woman's Day is about – taking the time to see and celebrate the many accomplishments of women all over the world, to show women that they can have aspirations and hope, to show men that women can do it, that they can be successful in business, in politics, in education, in the home. It's not just a parade to let women march down a street with a sign saying “Look at me! What an oddity – a female lawyer/banker/miner/doctor/mayor/head of household.” It's a parade to let women say “Look at that woman! She started out just like me and now she's accomplished so much – if she can follow her dreams, maybe I can too.” It's a parade to let men say “Look at that woman and how much she has accomplished! Maybe if she deserves my respect, so do my wife and my sisters and my daughters.” It's a parade to let children say “Look at that woman! She's doing something I thought she couldn't – maybe men and women can do some of the same things in life and it doesn't have to be a man-thing or a woman-thing, it can be a person-thing.” A parade will not change the world. It probably won't be a revolutionary or mind-changing experience for most people who see it or even who are in it. But societies and opinions change slowly, from many small things chipping away at the status-quo, and something like a parade and a day to celebrate women and to make people think about the value of women in a society – that's one more small step contributing to a larger movement towards change.

While I didn't change his mind of the importance of Woman's Day, I'm glad I got the chance to think about it and articulate it (sorta). There are a lot of things like this that I have a really strong gut reaction towards, but can't really explain or defend. While I know there are holes a mile wide in my arguments, I also know that there is a reason for International Woman's Day, that even if not everyone values it, it makes a difference to some people, which to me is a good enough reason to have it. I think it certainly says something about the value it holds for women here that I've heard quite a bit about it before even getting to experience it myself, that people ask me questions about it and how it is(n't) celebrated where I'm from (France? Canada? Who knows.).

15 February – Kossouka, 7:45pm

Salad. I love it. I have it. It's good. Boreima didn't take me to the barrage but my staff sent Fatimata, a secondary student, to take me to the cafe to buy a giant bag of lettuce (so that's where they hide it). Wonderful.

12 February – Kossouka, 8:50pm

So I intended to go for a quick bike ride – 30 minutes, maybe an hour. I left the house around 8:30am, chose a road, and set off. I tried to get back to the house of the adjoint priest and ended up chatting with some guys who then asked what I was going to give them. I laughed, said goodbye, and continued on my way. I was back on the main road and soon realized it was the road to Rambo that also leads to Emily's village.

Suddenly, I hear furious pedaling behind me. I ignore it for a while – kids love trying to race the nasara despite my advantage of having a bike with gears. Finally I turned and looked, and who should it be but the guy who gets water for the CSPS staff! I say hello and he asks (in French-Moore) if I'm going to Inou. I didn't really have a destination in mind, so I shrug and say “sure”. We're soon joined by three women I know (I think they're AS's, or maybe AV's – they're around the CSPS, if nothing else) who said they were going to the mass in Inou. But it's Saturday – mass? They bike off and the man and I keep going. He points out the schools as we pass – Kossouka Primary C, Iki Primary, Inou Primary, and then leads me to the Inou CSPS.

We meet the major outside and I'm happy to see her – she's a very sweet lady who occasionally visits our CSPS with her beautiful baby girl (no kidding, her nickname is “Jolie”). She takes me on a tour of the new building and I'm impressed. Instead of multiple buildings in a line, this CSPS is smaller and all one building, with a circular hallway leading to all of the different rooms. The waiting area is indoors, everything is new (and some things have yet to arrive, like all of the tables and beds), and there's a skylight/atrium where they've planted a banana tree! Turns out she was also planning on going to this funeral, so despite being underdressed and without a single cfa with me I decided to tag along.

We biked a little further on the road and pulled up next to a large tent serving as a church. Well, it was more of a metal support frame with tarps tied as a roof and two sides covered with bamboo mats and woven straw walls. A picture of Michel, the man who had died, was resting on a pagne-drapped chair next to a pagne-covered alter that had a small battery-powered lantern serving as a candle. I shook hands with a few people and then sat myself on a bench next to a well dressed woman and her young daughter. She's a merchant from Bobo – I have no idea why she sells way up here in Inou, since it's so small and the trip must take at least two days, but I didn't get the chance to ask.

