Another Update

So I wrote this long entry after finding out that week we didn't have school for an entire week. I'll save you the details. Suffice it to say that we asked plenty of questions about how to plan the final few weeks of class and were rewarded by showing to an almost-empty school. I'll note here one little quirk of the Burkinabé though:

Learning that class had been canceled for the week when I should be teaching and not the week before is one thing. But this information was not just passed on to us, "Hi Amy and Aaron, there is no class this week because of the strikes. See you next Monday." No, instead we walked into empty classrooms and then decided to go hang out with the other teachers who seemed to be waiting for the late students. It was during this casual prattle that the censure, the guy with all the info, mentioned in passing how there was no class. This is how it is with all important information. If you don't listen carefully you'll miss the whole point.

Another typical exchange: I sat down at my favorite sitting spot in town and this guy approached and asked if I wanted coffee. Well, this was new to me so I asked, "That's possible?" And he said, "No, there's nothing."

On another note, I've been meaning to mention the bird situation here. It is quite surprising, but Burkina is a mecca for bird watchers. On a typical morning or evening bike ride I'll see many awe-inspiring birds. There are the huge diabolical vultures. The intense falcon (that may have eaten one of our cats), the fighter jet-inspired hawks, the iridescent tropical birds, many brightly-colored song birds, white crane-like birds that go lost on their way to the Nile, something similar to a kingfisher... My favorite bird though is the feather bird. I know, aren't all birds "feather birds" and isn't that a stupid name? Here's the thing: imagine the longest feather plucked from a California condor's wing. Then shove it up a hummingbird's behind and you have the "feather bird." This minutely-bodied bird steers itself through the air much like a rafter navigating rapids--he paddles furiously and seemingly to no avail, but somehow he makes it out alive. A film of this bird in flight would be a great addition to that "air is a fluid" science lecture. Watching it swirl though the sky you have no doubt of air's fluid-like nature.

Book update:

Book Number 13: A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

An excellent book. It sums up the history of science from Newton to modern biology in a never-boring way. It's filled anecdotes of the crazy, boring, and sometimes evil figures in science history. Bryson set out to write the book because he had never taken an interest in science and realized as a result he had no clue how scientists knew the amazing things they know. Therefore the book is extremely accessible, informative, and entertaining. It could help change the popular geeky view of science in America.

Book Number 14: Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

Another winner. This book manages to write seriously, creatively, and... dare I say beautifully... while making fun of serious creative writing and never undermining itself. It's like a basketball star convincing everyone that basketball is lame and so are its players but yet you marvel at his talent and lack of arrogance. I think even the ridiculous critiques of the book on the back cover were written by the author. If you want to read something classically new, read this iconoclastic burlesque.

School's Out!

As of 7am this morning we are finished with our first trimester. All the grading and recording has taken us most of the last 3 days but we are finally finished. The thing about not having electricity is that you don't have Excel (among other things) so that means you are writing the grades for hundreds of students and calculating their averages by hand. And all school records are written in ink on carbon copy paper so you normally want to do it more than once to make sure there are no errors before you record the grades. What a pain!

Our students did pretty well. We can always tell which students have cheated on our tests because they will have the exact same completely absurd answers. On my last test I has a true/false question asking whether 'l'homme' (man) is an example of an autotrophe (plants that make their own food) and I had three boys say that 'l'homme' was not an autotrophe because it was 'les femmes' that prepare all the food at the house.

Our big victory this week was that Moussa, our student that hangs out all the time, has solved 3 Sudokus!! I'm so proud. At first, when it was taking two days to do a word search, I was losing hope, but he's getting the hang of it now. Also, we have a few sprouts in our garden already. We already have some little bean, carrot, thyme, and tomato plants.

Yesterday the US Ambassador came to visit us. Okay, she didn't come up to visit us specifically, she was in the area and stopped by, but we still felt like celebrities. She even brought us a Christmas present of homemade brownies and banana bread: it was awesome!

Animal update: we are down to one cat and one pigeon now. Moussa thinks someone stole our pigeon but we aren't sure. So I guess we have plenty of room for chickens now. There's this mangy dog around town that Aaron wants to adopt (he calls him a 'fixer-upper') but I think I might veto that (Editor's Note: With a little TLC he'll make a great dog. I think of him as an investment. Kind of like that VW 'fixer-upper' Bug that's been sitting in my parent's garage for years).

Well, I guess that is all the news. The weather here is still warm so it's hard to believe that it is almost Christmas. The other day it was actually cloudy and we got about 10 drops of rain, which was pretty exciting but aside from that it's sunny and warm. We've been told that midnight on Dec. 24th it will get cold (kind of like how in a month we will have electricity).
Thanks to Mom and Ron for the packages.

