Merry Christmas everyone! Well, close enough anyway. We're definitely ready for Christmas here in Titao. Last week we realized that we should probably do a little house cleaning before my parents arrive for Christmas (we had a cobweb situation that could rival any haunted house). And so, armed with about 10 students, lots of soap, and the promise of a soccer game later, we got the house swept, mopped, and organized in about 4 hours. Since Burkinabé tend to keep their homes pretty clean, I'm sure we now have a bad reputation around town for how dirty our house was. Oh well.The Independence Day parade was December 11th. It was fun, kind of. We arrived around 6am for parade line-up and finally started marching around 10. How did we pass the 4 hours of waiting time? It was a combination of standing in the sun, squatting in the sun, and being rushed into our formation by the officers in charge for no apparent reason other than we haven't done it in the l
ast 20 minutes. Our group in particular managed to kill a lot of time whenever a new officer would walk by because they kept changing our formation and then changing it back again (2 lines of 6 or 6 lines of 2?). In the end, we went for a triangle- fancy! Our group consisted of 12 PCVs and 3 Japanese volunteers. According to our sign, between the 15 of us, we were representing all non-Africans in Burkina. Being the only white people in the parade definitely drew some attention. The highlight of the parade for me was getting to see and be the honored recipient of a wave from President Compaore himself (I like to call him "my boy Blaise") as he drove by before the parade. There was a huge military showing in the parade. The two groups that really stuck out for me were the "soldiers of the night" who wore black face masks and marched by punching the air in front of them, and the group of guys-who-watch-too-many-action-movies that put 7 armed people on one moto, each aiming their weapons in different directions, Charlie's Angels-style.
Two days after Independence Day every year there is a student strike in remembrance of a reporter that was killed. For the past few weeks, I asked the other teachers at our school if they thought our students would strike and they all unanimously said "no" since we weren't a major city. They struck. Two days in a row, the students let their teachers get 30 minutes into a lesson before they started filing out of class. Since I have the younger kids, they just sat anxiously watching other students file by the door, not sure what to do until I gave them permission to leave. The strike was actually convenient for us because it gave us two free days to finish filling out report cards.
A popular thing for women to do here before holidays is paint their feet and hands with henna. Last week I was henna-d by a student. I didn't realize what a big commitment this is: you have to sit still with plastic bags on your feet and hands for hours...twice! Now, whatever you might be picturing in your head for henna, stop there. The decorations they do here are not so much brown flowers and vines, but black bars (picture a lemur in prison). Unfortunately, we ran out of the black layer for my hand so it has maintained an orange umpalumpa-esque hue. Also, there was a little henna left at the end so my student decided to get creative and wrote "Mrs" (instead of Madame) across the top of one foot. This would have been a little odd, but okay except the "s" didn't come through very well so now my right foot has been tagged "Mr" across the top. Awesome.
ast 20 minutes. Our group in particular managed to kill a lot of time whenever a new officer would walk by because they kept changing our formation and then changing it back again (2 lines of 6 or 6 lines of 2?). In the end, we went for a triangle- fancy! Our group consisted of 12 PCVs and 3 Japanese volunteers. According to our sign, between the 15 of us, we were representing all non-Africans in Burkina. Being the only white people in the parade definitely drew some attention. The highlight of the parade for me was getting to see and be the honored recipient of a wave from President Compaore himself (I like to call him "my boy Blaise") as he drove by before the parade. There was a huge military showing in the parade. The two groups that really stuck out for me were the "soldiers of the night" who wore black face masks and marched by punching the air in front of them, and the group of guys-who-watch-too-many-action-movies that put 7 armed people on one moto, each aiming their weapons in different directions, Charlie's Angels-style.
Two days after Independence Day every year there is a student strike in remembrance of a reporter that was killed. For the past few weeks, I asked the other teachers at our school if they thought our students would strike and they all unanimously said "no" since we weren't a major city. They struck. Two days in a row, the students let their teachers get 30 minutes into a lesson before they started filing out of class. Since I have the younger kids, they just sat anxiously watching other students file by the door, not sure what to do until I gave them permission to leave. The strike was actually convenient for us because it gave us two free days to finish filling out report cards.
A popular thing for women to do here before holidays is paint their feet and hands with henna. Last week I was henna-d by a student. I didn't realize what a big commitment this is: you have to sit still with plastic bags on your feet and hands for hours...twice! Now, whatever you might be picturing in your head for henna, stop there. The decorations they do here are not so much brown flowers and vines, but black bars (picture a lemur in prison). Unfortunately, we ran out of the black layer for my hand so it has maintained an orange umpalumpa-esque hue. Also, there was a little henna left at the end so my student decided to get creative and wrote "Mrs" (instead of Madame) across the top of one foot. This would have been a little odd, but okay except the "s" didn't come through very well so now my right foot has been tagged "Mr" across the top. Awesome.Sean Paul had a concert in Ouaga last night. You have to ad
mire a world-renowned artist coming to a small, little-known country to perform. Unless of course, that artist doesn't bother to learn the name of your country and continually mispronounces it throughout the show and only says one word, "merci", in the national language during the entire show. Mr. Paul's philosophical tweet before the show yesterday: "Brukina Faso is a poor country. The people have so much love tho."
mire a world-renowned artist coming to a small, little-known country to perform. Unless of course, that artist doesn't bother to learn the name of your country and continually mispronounces it throughout the show and only says one word, "merci", in the national language during the entire show. Mr. Paul's philosophical tweet before the show yesterday: "Brukina Faso is a poor country. The people have so much love tho."On that insightful note, I hope you all have a fabulous Christmas. Thanks again to everyone for keeping in touch with calls, emails, and amazing packages. (Is this guy on the right fabulous or what!)
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3 comments:
I liked it.
Bathmate
found your town on google earth!
Great post! I love the image of those Charlie's Angels dudes. I hope you had a great Christmas with your families and that you're enjoying the cold!
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