Burkina Livin' Closing in on the Year Mark!

          A lot of people have asked me what it is that I really do here. I guess that answer is expected to be simple; I teach children or I do trainings about prevention of Malaria. Unfortunately, it just isn’t all that accurate. The Peace Corps lifestyle is a truly unique experience that is almost impossible to describe correctly. Every volunteer has a different experience based on their site and their community members. Some of the stories are great and some are horrible. Many of them involve a night of drinking, while many others involve Burkinabé making fun of us for not being able to use a daba (short-handled hoe) or not being able to speak the local dialect. For me, my days at site are usually all about the same and honestly, it isn’t much of what you would expect from somebody who is supposed to be “changing the world”. However, in order to understand the mentality of a Peace Corps Volunteer and grasp the struggles that we face, it is necessary to understand what fuels our frustrations. To demonstrate this, I am going to give you a nice rundown of a normal day at this point in my service in Bouldié, Burkina Faso.

            First, I wake up at anywhere between 6:30 and 8:00. I try and get up by 8:00, but in retrospect it seems pretty silly based on what I do with the rest of my day. I get up and put on water and visit the latrine outside. Sometimes these are switched when Africa’s notorious stomach maladies are taking control. While the water gets to a steady boil that I let sit for at least three minutes to kill who-knows-what that is living in it, I clean my dishes from the night before. I use a plastic teapot, liquid soap, and a sponge, and wash everything over one bucket. It is pretty monotonous and if there are a lot can be quite a pain in the back, but it passes the time well. Then I make breakfast. This usually consists of oatmeal with sugar and varies between Nutella with raisins or honey, raisins, and some cinnamon. Other times I make scrambled or fried eggs. It is good to get a bit of protein in the morning since it really isn’t an option the rest of the time.

            I sit down and eat my breakfast and drink coffee, reading either newspaper clippings (or comics) sent to me from my wonderful American support system, or whatever book I’m reading on my kindle. At around 10:00 I grab my solar panel and put it outside. This seems easy, but since it is slowly eating away at the battery it is quite a hassle. I have to take a knife and scrape away the battery acid that is constantly covering the negative charge. I then have to do the same with the connector (think of jumper cables on a car battery because that is exactly what it is), and clean them all with a handkerchief that has been mangled by the battery acid slowly eating it away. Finally, I make sure the electrical current is there by hitting the negative and positive charges together. If there is a spark, we’re in good shape. I then resume with my reading. Depending on if there is actually something to do or not, I will sit in my house until around 13:00 and read. If I need to get something or don’t feel like preparing food, I will bike the 5 km to Didyr and get lunch there and buy whatever materials I have. Seeing as I do not really have any solid friends in village, I can never seem to spend more than one or two hours there. I’ll sit and drink some tea and maybe have a short conversation with a guy who wants to start an English club but won’t take any initiative, and then call it a day and go home. I will then resume my reading until usually it gets dark. I will randomly go out and have a conversation in French with my counterpart or speak briefly with the people who live in my courtyard in Lyélé, but I never have any idea what they are saying to me, so that involves a lot of me nodding and then speaking in frustrated English. Then I will exercise a bit, but it is challenging to continue that daily, as it is so hot all the time. I make my dinner and eat while watching something on my computer. Then I take a bucket bath, and watch some more television on my computer. This is where that solar panel is so crucial because I can get at least a bit of charging every day, and can power a weak light in my house so it is not so miserably dark. I usually go to sleep between 21:30 and 23:00. I discovered a few months ago that listening to music as you go to sleep drowns out the sounds of the creepy crawlers that constantly inhabit the house, which is nice. The camel spider count sits at 17, while the scorpion count remains steady at 7.

            Before the rainy season came my Thursday’s were used as organization meeting days. Now, there just isn’t time for it. Everybody is in the fields all day long and there is not much to really get done. So really the only thing I can do to help is work in the fields. I tried this and felt a lot more like I was in the way than I was actually doing anything useful. I did plant about one kilogram of soy seeds, which should be followed by four more. Also, we will randomly get together to make liquid or solid soap, though really they don’t need me for that anymore. They know where to get materials and how to do it, but still always do it at my house anyways. This is good; at least it’s something!

