There's a Wet Moon on the Rise

            So here I am, almost eight months into being in this country, and there really is not all that much to say. Yesterday, whilst visiting Kelly in Réo, I saw a pig that had just keeled over and died, so that was fun. Apparently swine flu is a big thing here. It was a pretty grotesque site. We were just biking along en route to get some brochettes and beers, and there is this seemingly healthy pig on the side of the road on its side with flies surrounding it, dead as a doorknob. I wish I had gotten a picture of it, but the smell was pretty unbearable. Animal husbandry is kind of a big project here, though there isn’t all that much to do, hence why it is so frustrating. At any normal day in the marché, you will see a Burkinabé drop probably 400 CFA on dolo. A vaccination costs 100-150 CFA. You can sell an adult pig for about 30,000 CFA for slaughter. The amount of money they are losing in their animals just dropping dead is astounding, but they do not seem all that motivated to do anything about it. That is the trouble I face on a daily basis, a lack of motivation.

            In Bouldié, the soap-making business has really taken off… and by that I mean we have made it a couple of times and it seems like it may be something that will stick around. We actually have made a bit of money off of it, around $30, which is not very much in the scheme of things, but 15,000 CFA is better than no CFA at all. My organization is obsessed with solid soap. The problem is the oil costs too much and the profit is basically nonexistent. The first time we did it; we lost a little bit of money. The second time, which they are selling off that soap now, is going to make us a couple hundred CFA, basically nothing. The liquid soap on the other hand, makes a couple thousand CFA each time we do it. They see the profit, but for some reason still don’t like doing it. It is also harder to sell, so they say. I do not believe they are really taking advantage of the market in Didyr, and instead just trying to sell it in Bouldié, which isn’t going to work. I am trying to convince them to get out of the mindset that solid soap is the greatest thing ever, and do something that is going to make us some money. Hopefully with time this will change.

            It is almost June now. The heat really started at the end of February and has been unrelenting. When I say hot, I really mean hot. There has not been a day under 100°F in months. The rain should be right around the corner, but that is what I thought at the end of April as well. The nights have cooled down, and I’ve been sleeping fairly well because of it, but I learned recently that sleeping during rainy season is going to be brutal. It rained the other night, for a while. The sound of the rain hitting the tin roof is unreal. A light drizzle is loud. When it pours, it sounds like the whole house is coming down. Hopefully it doesn’t. Somebody told me a story about a house collapsing and killing two people inside. You just can’t trust mud! The small amount of rain has also shown was a mess this landscape is going to be when the rain does arrive. The puddles that appeared all over the place really drives home the point that malaria is a problem. Mosquitos that carry malaria can breed in puddles the size of donkey footprints, so the thousands that will be everywhere once the rains really start is definitely going to be a problem. Maybe the people will actually start using the mosquito nets that I know they all have. It makes me very glad that I have a net, and I’m on prophylaxis, or it just seems like a guarantee that I would get it. You can tell the rains are powerful from looking at the dry places that have clearly been filled with water in the past. The water literally tears the earth apart. Parts of land are jagged from where the current swept large chunks away, and parts of road have just fallen away, which understandably makes me nervous.

            In other news, a crew of us headed down to Bobo-Dioulasso for Cinco de Mayo. It is insane how different everything is only five hours south of me. Everything is green, and the temperature is significantly lower (though still uncomfortably hot). We went to a beautiful hotel that had a pool and hung out, drank beers, and just had a good time. Then we left that beautiful hotel, and stayed in a dinky little place that cost less than a fraction of the price. Oh the glorious lifestyle of Peace Corps Volunteers! That was a very expensive trip and basically drained me for the month. While it was a great time, I do not think I will be heading down there again for quite a while just because my wallet can’t take it. I decided a while ago that hoarding as much money per month as possible is the best idea to enjoy awesome vacations when the time comes. A bunch of my friends have already gone on vacations, and thank goodness I can pick their brains on what to do.