Mass was very interesting. It started with the choirmaster raising his hands and eliciting a type of singing that sent surprised shivers down my spine. It was almost nasaly or droaning, like a bagpipe, in kind of an erie minor pitch. There was a lot of singing through the 2 hour mass, but it was neat to hear and I even could fake my way through the choruses when the video camera started coming in my direction. The pastor must have shouted for almost the entire time – I'm impressed he still had a voice at the end. I've clearly forgotten the order of mass, because I kept trying to figure out what part we'd be at in English and failing terribly. It would have been more interesting in French, so I'd have a hope at getting the gist, but in Moore I was almost utterly lost. Still, a very exciting and unique experience – I'm glad it's considered socially acceptable to just show up to a funeral without invitation (or maybe that only works if you're the nasara – I'll have to ask).

After I was pointed towards my major, who had apparently returned from her trip, and we followed someone to a house for lunch. I was seated with all the heavy hitters – the mayor and adjoint mayor and prefet of Kossouka, the priest, the majors of both CSPS's, and a couple of people I didn't know. I had a nice conversation with the mayor before realizing he was the mayor, but at least now I can go say hello (you can't go visit someone until you've been introduced...meaning someone has to stop their own stuff long enough to head your pleas for an introduction). It was a good lunch – veggie mixture with a mustard vinaigrette (potatoes, green beans, carrots, raw onions, cucumbers, and tomatoes), riz gras with the usual meat/cabbage sauce, and some kind of cooked meat. I was given a black can emblazoned with “Biker Beer” on it, which pretty much tasted like every cheap beer you've ever encountered, and chose to stick to the zom-koom after that (a drink made with millet flour).

We finally said goodbye and walked back to the place where we'd left our transportation options (my bike, their cars and motos). I made a date to talk with the prefet on Monday, and promised to return to Inou soon. I like it – it seems like a nice village! I went to fetch my bike and ran into our water guy, who parted the crowd of children gathered around me and insisted on walking my bike out. I figured it was just to get past the crowd, but then he kept walking down the road with me. Through some gesturing and misunderstood questions I figured out that a) he was not on his bike because he wasn't going home yet, b) he intended to walk me to the CSPS to meet up with the major, and c) he was going to have to let me just get on and bike home because the major had already left the CSPS. By this point the kids had caught up and crowded around us again – there must have been 50 of them! He commanded them to get out of my way, and as I got settled on my seat a tunnel opened up in the sea of children. I said goodbye to my escort, then, like the beginning of some bike race, I gathered speed as I rushed past my starting gate of kids who then broke rank and chased after me shouting and laughing. I couldn't help but laugh back, and wave over my shoulder as I quickly outpaced them, and I kept smiling for a good while as I enjoyed the beautiful bike ride back to Kossouka.

I had to rush when I got home because Sylvie told me (as we were leaving Inou) that there was going to be a meeting of the AS's (Agents de Sante) at 1500, and it was already 1400 when I got back. I dashed to the water pump, said hello to Luddi (the younger sister of Djeneba), and got two bidons of water so I could shower and have enough left to start laundry early tomorrow, before the water turns on again (it's solar powered, so only works from about 9am to 5pm). Quick shower, then over to the CSPS. The meeting didn't start until nearly 1600, but I know that the one time I'm late it's going to start on time, so I still get there when I'm told to. Didn't get to go to the marche, but I didn't need anything too badly. The meeting was entirely in Moore and the bits I did catch were so out of context that it just left me confused. Next time, I'm asking for the cliff notes version the next day instead of sitting through it.

After the meeting, Boreima asked if we could change my tour of the barage to Tuesday, which I of course said was fine. I can't wait! Not only will I see another satellite village, I'm going to get just-picked lettuce, tomatoes, and carrots! Score. They don't sell in our marche for some terrible reason, so I'm guessing I'll be making return trips – for lettuce, it's worth it. He also asked the CoGes women (who all teach Moore) if they could start tutoring me, and they all seemed very reluctant and non-committal. While it would be better if I had some kind of consistent “you will have a lesson on these days so you better study in between” to motivate me, I think I'm doing alright on my own now that I have Simon to answer my questions and help me work through my new workbook.