            Now you should be able to appreciate the two weeks I spent in Ouagadougou during June because I just didn’t know what the heck I am supposed to be doing here. That was certainly the closest I’ve been to requesting a site change or even leaving altogether, which I have since totally changed my mind about. However, I was not in a good place mentally and stayed in Ouaga to get things right in my head. Much of the issues many of us are facing can be blamed on the Peace Corps offices in both Washington and Ouagadougou. Washington blames everything but their own office for why this country’s success rate is one of the lowest in Peace Corps. Since I arrived ten months ago, I have two country directors (one left for medical reasons, but still) and a third one will probably be coming before December. I have had either three or four program directors because one just has no idea what is going on and they can’t fire him based on his contract and Burkina Faso laws (totally screwed up). We’ve also had two project plans with a third one on the way. All of these changes in ten months! It also seems as though they still are not sure of what direction they want to go in. Are we an agriculture program? No. Are we a business program? Not quite. Are we mixing the two and focusing on business-based agriculture with random micro financing words thrown in there? Uh… maybe? Whatever it is, of the eight people in the group I arrived with, we really don’t know what we are supposed to be doing or how we’re supposed to get it done. The people who are currently on their way out have seen three country directors and seen the project plan change around four or five times. Maybe this contributes to the lack of efficiency on our part, and maybe Peace Corps needs to look internally and make the necessary changes to actually get this program together.

            Alongside that, I certainly take some responsibility for struggles. It is extremely challenging to get out of the house. There is lack of language that makes every conversation exhausting, and beside that, this is just a weird place. Some of the people that are extremely motivated just aren’t educated enough to really be able to do anything. A concept like supply and demand doesn’t click with them. So, with all of my struggles physically and mentally, I spoke with somebody in DC who gave me a bit of good advice which I have taken to heart. She told me to take this time and use it as an opportunity to fulfill the second and third goals of Peace Corps. These are the cultural exchange aspect. Teach them about America and absorb as much as I can to bring back to America with me. She told me to all but forget the first goal of providing trained workers (good because I’m not trained in anything they sent me here for) and set things up for the next volunteer. They also told me to get out of site and don’t let myself get too stressed out. I may have taken the get out of site thing extremely literally, because I have spent a ton of time out of site recently and will continue to do this until October. I’ll get into that in a minute here.

           I have such an appreciation for everything that I had in America. It sounds so cliché, but even the things that we really don’t even think about in the US would be life changing here: A spigot and a sink to wash my clothes and dishes with, a light switch, the ability to get whatever food you want whenever you want it and then keep it fresh if you can’t finish it, getting into a car to go wherever you want to go and getting there in a timely manner. These are the fairly obvious ones. I find myself being nostalgic about things that nobody should want to happen to them. For example, getting strep throat and being miserable but being comfortably wrapped in a blanket and eating soup sounds rather glorious. How in the name of all that is good can that be something that I miss?! Sitting in a classroom and listening to a boring lecture. Being hung over on a Sunday and reminiscing with friends of the goings on of the night before. Ok that last one still happens, but we’re all profusely sweating as it is occurring, and hang overs are truly miserable here.

            In other news, I visited my friend Natalie’s site in the southeast called Komtoega for another volunteer named Emma’s birthday. Transport to get there was crazy. It took like six hours and most of that was of course when we had gotten off of the main road and onto one of the worst dirt roads in Burkina. Every ten feet was another massive pothole that we had to swerve to avoid. My friend’s Amber and Kara were with me and they were amazed when I feel asleep with my head on the window in the midst of all the bumps. Burkina has taught me to fall asleep anywhere; crowded, loud nightclubs and bush taxis included. Anyways, I awoke when we damn near careened off the side of the road. That’ll get your heart beating and was certainly a rude awakening. We hung out and watched movies and then after the surprise of Emma arriving and us jumping out to welcome her, we drank beers and roasted a pig for only 10,000 CFA! A whole pig for $20! It was rather gruesome to watch the stick being thrust through the mouth of the pig and come out the other end, but the meat was absolutely delicious. Emma and I even ate the tail of the thing… it was surprisingly good!

Emma and I with our portions of the tail!

