Hello all. We are almost finished with our second week of training, thank goodness. It is pretty tiring. Luckily, the rainy season has finally started so we've not only had some really cool storms but the weather has cooled down a lot. Last night, we didn't even use our fan!

Just to give you an idea what "training" is, here is a general description. Training is divided into a few categories: language, technical, medical, and cultural. We have four 2 hour blocks a day. Normally there are two language blocks, one technical, one of something else like medical or cultural. Our technical training is all about getting us ready to be in front of a classroom so we have been learning about the structure of the Burkinabé school system and classes. This week we started presenting our own lessons. Yesterday we each presented a 10 minute intro to the subject and "motivation", which is the attention-getter for the students, in French. On Monday, it is 15 minutes in French in front of actual students. Pretty exciting!

Our language class varies from textbook lectures to various activities around town. For example, for our class yesterday we were put in groups of two and given the names of two bus stations in town. Our job was to ask directions at the marché to the bus stations and once we get there ask for prices and departure times for three different cities in Burkina. It was pretty fun except that it had rained a lot yesterday and the dirt roads had become mud puddles so I got really dirty and then I got a flat tire.

Last Sunday we spent the day at a hotel that has a pool. It was great. I paid 1000cfa to swim and 2500 for a hamburger and fries (which is a fortune compared to the typical lunch for 300cfa), but is was definitely worth it.

I will leave you with another great language mishap. This morning, Aaron was trying to tell our language teacher that "you are going to teach your students ..." but ended up saying "you eare going to impregnate your students".

That is about it for now. Thanks Steph for calling, it was great to talk to you. And thanks to mom, Ron, Val, and Keith for trying to call. Sorry we missed you.