            There are some vacations in the works currently. My buddy Clayton recently received a Fulbright Scholarship to Cyprus… needless to say I am proud of him, but want to kill him for getting to go live on a gorgeous beach in a gorgeous country for nine months, while I will be here, likely sweating and frustrated. The jealousy bug hit me hard. But the Fulbright will supplement the price of his flight to get there, and he gets to book it. This is excellent for us, because then he should be able to do a little stop in Western Africa. We spoke yesterday, and much to his dismay a safari is out of the question. Most of them are wickedly expensive, and most of them also do not run trips in August, the end of rainy season. This makes sense considering the whole region is a big watering hole and your chances of seeing animals are slim to none. When there is no water, all of the animals crowd at whatever water is left, and the variety can be pretty awesome. I plan on doing that next February. It would not seem just to live in Africa for two years and not see an elephant or lion. Instead, I think we are going to get an ECOWAS visa (ECOWAS is the countries that encompass the African Franc including Burkina Faso, Togo, Benin, Mali, Sierra Leone, Senegal, and I think Gabon?) and go to both Benin and Togo. I was told of a hotel in Togo that is super cheap, right on the beach, and just down the way from a casino where you can gamble all night for less than $200. I’m in. Then we hop on over the boarder to Benin to an even cheaper hotel, right on the beach, and enjoy fresh fish and live music and fruity drinks, hopefully with umbrellas in the them. To me, this sounds like absolute paradise.

            Then, potentially immediately after, my dear mother will be visiting. We will probably spend a bit of time in this country, and then hop over somewhere else. I’ve been trying to talk her into Morocco, but we’ll see where the plans actually take us. I’ll let mom deal with all that, and I will happily oblige anywhere she wants to go. As long as I get to eat some delicious food and see my mommy, I’m a happy camper. We might go down and stay at the nice hotel with a pool in Bobo, maybe a night in Koudougou, a couple in Ouagadougou, and maybe visit Sabou where there are the sacred crocodiles. They keep them well fed so you can basically do anything you want… I’ve seen pictures of PCVs sitting on them and grabbing their tails. It isn’t the smartest thing in the world, but it makes for a hell of a picture. They say that they don’t attack people, but if you dig far enough, you’d learn that every couple of years somebody isn’t so lucky. I’ll trust the odds and hopefully not give my mother a heart attack.

            Other than all of these things, hitting that eight-month mark seems like a big thing. 2/3 of a year is a long time. Hopefully once I hit the year mark the work will be moving along. It probably won’t be that much different than it is now, but who knows, maybe we’ll turn a big corner. I have some things to look forward to, and I am counting down the days until I can get in a vacation! Anybody that wants to come along, join in the fun! Contact Clayton (those who know who he is) or myself, though I will not respond in a timely manner. In other news, congratulations to my cousin Danielle and her husband Marcus on the announcement they’ll be having a baby in December! If you read this, name him after me. It’d be awesome if we had the same name AND the same birthday. Then nobody can screw up the order in saying names while singing “Happy Birthday”. Shout out to my former roommate Tim for finally getting some orders and moving to Virginia. Hopefully he will get stationed in the large military base in Ouagadougou where he will be safe and we can drink beers together. Another shout out to Kara for dominating with the rowing team and leading them to their best season ever. And lastly, thank you to everybody who has continued to support me by sending me letters and packages including Tim & Kara, Karen, Jane, Mike, Pat, Danielle & Marcus, Mary & Tom, my wonderful mother, and Morgan. The last three there have sent me so many I’ve lost count, and these are the things that keep me sane so THANK YOU! Anybody else I forgot in there, I’m really sorry, or I haven’t yet received it as the mail takes forever and I have not been in Ouagadougou for almost three months, so who knows what’s waiting for me. Take care everybody!

I said a long time ago I'd put up some Baobab pictures... Voila.

My buddy Todd showing some relative size