Turning the pig, working so hard

L-R: Me, Amber, Emma, Fynn, Emma's counterpart, Natalie, Kara, Donna
Us with the delicious pig right before we cut it

We left there and after a brush with death on the dirt road on the way back we made it back into Ouaga. I went back to site and stayed until I ventured to my friend Katie’s site called Boudry about two hours east of Ouaga. Different place, but more of the same: chicken, beer, and hours of watching Community, which is absolutely hilarious for the record.

Camp G2LOW, in Burkina men don't usually carry things on their heads so the kids were cracking up

            After Katie’s site we continued on to Camp G2LOW Fada N’Gourouma. Fada is a large city about 3-4 hours east of Ouaga and is the epicenter of the east. It was a cool, though spread out, city on the way to Togo, Benin, and Niger, so massive trucks are rolling through all the time. They are very intimidating. G2LOW stands for Guys & Girls Leading Our World and is an international camp that Peace Corps Burkina has been running for years. About 80 (many kids randomly showed up late so the number isn’t exact) came from all over the east and southeast and even a few stragglers from the southwest, which makes no sense because there were also camps in Dedougou (west), Kaya (north), Banfora (South), and Boromo (Southwest). The kids were chosen by their respective schools for being good students so when they came they were actually motivated and put forth effort. We taught them about family planning, STDs, HIV/AIDS, nutrition, gender and sex roles, puberty, and such. When thinking about kids in America going to camp and learning things like this I laugh, but considering the alternative is working in the fields for hours and hours on end, I am not surprised at all that they were there. I lead sessions on gender roles, STDs, and a session called “Coaching for Hope” which uses soccer to teach about HIV/AIDS. I feel like I got more accomplished in that week than I have in my entire ten months here. Naturally, Peace Corps is trying to cut funding for Camp G2LOW. Genius. I made a video for the camp that will hopefully be used to raise funding for next year. I really enjoyed the week and will definitely do it again next year if given the opportunity and I do not have to do administrative stuff.

The camp portrait. I'm up front on the left side

We made a dance for cultural night to Michael Jackson. This is me pretending to sing "The way you make me feel." We screwed with my hair that night, as you can tell.

Me doing a formation on STDs... the kercheif necktie is super classy

            After Camp G2LOW I visited my friend Amber’s site on the way back to Ouaga. She lives in a village called Wati Noma and it is a mere 40-45 km from Ouaga. Her village is the most like mine that I have visited. She lives en brusse, or in the bush, but only about 2-3 km. When I arrived it was a market day so the city was pretty crazy. We had a couple beers and then went back to her house, which is mud just like mine. She is terrified that it is going to fall down… it isn’t, but I see where the fear comes from. The next day we went into town again and I couldn’t get a cold sachet of water. That is a strange dynamic. One day it is packed and you can get anything. The next day it was like a ghost town and we couldn’t get anything. Life here revolves around market days.

            I came back into Ouaga and applied for my Visa to go to Benin and Togo and that trip is right around the corner, which I’m pumped for. Clayton comes into Ouaga on August19th, just in time for the new group to swear in on the 20^th and we can attend that party. We will go to my site and maybe experience some other Burkina “treasures” before leaving for Cotonou, Benin on the 25^th. We’ll stay there for a few days (probably more in Grand Popo, Benin than Cotonou) and then continue to Lomé, Togo. Clayton leaves on September 1^st, and I am going to have to stick around until the 3^rd because there aren’t any buses back to Ouaga before then. I’ll get back here and go back to site for a bit, and then my wonderful mother arrives mid-September. We’ll do some Burkina ex-pat living and then jump on a plane to Casablanca, Morocco. We’ll see Casablanca, Marrakech, and maybe Fes and Rabat. That is to be seen. I am so excited to see my mother and visit a new country and experience a place with a culture unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It should be a blast. After all of my vacations are done I’ll have to figure out what to do with myself, but for right now, I’m pretty darn content. I bet Clayton is going to melt in the heat and get some bad diarrhea… living the real Peace Corps life! That’s all for now, I’ll update this post vacation! Enjoy these pictures!

This is what I look like as of today. 

Taco has grown significantly. He will sit, shake, and lay down... sometimes even stay.