8 February – Kossouka, 7:58pm

This morning I was feeling all inspired from my lists yesterday and intended to head over to the CSPS to talk to the staff and get some recommendations on how to approach people around the village. Instead, I ended up meeting Rakietu. Rakietu is a grandmotherly lady, who initially greeted me with the same old conversation of “you don't speak Moore?” but with such an incredible grin that I couldn't help but stick around to see where this would go. With a little help from a younger woman who spoke French and Moore, we established that I wanted to learn Moore and Rakietu, still with her warm grin and sparkling eyes, started to teach. I don't really remember much of what was pointed out to me, but the process was delightful. She waved me into the cooking hut outside of the maternity, a comfortably warm room scented with woodsmoke that sheltered 3 mothers and their newborns from the wind. I was introduced to the babies (2 girls and a boy), and then we proceeded to name fire, water, pot, oil, wood, feet, hands, lips, eyes, clothing, breasts, and shoes in Moore. My immediate thought was that I wanted to adopt her as my grandmother, and perhaps I should be writing this all down. There was a lot of laughing, but it was so nice that it was laughing with me, in delight of my new-found knowledge and desire to repeat new, tongue-tangling words instead of the typical sense I get of being laughed at for my ignorance.

Rakietu was pulled away and I eventually drifted over to the CPN office to listen in on the pre-natal consultations and birth control shots. A group of men from the district office showed up and started a “hygiene inspection” which was clearly making the midwife nervous since she kept looking out the window at them while doing the consultations. After all the women had left, I went to sit outside and work on French when some men showed up and started sitting down. The first introduced himself as a teacher at the middle school, and we sat in companionable silence as more people started to drift over. Moussa showed up with a big group, and they all trudged into the maternity. When they came back out he introduced the other teachers to me, which was awesome. One was a guy who I see at coffee in the morning, so now I'm going to ask him to explain what people are saying to me.

The repose was nice – I could get used to this 3 hour break in the middle of the day. After a relaxing afternoon of lunch, reading, and talking to friends, I headed out to try and find the library. I actually, unbelievably, got to use the sentence “Ou est la bibliotheque?” with the guys at the photocopy building and they pointed me in the right direction. I was welcomed to the Maison des Jeunes by the gardian (I guess it would translate to the proprietor) and he introduced me to the gardian of the library and gifted me a Fanta. I was hesitant to accept it since a young woman taking a gift from a man can be quite suggestive, but he explained it was to welcome me and I decided to take it at face value – I was thirsty.

I talked with Simon in the library for a while, explaining that I was looking for books to help me with Moore and perhaps even a tutor. The books to teach Moore to kids here weren't very helpful since they're for teaching kids who speak Moore how to read, not to teach adults who can already read other languages how to speak Moore. But I showed him my list of verbs and he slowly helped me to fill in a few until I felt like we should probably stop so I could get a handle on those verbs before making him trudge through the next 3 pages. We agreed that I'll come back in a few days to learn a few more, and I paid my 500cfa to become the 149th member of the library and checked out a children's book in French and a book of African myths, also in French. When I go back to Ouaga I'd like to see if I can buy some cheap books for the library, or even some that are bilingual French-English for all the people who keep saying they want to practice their English. He was very nice, and I left with a big smile.

Overall, it was a good day. I kind of want to keep the momentum going and talk to the mayor tomorrow, but I'm not sure if I can just drop in. And part of me wants to go back and see if Rakietu is still around the CSPS. We'll see. I'm so excited to feel like I'm getting somewhere!

7 February – Kossouka, 8:31pm

It's been getting hard to force myself out the door some days. I don't mind going to the CSPS if I can hide in the vaccination room and work on French or Moore, but facing people just seems more than I can take right now. I know I'm not doing myself any favors, but I just feel like I need more language before I can even begin to approach anyone who doesn't speak decent French, and without a tutor I'm just not making any progress whatsoever. I need to set goals for myself, things to do. Small is good to start, but there has to be something.

Things I could do now: track down the adjoint priest, track down the family with the screened windows, go to the library, go sit with the CoGES president, talk with the woman from Terre des Hommes, talk with people in the marche, visit the mayor and prefet, go on bike rides through the village, buy cloth and get local clothing made.

Things I can do with help: visit the chief and chief de terre, go on vaccination sorties, take tours of other villages, take tours of our village, talk to CoGES about the PACA tools and enlist their help in implementing them, find out what community groups work in Kossouka, ask what the Agents de Sante do in each village, meet the inspecteur and take tours of all of the schools.

Things I can do when I have a little more Moore: talk with the women in the maternity, read Moore books, talk with kids and teens, start developing sensibilization materials, get a better idea of what people see as health problems here and what I can do to help.

