This post in clip-art: 
Before I start, I need to recap the
most important things that have happened recently that you all already know
about, but I find these things out after-the-fact. The Cards whooped Florida’s
ass in the Sugar Bowl! Teddy Bridgewater is my (second biggest) hero and he’s
going to do big things. The Redskins went on a streak-and-a-half and won the
NFC East outright! Unfortunately my real hero, RGIII, hurt his knee and we lost
in the first round. That is still one hell of a turn-around! Lastly, the Cards
are tearing it up right now and whooped up on some Kentucky ass! I’m pretty
sure when I post this on Thursday we will be #1! I heard the Cards ended up like
12th in football, which is garbage as to how badly we dominated UF.
I couldn’t be prouder of my teams (excluding the awful Wizards)! Now on to the
blog post:
Wow, a month at site as of today.
The days are long as hell, but the time does seem to be moving rather quickly.
Of course, it helps when you have something to look forward to like… leaving
site. Seems awful, but it is unfortunately true. This is definitely challenge.
Things that have never been challenging for me, like talking to people for example,
are the hardest things in the world. It is actually a struggle to get myself to
leave my house everyday. I spend an unruly amount of time in my house reading.
The language barrier is awful, especially since my tutor left for Abidjan,
Ivory Coast a little less than a month ago. My counterpart could take over, but
I would probably shoot him, or me. Besides, he’s illiterate and that would not
bode well for a tutor. So until my first tutor returns, hopefully within the
next few weeks, I will continue to struggle with communicating with anybody.
I am surprised at just how few
people actually speak French in this village or Didyr, the next one over. It is
kind of crazy. What I have learned about myself is that I can sit inside all
day and do absolutely nothing, and make the time pass by faster. I have now
finished The Art of Success 2.0 by
Rick Pitino, a motivational book given to me by my buddy Dave Madden before
leaving, The Last Hunger Season, An
African Farming Community on the Brink of Change given to me by my Uncle
Tom, which was surprisingly relevant to where I am and also rather infuriating
as it is about the significantly better off nation of Kenya while Burkina seems
all but ignored, and today I finished The
Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which was awesome. I am excited to watch the
movie to see how they match up. It is ridiculous that I, a true advocate for
watching TV over reading, spend a majority of my time with my nose in a book. I
know I made note of this in my last blog post, but I still cannot really get
over it.
Anyways, I thought I’d get into
what happened over Christmas and New Years and such. I decided to stay in
village for Christmas, as it occurred a mere ten days post-moving in. It was
anything particularly exciting. I hung out in my house in the evening, and then
at around 21:00 I followed my counterpart, Pima, and his friends into Didyr. We
went to a bar and sat under a tree on a night with almost a full moon. I was
confused as to why on a night when there was actually natural light, we stayed
underneath a tree in complete darkness, but that is just the mindset of the
people here I guess. We drank a couple beers, in basically awkward silence, and
when they spoke I could not understand. After like three beers or something, I
went with Pima to go find a chicken to buy, cooked, and ready to eat. After
like the fourth place we eventually found a place that had a Pintade, or Guinea Fowl, ready to go. I
paid for it, and when we arrived back at the first bar we began to eat. It was
gone within four minutes. The Africans attacked that thing like zombies; it was
ridiculous. I was not particularly pleased as it was not cheap and I barely got
to eat any, but at least I got a beer or two paid for in the evening. At 2:00
my time, I found out the temperature in Didyr was 72°F and I was FREEZING. I had my
hood up and my arms folded into my sweatshirt, which thank goodness I brought.
Imagine that; 72° on Christmas and you are absolutely freezing. I guess this
country really has affected me! We returned at like 3:00, slightly inebriated,
and I went to sleep.
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| Christmas Day Dolo! |
Christmas Day was nothing too
special either. I went into Didyr again, this time with only my new friend,
Basolé
Navila, and we drank dolo and beer. I ate a salad, which was actually
delicious, though definitely not a good idea... I’ll get to that. On the way
home, we stopped at the Mayor’s house, where he was having a gathering with all
of the fat cats in the village. He had a feast of salad (again not a good idea,
but very tasty) and pork. He gave me free beer, and even some Jack Daniel’s! It
was like being in America. I got home, watched a Harold & Kumar Christmas,
and went to sleep.
The next few days I was plagued. I
am convinced it was from the salad. The water they use to wash salad is not
treated, and as I ate three plates of it, I believe I paid the price. I felt
like garbage for the next four days and became best friends with my latrine,
which just seems to be an overall theme of Peace Corps. Then it was time to go
to Ouagadougou for New Years, which was a much-needed break.
I biked thirty kilometers on the
morning of December 30th. When I arrived in Réo I was greeted by a smiling Kelly, a friend
from training. I was not in a particularly wonderful mood. My tire popped
halfway through the ride and I walked for about fifteen minutes until I found
somebody to help me fix it (it is since popped three more times and I can do it
on my own). Of course, I was on top of a mountain, or very large hill, when it
popped, and I ended up having to finish the bike ride in the noonday African
sun, which sucked. My day was turned right around when Kelly and I went out in
Réo.