This is what my water looked like when I was at site 3 weeks ago... mmmm looks like dolo.

My counterpart Pima wearing my gloves and sunglasses to avoid the lye when making soap. Pulling it off.

Our most successful solid soap operation

This dust devil tore roofs off of houses in April, it was nuts

My organization when I joined them in the field

Random Memos! A Ride to the Brink of Insanity

I realized I forgot somebody in my thank yous in the last post and I feel like a fool! Thank you so much Nancy for the Camel Pak and the packages! Also I just received a package from Dan & Martha, so thank you two as well! Everything is greatly appreciated!

So as I sit in my glorious mansion of a house or before I go to sleep staring up at what was stars, but is now usually clouds or my roof as the rains have begun to arrive, I usually have a substantial amount of time to just do nothing but think. The things that come into my mind are usually stupid and unsubstantial; usually regarding food, what I will I do on vacations, or what I will do when I return home. Sometimes I think about how I can fix the issues I am having with my organizations. Sometimes I just stare at a wall until I realize what I'm doing. However, sometimes, I come up with what I would call gems. When one of these gems blossoms it's way into my brain, I try to always remember to record them on my iPhone. These have been collected over the course of the last month-ish, and I wanted them to shared with the world. It's only fair that you all learn the importance of the epiphanies I have at site, in the bush, in Burkina Faso. It is surprising how many of them are movie-related, until you remember whom it is that wrote all of these. Enjoy.

Sometimes I just stop drinking water for a few hours so I can stop sweating for a little while.

You know you'll have trouble adjusting back to American pricing when paying $5 to get pants completely tailored is just absurd. And for $2 my beer better be at least a 40oz. 

You know you need a break from site when you are considering buying a goat just to slaughter it so you don't have to hear it's incessant whining all night. You also know you've become entirely too desensitized to animal slaughter when this doesn't seem all that crazy. 

Sometimes I dream in French... It must just be nonsense because I do not speak French very well. 

When people speak to me in local lang and then obviously make fun of me for not understanding, I usually just respond with English obscenities, then when it's obvious they don't understand, I just switch to random noises. They never know the difference, and it's hilarious.

This is one of...if not the only... circumstance where being confused as French is both an insult and a compliment. 

Dune is a really long book. They should remake that movie... Maybe leave out the first 30% of the book, because it is boring as hell.

What happened to the band Orgy? I liked them. They had spunk.

How to market my Peace Corps experience: I am excellent at isolating myself and can make babies cry simply with my presence.

A couple times I've been confused as being Canadian. Do I look like I'm scared of the dark?

Deodorant is a luxury for me now. I only wear it when around other Americans. It's expensive and I blend in better if I don't smell gloriously like a summer breeze.

You know you're bored when you've considered burning yourself with lye just to see if pee really will neutralize the burn... don't worry, I don't actually plan on doing this one. I accidentally burned my arm with it; that stuff sucks.

It's funny how life works; you spend your entire winter dreaming of summer. Then you move to a place of never-ending summer and you dream of seeing snow like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, which I'd also like to see again.

The song at the end of Mortal Kombat is the same song as at the end of Mean Girls. 

When I was a sophomore in college I lived in a house with three other boys. We had no dishwasher, and though I ate out a lot (like every night), I swore that I would never again live in a house with no dishwasher. The next year, I moved in with two swimmers. We had a dishwasher, mediocre as it was, and it was glorious. The next year I broke my promise. I lived without a dishwasher, and it was horrendous, even worse than the first time. After that I was very serious and adamant about the lack of a dishwasher… Now I wash my dishes bent over a bucket, pouring water on the dish via teapot, washing it, and then repeating. Seriously though, after this, I will never live without a dishwasher again. I swear it!

Heat rash is about as fun as eating a bag of rusted nails.

It drives me crazy when somebody gets a drink in a TV show or movie, takes a sip, and then abruptly leaves. It's so unrealistic.

I've lived here for almost eight months and haven't cut my hair... I've only used half a bottle of shampoo and conditioned it one time. Jealous?