Steps I need to take to do these: get out of my house, ask my CSPS staff for protocol surrounding surprise visits to people and greetings as I bike by (do I stop? Do I just wave?), ask for help finding a tutor

Huh. Now that I've written it all out, I guess there's a lot of little steps I can take now without waiting for my Moore to improve. Cool. Sunyata was right, sometimes you need a list, but sometimes you have to understand that you won't get it all done, that sometimes each thing takes an infinite number of steps. That said, I can't allow myself to become as passive as I've been. It's going to happen with time, but if I don't try at all I'll never get anywhere. I've been complaining that my Moore isn't improving, and it isn't, but now it's time to do something about it. I've been complaining that I don't have many friends and I'm not well integrated, but now it's time to leave my house and do something about it. As we said – a house is built brick by brick, but one cannot build up those bricks into a solid house if one doesn't get off one's behind to form the bricks in the first place.

3 February – Kossouka, 8:29pm

The trip back to site was the easy part. This morning I went shopping with Sarah and Karey Kelly, two awesome volunteers from the stage before mine who kind of reminded me a bit of Caitlin Pritchard. I changed my mind at least 10 times about going home today, decided on a yes and got Harouna (my new favorite taxi driver) to whisk me to the STAF station where he helped me find my bus and haul my giant bags on board. I will call him again and even overpay him if it means he continues to be so incredibly nice and helpful! The trip was long and dusty, and then I couldn't get any water once I got home because it was after sunset (solar powered tap) and the pump was locked. It was hot so I drank most of the water I left and used just a little to wipe myself off from the dust – a shower would have to wait. Lesson learned – don't worry about the water molding, do not leave all the water containers empty.

It's been a hard transition back to village life, and I was really caught unprepared. 5 days was just too long to be away, and being in Ouaga meant being around lots of Americans, to the point that it was hardly necessary to speak French at all, let alone Moore. I got off the bus and had to fumble for the evening greetings in Moore (since hardly anyone speaks French), and suddenly the French-Moore melange that my CSPS staff speak among themselves seemed even more confusing than normal. I totally understood Shannon's reasons for not wanting us to come to Ouaga during our first 3 months, but I don't think she has to worry – we'll come in when we have to or if we have a very compelling reason, but I can't imagine making a regular habit of it if the shift back to living in village is this...abrupt.

Lucky for me, my transition back was helped by having a job to do. We started a malnutrition campaign today, funded by Terre des Hommes. I found out that health agents in the villages get per-diem for doing stuff like this, which was kind of discouraging as I don't have 30,000cfa to drop every time I want them to do something with me (although, granted, I hope I won't be asking them to go door-to-door in every single village). What kind of ideas can I bring to bear on the problem that's better than going to check every single child for malnutrition? Our team in Napalgue only found 3 who qualified as being moderately malnourished, and one of those turned out to be 4 months too old to qualify for the target group (59 months or less). It was frustrating that this child, small enough to still be malnourished by younger-child standards, was basically ignored because she didn't fit the criteria. I did realize logically that they need to reach out to the most vulnerable population and that they can't afford to help every single child in need of more food, but it was still really sad even though it made me see an opportunity to maybe start a project in the future.

29 January – Ouagadougou, 4:21pm

It's weird being in the capital and not taking advantage of being here besides seeing Americans, using internet, and eating at restaurants. I've been here for over 24 hours and have yet to pick up my packages or go shopping, or even buy phone credit. I picked up some new books from the TH, checked my facebook and email, and had our first VAC meeting this morning. It's kind of weird being here, but also still easy to fall back into more familiar surroundings – electricity, showers, fans, movies, etc. I've been meeting a bunch of new people from other stages, and after following them around I'm starting to feel a little more comfortable navigating around Ouaga.

22 January – 9:11pm

Today, as always, was an adventure. The coffee guys this morning were very into speaking with me in Moore, which is always a bit challenging since they refuse to translate even when they know how to say it in French. There was something about my name that was fascinating them this morning – they just kept repeating “Ouedraogo Alimata, Alimata Ouedraogo” over and over and laughing. They laughed uproariously for a good minute when I tried to say “I'm going to go eat” in Moore and wouldn't tell me if I had said it right or not so I said bilfu “see you later” to the general crowd and took my bread home for breakfast.