Réo is a nifty town. It has 60,000
inhabitants and electricity basically everywhere, sans Kelly’s house of course,
thanks Peace Corps. We went to a little restaurant and ate pork, and then a bar
that had freaking Heineken! We had a couple rounds and continued to another
place. There we met with her counterpart Margo, who is awesome, and bought a
cooked chicken. Funny story when we were sitting there waiting for Margo to
arrive. Kelly and I were discussing how hard Lyélé is and I was telling her the
words that I could remember off the top of my head. I thought I remembered dog,
but was not positive if I had it right. When the waitress came over to give us
a round, I asked her in French if kouli was
dog in Gouransi (the overall language, Lyélé is just a local dialect).
Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication there and she informed me that they
only have chicken there. In other words she was telling me that they didn’t
serve dog there. I felt like moron, but I am very confident I asked the
question correctly, she is just not a big French speaker as is normal in the
area.
Anyways, we ate chicken and chatted
with Margo and drank beer. I learned that Pima is almost impossible to
understand because things went very smoothly with Margo and her French. By the
time Kelly and I left, we were good and drunk and returned back to her abode.
The next day we got a ride from somebody at her office (she works with a real
organization; they have Wi-Fi!) into Koudougou, where we made our bus to Ouaga
by about 47 seconds. The ride was smooth, minus the tire popping, something
totally not out of the ordinary. You know it happens a lot when they had that
bad boy fixed in less than five minutes. We arrived in Ouaga, went to the
bureau to pick up packages and mail, ate schawarma, and continued to the
Transit House (house with 35 spots owned by and solely for PCVs). I took a
glorious and much needed shower, remember my shower usually involves a bucket
and a plastic goblet, and we went out.
We ate dinner at Moulin Rouge and
took full advantage of the 1,000-cfa liter beers, and then headed over to Bar-K
(remember barka is thank you in Mooré and K is pronounced ka in French, great
play on words I think I touched on before). I had a horrible headache and
wasn’t alone in feeling like crap. I had a friend bring me Tylenol and powered
through to midnight, when we all took a shot of Tequila. My liver just loves
me. Then we went to Calypso, the same bar we went to on swear-in/my birthday.
The music was nowhere near as good as they stuck to the crappy African techno
and we were tired, but it was still quite fun. We returned back to the transit
house and conked out. I slept on a couch about half as long as I am. It was
really comfortable.
The next day Ouagadougou was like a
scene out of I Am Legend. The entire
city seemed to be shut down, deserted. A group of us meandered about town for a
while doing the most ridiculous things you can think of entertainment. We went
into a hotel and sat on their couches and stared at their pool. We hung out in
their bar, again sitting on couches and never ordered a drink. We marveled at
their elevator, the first any of us had seen in the country. We went into a gas
station for a good fifteen minutes and were amazed at how nice it was. A gas station. They must have thought we
were nuts. We walked for probably six miles or so in search of a place that was
open and had beer. We finally enjoyed
a round and then discovered the restaurant we planned our dinner around was
also closed. Frustrated, we walked back to the main stretch of restaurants,
where we knew a couple were open at this time. We stopped in what turned out to
be an awesome place. It was owned by a French guy and was definitely a date
place. A Bob Dylan album played, all in French. We drank beer on tap and
Screwdrivers with mango juice instead of OJ. It was great, but the food was
pricey so we continued on to another restaurant. I was on a fruity drink kick,
so I got a Peña Colada, and it was delicious. I ate a pizza and was
uncomfortably full. We returned to the Transit House and we were beat.
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| I slept outside one night, it was cold, needed extra clothing |
The solar panel has made me relax
considerably. Just knowing I can charge something is a very liberating feeling.
If I’m going crazy, I can hole up and watch a movie or TV. I still watch something
every night before sleeping (right now I’m on an Arrested Development and Eastbound
& Down binge), and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
Lastly, I feel completely useless
here! I know I’ve only been here a month and I know of a bunch of different
things that I plan on doing with or introducing to this community. However, as
of now I feel about as useful as tits on a nun. Like I said before, I spend a
lot of time in my house. I have not yet learned the language, nor done a
project. I will likely wait until February before I start teaching how to and manufacturing
soap myself. I need to get some capital in my account before I go spending a
bunch. I assume after that things will be a little bit easier, as it will give
us something to do together and my credibility will be a little higher. This
can also start producing money towards their long-term goal of installing an
advanced irrigation system. That doesn’t mean anything for the next half a
month though. I’ll still feel useless!
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| Little Ellie and my dog, Taco |
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| Taco and I! |
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| Sketchiest dumbbell ever that I constructed |
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