10 Things I Hate About You is the quintessential 90s movie. A young Heath Ledger, Julia Styles, Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the 3rd Rock days, and Alex Mack. The Cardigans, Barenaked Ladies, and happy ska music. It's the ultimate nostalgia-driven movie. 

The revelation you have after killing a very tiny camel spider in your house is a horrible one. It means there are probably many, many more. Most of those I probably won't see until they aren't so tiny...

Alongside that revelation is the one that camel spiders follow scorpions... You can pick up on where I'm going with this.

I have revelations like this quite often. I will probably be throwing a few on every post from here on out.

In other news, things haven't much changed in the last week and a half, but I do have something to work on. I joined the Information Communication Technology (ICT) committee for Peace Corps. I joined it because I enjoy making videos and this was the organization that had media as one of its subcommittees. After I joined I realized that I am rather useless in that department, but this committee did have another thing that I find very important, and has not been well utilized by Peace Corps Burkina called Institutional Memory. I decided at the last committee meeting that I would take on two projects for this subcommittee. I would compile a simple language base for all of the languages that they send volunteers to. I sent out texts to all the other volunteers from my training group asking them to bring their notes to our in-service training in March, or type them up and email them to me. I would have wanted this when I got to site, so I figured it was a logical thing to give to the next group (G28) that shows up in Burkina tomorrow (this means we, G27, aren't the babies of PC Burkina anymore!). I was going to give it to them when they find out their sites in about a month or so. 

Well, I learned pretty quickly that this was a good idea in theory, but not in practice. There are too many languages and sub-languages in this country. There are over 70 of them. I speak the third string of a language less than 500,000 people speak in the world. Less than 10,000 speak my specific dialect, and there are places like that all over the country, so this project would be impossible. It is also extremely frustrating when you learn something in training, and then it is almost non-applicable at your actual site. I learned basic things in stage (internship in French, word we use for the 3-moth training), and basically all of it was useless as the dialect is different where I live as it is in Reo, 30km away, as I've said before. Also, my friends on the most part did not bring their notes, nor did they email them to me. I gave up on this project.

Out of that idea however I've had two more projects that are better in idea and practice, and hopefully they pan out. By doing a horribly miserable cold-calling campaign, I will call basically every volunteer in Peace Corps Burkina and ask about two different things. The first is what major projects they have been working on, how it is going or how it went, what problems they've encountered, and how they would do something differently if they were somebody else trying to d this project in the future. This way we don't have to keep reinventing the wheel each time somebody wants to do a project. The next idea I think is going to be essential to PCV's throughout Burkina because it entails vacations, which every volunteer looks forward to. I will find out where people went, how they got there, how much it costs to get there, how much you should expect to spend depending on what you are doing, visa information, places you can stay at and their rates/website information, language information, and what there is to do in that country or city specifically. This should help volunteers and their friends and families plan vacations without the haphazard, "I have no idea what I'm doing" feeling that everybody feels when they are trying to go to a place they've never been to.

Hopefully both of these projects pan out. They are going to take quite a while, but hopefully I will have enough information to give to the training group after the one arriving tomorrow before they move to site in December. At that point I will have been in country for over a year and be counting down the days until I am reunited with friends and family. I'm starting to understand what people mean when they say service flies by. I have a very long time left. I've only been here eight months. However, when you look at the future and how things are going to seriously spiral, it really doesn't seem like that much at all that I have left. In August I will take my first vacation out of country to Togo. In either September or October, I will take another one with mom. In late October another group will show up (G29) and hopefully I will work their stage as a facilitator (I find out in two weeks). Also on October 9th, we hit our year in country mark. In November we have our Mid-Service Conference for a week, and then in December are my birthday and the holidays. After that, we hit 2014 and with vacation days still left over, and hopefully a certain comfort level with my surroundings, I will be in my second and final hot season, followed by the rains, and then I go home. 

That said, it is June 2nd. I leave in November or December of next year, so I think I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. Oh well, at least I have some things to look forward to! I hope everybody is well, and that nobody has killed as many spiders and scorpions as I have in the last week. The count is now up to ten camel spiders (three in one night) and six scorpions (one immediately after the three camel spiders, all within 40 minutes of each other!). I really hope I never hit the twenty-mark for any of these hellacious beasts! 

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