Then I went to meet the Chief de Terre! (a position in the village passed from brother to brother to son or nephew - whoever is the oldest and wisest) The CoGes member, who I was afraid didn't speak French, actually speaks quite a bit, and we also went with my major to a part of the village I hadn't seen before. I need to practice my moving speeches in general so I have a good response when they shower me with every benediction they can think of – it seems to happen every time I'm introduced to someone and I feel bad that I don't have very much to say back besides “Thank you”.

I got a new giant bag of rice (next up, finding flour), onions, almost decent-sized eggplants, almost normal sized citrons (not sure if they're limes or lemons, honestly – they're kind of in between green and yellow), onions, carrots, green beans (!) and peanuts at the marche. Ilias said he was coming for lunch, as did the guys at the botique where I bought my macaroni and rubber bike strap, but I'm glad I didn't actually make anything because none of them came. I ate samsa and gallets for lunch, with bissap, gingembre, and degue (millet soaked in milk) from Odille, who speaks French and teaches me Moore. I was so full and it was awesome. I lounged, did a little work on the monthly reports, talked to some girls who stopped by (always awkward but kinda nice) and made a delicious dinner of tomatoes sliced with salt, pepper and olive oil, followed by green beans and carrots fried in oil with soy sauce, ginger, and sugar. Next time I'll use a little less oil or try using water, but it was so tasty!

January 21 – Kossuka, 2:01pm

Yesterday morning Emily came with me to baby weighing and ended up leaving atound 3:30pm, just in time to find out that there was going to be a CoGes meeting! Finally! I went and sat around and started pulling data from the monthly reports for 2010 that Sylvie gave me, but nothing actually got going until after 5pm. One CoGes member is going to come take me to meet some people tomorrow, but otherwise I didn't really get to ask for much help, which was disappointing. They asked if I had plans for sensiblizing for the month, and I explained that at this point I haven't the foggiest what I should be working on, but could use some ideas. Nothing further was said. Oy.

And then to this morning. I finally washed my hair and “bathed”, and I can't wait to clean my house and go to the market tomorrow. I went to the CSPS and sat in on CPN's (Consultation Pre-Natal)– one woman came in and was about to go behind the curtain when said she was bleeding. We took her into the birthing room and Salmata explained that she was having an abortion. We got her on the birthing bed and she looked pretty full term to me, and then the midwife said that actually, she's giving birth right now! She barely has time to put on her gloves and get a bucket of soapy water ready for the used instruments before this woman, with barely a sigh, is pushing out her baby. It was pretty intense, and the baby actually looked stuck for a good few minutes, but all of a sudden the head was out and it started screaming like crazy. Despite how skinny the mother was she gave birth to a very healthy looking 4kg (8.8lbs) baby boy. Salmata guided out the placenta and showed me how to check to see that it was whole. Cool stuff!

We finished the CPNs and I was happy to see a middle school student (age 16) come in for a birth control injection. Salamata and I talked about birth control use in BF and the US (I tried to explain that people generally expect you to use birth control but there's also abstinence only education that leaves some students in the dark about options). I would love to get to sit down and talk to her about it more. We also discussed how people end up working at CSPS's – you need your BAC to become a State Nurse (IDE – Infermier d'Etat) but only to finish terminal (12th grade) to go to nursing school to become a midwife or other level of nurse (at least, I think that's how it works).

10:32pm

I killed my first scorpion! I was sitting, reading in my chair and felt a bug on my arm so I turned to look so I could brush it off, but caught a glimpse of something moving on my wall. I said a few choice curse words very loudly, then grabbed my headlamp and heavy sandal, moved my chair, and smacked it. Thankfully it was just a little bitty one, less than 2 inches. They aren't poisonous but the sting still hurts quite a bit for a couple of hours (as we found out from Bridget in Romongo). I'm glad I sleep under a mosquito net! Overall, my house is relatively bug-free so I should count my blessings. I scraped a few termite tunnels off the wall above my stove today and I occasionally find crickets (dead or alive), but I've only seen a rat outside on my garbage pile once and the cockroaches know to stay in the latrine pit. I ignore the spiders who occasionally show up on my ceiling, although the one that fell on me while I was reading I felt totally justified in killing. I encourage the lizards to come inside and eat whatever they happen to find – in fact, I thought that's what the scorpion was at first. (As of now - Feb 26 - I have yet to see another scorpion, thankfully!)