Tabaski

Nye Taabo a tout le monde. It turns out that this week is a big week of Burkinabé holidays. Monday was the Muslim holiday of Tabaski, Thursday is a national independence day, and Saturday is the anniversary of a reporter that was killed and all the students go on strike. Naturally, Aaron and I were about 2 steps behind everyone else learning about all of this. The whole situation was really confusing. We were told that Tabaski was coming but nobody seemed to know what day it was. We get the whole week off of school but we didn't find this out until we arrived at school ready to teach. These holidays are a big deal, too. It would be like if nobody told you about Thanksgiving in the States.

So Tabaski is called the fête of the mouton (sheep) and is one of the big Muslim holidays in the year. Everyone starts early with prayer in the morning and then around 10 they kill the mouton and start preparing a big meal. So what better way for us to celebrate and learn about it than by eating chicken with our Catholic friend? Our friend, Bernard, had us over for some chicken, soup, and dolo (imagine really bad wine). He was telling us that in Burkina, Muslims and Christians celebrate each other's holidays. So on Tabaski or the end of Rhamadan, his Muslim neighbors bring him food from their feasts and on Christmas and Easter he brings them food. (Basically, they just like a good party.)

We are thinking of getting a chicken and starting a chicken family at our house so that next year we will have our own chickens to eat for the different holidays. Bernard picked out a cock to give us so we just have to buy the hen and we're in business. We haven't seen the turtle in a while and one of our cats (the one good one) has been missing for a week (there is a chance that a neighbor ate it), so our animal population is almost back down to a reasonable level which means it's time to add some more. I think we will wait until after Christmas.

For Christmas this year we are going backpacking in Dogon Country, Mali for 5 days. It is supposed to be a must-see in West Africa so we are really excited. I'm not sure if we'll have cellphone reception so sorry in advance if we don't answer between the 23rd and 28th. Then we'll be back in Titao for New Years (Bernard has been building Titao up to be the Times Square of Burkina for New Years Eve, but I'm a little skeptical).
Okay, miss you all and hope you have a great Christmas!

Thanksgiving

Happy holidays everyone! I hope you are all getting your fill of cheesy Christmas songs in all the stores. We've been decorating our house for Christmas. Our theme this year: overkill. I would say between the streamers hanging from the door (Aaron calls this our "Christmas spirit") and the tons of stuffed Santa dolls in every room we are doing well.

Thanksgiving was lots of fun. We started first thing in the morning by killing the pig (we named it Bacon) and while the pig was being cleaned we snacked on some banana bread, goldfish, and beef brochettes. Then it was time to kill the 5 chickens we bought. Aaron and I each killed one and some other volunteers killed the other ones. Combine that with mashed potatoes, brownies, and beer, and you have a real feast Americana.

We did feel a little awkward the next week at school when the other teachers kept asking how our fête was (we didn't invite them, very unBurkinabé of us). The lack of an invitation didn't stop one of the teachers from coming by mid-dinner with his wife and kids and his neighbor's wife and kids and announcing that he came to eat dinner with us and can we pass him a beer. Oh well...

Dec 1st was AIDS day. I wanted to do something for my class so another teacher said he would get someone from the local clinic to come and speak to them. A week before, I reminded him and he said it was all settled "pas de problème". Three days before, I mentioned it again and he gets a blank look and says 'I thought you were finding someone' (but in French). So the night before we have a lady we don't know comes by the house and say that she was told to come to school and talk to our class the previous day and she went and nobody was there. We didn't know anything about this but asked if she could come the next day at 7 and talk to our classes. By 7:30 the next day, I gave up on her and proceeded to hold my own AIDS session. We're still not really sure who she was, and we haven't seen her since. I figure she will probably return at some completely random time ready to do AIDs education.

While I really enjoy teaching, I do find it sometimes difficult to teach a subject that I don't have much of a background in. This became apparent over Thanksgiving when I was talking to another volunteer who teaches the same subject and he was complaining about how he had to make his own curriculum because the book had so many errors. I not only teach straight from the book, but was using the book to teach myself the topics. I can normally cover up my ignorance in class with careful lesson planning but I think my cover might be blown. The student who gave us the pigeons likes to hang out at our house during the week and I think he has realized that I know next to nothing about plants. He used to sit in the yard and ask me stuff about the different trees or plants we have and when I didn't know that answer I would say "I don't know the word in French." But now he doesn't bother asking me questions and he's started teaching me about which tree to use for their leaves or fruit and what time of year they will be ready, etc.

He's also helping us start a garden thanks to the seeds we got from Aaron's grandma. This has required breaking up a lot of tough dirt in our yard. At first I was helping and he just kind of laughed, but then I guess he decided that it was time to get to work and politely informed me that I was just messing stuff up so I stepped aside and he had our plot ready in no time. We've been trying to teach him how to work Sudoku puzzles but so far he hasn't quite figured it out. Last week we took a step back and tried word searches and he is almost done with the first one. We'll get there eventually.

Thanks so much to Grandma Lois, Aunt Ann, Grandma Rose, Val, and Keith for the packages.