20 January – Kossouka, 1:07pm

Sometime you need a mental break from being in Africa, so you meet up with a bunch of Americans and have a party. We had made plans to meet in OHG to go to Al's village about 17km away, and despite not feeling totally ready to leave my attempts at becoming integrated in my village, I was really excited to get to see everyone. Getting into town proved to be quite the adventure, but we all made it and I was the first to be waiting in front of the Post for the rest of our little group.

I told the guy who worked at the art stand next to the Post that I wouldn't be around very often so I would not be able to teach him English or stay with his family once every few weeks, but offered David as someone closer by who could teach him - for some reason he didn't seem very enthused by this prospect. We biked over to the cyber cafe for a few minutes, then went out for a delicious lunch of salads, fries, and amazing garlic chicken. We stopped to get a few things at the alimentation, then started biking back to Al's village. Even though I love Al and her house, I will not be making that bike trip again anytime soon. It was almost completely uphill, with 4 very large hills that had me going very slowly indeed. Al, David and Bridget took off, and Alicia, Emily and I were the slow goers, out of sight of the fast bikers, but in the end we all made it.

We stopped in the village next to hers to get more stuff at the marche. We had quite the crowd following us! We continued the last 3km, then saw the CSPS and settled into her house. It's very nice, and even though my house is bigger I feel like hers is more solidly set up. The furniture is minimal, but sturdy and practical, and she has electric lights and outlets! Her shower drain didn't work, but her latrine area was huge and had a secondary drain as well so we showered in there. She sleeps on a lipicot, and between the two rooms we had plenty of space for all of us to sleep on the floors.

The first night we made beef stew – meat for two meals in one day! We browned the meat and onions in giant skillets, then added the potatoes and carrots and spices and braised them in chicken-bone water (we had brought the rest of lunch with us for Al's puppy - Simba). Delicious! We sat and talked, drank the dolo that David had made, and generally had a good time remembering life among Americans.

The next day we woke up with the sun, ate pancakes with M&Ms and the rest of the fried dough balls, and made benga with salt and hot sauce for lunch. We then had cabbage salad with tomatoes and mayo/mustard dressing, and veggie surprise of sauteed green beans, green peppers and carrots in hot sauce and salt. Have I mentioned that Al is an amazing cook? We started watching Avatar, but halfway through Al's counterpart came to take us on a tour of the village. We started at the barage where we saw the gardening, the available land, and the crocodiles. There's an airport (of sorts) up there and we visited a lot of neat places – I wish someone in my village could take me on a tour like this! He explained that all the piles of wood near the only area with trees each belonged to a certain family, and no one would take wood from a pile that wasn't their family's pile.

We returned home and the fast bikers went to Youba to get food while the rest of us did dishes. We had beef soup when they got back, with bread, then started making a new veggie surprise – green beans and carrots sauteed with sugar and salt, and then mac and cheese. We finished the movie, looked at some photos, and quickly fell asleep. The next morning we watched Fern Gully (!), cleaned up, and headed to Ouahigouya. We had a delicious lunch, went to the internet cafe (never enough time) and said goodbye.

At 3 Alicia, Emily and I got to the gare to catch our camion, but of course it didn't arrive until close to 5, and after loading everything we pulled out around 5:30pm. I found myself in the back of an open-air transport truck, sitting on a bench among piles of food, luggage, and supplies, topped with passengers. The moon was full, but it was still dark when we got to Alicia's village where we left her and about half of the stuff in the truck. It was getting cold and we were all covered in a thick layer of dust, and Emily and I weren't looking forward to the bike back to my village from the drop off at Seguenega, 11km away. We pulled up through the town, getting a glimpse of the nightlife, and we were tempted to ask if they would go on to my village until they backed into a spot that left them clearly pointed back towards Ouahigouya.

We had just started loading up our bikes when the truck next to us started it's engine. We hurriedly asked around in French and bad Moore where it was going. When they said Ouaga we finally found the driver and offered to pay if he'd drop us next to the road to my village. Although desperate, we rejected the first price of 1,000cfa each because we'd paid 1,500cfa for the last truck to take us 5 times the distance that this one would be, but quickly agreed to 500cfa each. We hopped into the back of the open topped, tall sided cattle/transport truck and high-fived in our delight. I'm actually impressed we didn't go deaf with how loud the truck rattled and shuddered as we bounced along the road. They said they were going to pull into the town for us, which I took as them being nice, but it turns out they were offloading some of the stuff in the truck in my village anyway, so I guess we still were overpaying for our quick ride. But it was absolutely worth it, and I quickly found my house in the dark. First travel adventure – successful.

Sorry it's been so long! It's hard to get to internet from my new site, but here's what I've been up to in the last month.

9 December – Romongo, 9:14pm

Today we had an interesting session with one of the higher-ups in the health system, the director for the Central-West Region. It really helped make the distinction for me that we work at the village level, overseen by a district, overseen by a region, overseen by the top country officials. He spoke wonderful, easily understandable French, a decent bit of English, and had worked with Peace Corps in placing volunteers in the past so he was very knowledgeable about what we were there for and was confident that even if our specific impact couldn't really be measured due to all the other aid work that goes on in Burkina, he will always request to have us here because he knows we make a difference. We also learned that at a national level, malaria, acute respiratory infections like pneumonia, diarrhea diseases, and HIV/AIDS are the most pressing concerns for the country, particularly the first two.

The national campaign against HIV/AIDS has been incredibly successful, with most current rates being quoted around 1.3%. While this could be due to any number of quirks in survey techniques and reporting rates, the country did take a very strong stand in the mid/late 1990s and the Ministry of the War Against HIV/AIDS (roughly translated) is headed by the President himself. All ARVs are free, provided you can afford the blood tests to find out the specifics of your particular strain and stage at your district or regional capital, which may or may not be feasible. Pregnant women are tested and treated for free as part of the campaign to reduce maternal-infant transmission. Oddly, it seemed obvious that many would not be able to afford the blood tests when we were told that they could cost between 11,000 and 15,000cfa, which is a lot of money here but only comes out to $22-$30. $30 to determine which free drugs you need to save your life, but it's too high for most everyone I will be working with over the next two years and unsurprisingly it seems like many people avoid getting tested or work very hard to avoid disclosing the results to anyone for fear of the stigma attached to being HIV+. Some people are chased from their villages, particularly women, and while there are some resources available at a big city like Koudougou for free ARVs, vocational training, and housing, many will struggle to survive on the fringes of society near their village.

It sometimes feels really overwhelming – you can't possibly help everyone, even if you're willing to raise money to afford testing for people, or to provide nutritious food to everyone, or to pay for transportation to higher levels of medical care. And I know that's the Peace Corps niche, capacity building so that a village and community can improve their standards of health through prevention of disease – hand washing, using mosquito nets, early treatment at a health center, assisted births – but even now in the “abstract” it's hard to know that at some point I'm going to have the ability to help an individual person that I personally know by giving them the money they need. While the Peace Corps can't control what we do with our money, they give a compelling argument for not starting a trend of paying for necessary medical costs. For one, it's not sustainable. While that doesn't seem like a big deal in the face of the pain of someone you know, here you're almost certain to come across not just one person who needs your help, but an overwhelming amount, and you could easily spend all of your time trying to solicit money from friends, family, and organizations in order to cure serious situations while not working to prevent more. And what happens when you leave? The savings and credit club that you helped to establish might be able to help provide emergency help, or perhaps those income-generating activities (IGAs) that you helped them to get off the ground would allow enough “extra” income to save for medical expenses, but if all you did was pay for the need yourself you've now left the community even more in need because they now know what is available but don't have the means to access it without you. I understand that and I absolutely support the need for sustainability. But I know that the first time I turn someone down will break my heart, even if I help them find the money elsewhere (and usually they can from family, but as the “rich” foreigner we tend to get asked first).

We talked about setting boundaries for our houses, for visiting times, for privacy and time alone. We talked today about integration. Some people adopt village names, work hard to learn the local language, and dive into their work, hardly ever leaving site. While they usually bond more with their community and feel more “integrated”, Aaron (Harouna) remarked after about a year that he was losing his identity as an American by molding himself to meet the expectations of his village, and that there's something to be said for still being seen as a bit of a foreigner (albeit one that is clearly no longer a stranger). The other extreme is someone who spends a lot of time out of site, insists on an American name, and speaks almost exclusively in French. They may not feel very well integrated with their community, but also are more sure of their self-identities as Volunteers serving for a set period of time to improve the health knowledge, attitudes and practices of the village as best they can, and might be slightly better prepared to re-integrate to American society (or perhaps worse off since they expect to have an easier time). I still haven't decided the tack I want to take, but I'm hoping that I will find a good balance between being present and integrated in my village, and keeping my sanity by leaving from time to time.