Ghana

Our trip to Ghana was great! We were sad to leave the land of mountains, beaches, and indoor plumbing. Our trip was based around three main themes: hiking, watching World Cup games, and drinking Castle Milk Stout.

Part 1: The Beach
With these themes in mind, we started our trip at the coast in a small fishing village called Butre. Butre was recommended to us because it was a beautiful and peaceful place where you can relax without any hassle. This was all true. We actually found it a bit too secluded and relaxing (dare I say boring) so after two days of sitting on a nice beach with nothing else to do, we hiked 3km to another beach town called Busua that had a little more action. The great thing about Africa is that you can be in the smallest village in the bush with no running water or electricity but if there’s a good soccer game on, somebody will pull out a tv. Ghana is pretty developed comparatively so we had no problems catching World Cup games and had to narrow our prospective eating spots based on whether or not they carried Castle. I had romantic notions that I would go for relaxing runs on the beach every morning while we were at Busua. This presupposes that running on the beach is actually relaxing…it isn’t. At least not on the beaches in Ghana. I had to run by the water in order to avoid the deep sand, but running by the water has its own hazard of the occasional uphill sprint to avoid a big wave. After three days of returning with soggy shoes and sore calves, I went back to the dry comfort of pavement.

Part 2: Cape Coast
After a few days of hanging out in Busua, we decided to continue to the larger town of Cape Coast. Cape Coast is famous for the Cape Coast Castle, an old fort used during the slave trade. If you take the tour, the guide will start by showing you a new plaque on the door to the men’s cells that Barak Obama donated during his visit (2009?). I thought the plaque was somewhat disappointing since all it essentially says is that “on this date, _____, Barack Obama donated a plaque” with no explanation as to why. From talking with other volunteers, it sounds like there are two types of tour experiences you can have depending on your fellow tourists: 1. the loud, somewhat disrespectful tour. These are normally accompanied by Ivorians or Ghanaian students who prefer to work on their movie star poses instead of listening to the information; or 2. the very solemn Jesus tour. This tour is normally with some kind of mission group and you can expect to be treated to spontaneous renditions of “Amazing Grace” with an optional sermon from the pastor(s) leading the group. We had the latter.

We took a day trip to Kakum National Park to see some animals and go on their suspended canopy walk. Unfortunately, our guide informed us right away that after years of loud student groups visiting, all of the animals had moved to other parts of the park but the canopy walk was still fun and the forest was really pretty. Somewhere in the beginning of the hike, our guide stopped a little ahead of us and began searching in the bush next to the trail because he has just stumbled on a black cobra before it disappeared into the bush. I have a feeling that the cobra barely escapes his boot on every tour just to get the group excited.

Part 3: Accra
Before heading east, we decided to spend a few days in Accra. I know this statement might sound obsolete in a month when we’re back in America, but Accra is a legitimate city! Nice restaurants, stores, bus systems, and paved roads everywhere. There isn’t a whole lot of touristy stuff to do there but we spent our two days in Accra just walking around (with stops for Castle and World Cup games of course) and saw a lot of the city.

Part 4: Hohoe
After a week, we decided it was time to leave the coast and head to the mountains east of the Volta River. This area isn’t as frequented by tourists but I would definitely recommend visiting it. We used a town called Hohoe as our base for day trips to local mountains and waterfalls. Unfortunately, our first full day in the east was a Sunday. Sundays are effectively national holidays in Ghana. Everything is closed and it’s tough to get buses or bush taxis. We went to the bush taxi station with a list of places we’d like to see and made our plans based on what taxis, if any, were going that day. There was a car that would take us by Tsatsadu waterfalls, about 25km away, so we decided to go there. In order to visit the falls, you first have to stop by the village chief’s house and pay a fee. Luckily, his house was easy to find so we signed in, paid our fee, and spent the next few hours climbing and relaxing by the falls. When we decided to head back, it was already past lunch time and we were told there was nowhere to eat in the village and it wasn’t sure if another bush taxi would be coming through towards Hohoe. We decided to walk towards the next village where there was supposedly a restaurant and we could spot any bush taxis going by. After an hour of walking, there was no food and no bush taxi, but there was a nice guy with a truck who gave us a free lift back to Hohoe (just in time to watch the next game).

The next day, we were hoping to see Wli Wli falls, the largest in Ghana, and climb Mt. Afadjato, the tallest in Ghana. As it turns out, despite the fact that these are both east of Hohoe, there is no direct transportation between them so we chose to climb the mountain. As usual, bush taxis don’t leave until all the seats have been sold so by the time our car filled up and we got to the village of Liate Wote to start the climb it was already noon. I was a little surprised when I heard that it only took 2 hours to climb the highest mountain in Ghana, but once we started the hike I realized that lots of extra time has been saved by making the trail straight up to the top. Aaron is part mountain goat and had no problem. I hadn’t seen a hill in over a year and this one just about killed me. The funny thing about getting to the summit of the “tallest mountain in Ghana” is that immediately to your right, there is another, taller mountain. I guess we climbed the “tallest mountain in Ghana (that has a trail to the summit)”. In any case, the mountain and the waterfall were really beautiful and we had a great time walking around in the forest and eating fruits from the cacao plants.

Part 5: Crossing the Afram Plains
Next it was time to make our way back to the western city of Kumasi. The easiest way to do this is to take a daily 4-hr bus ride back down to Accra to get around the Volta River and then catch a bus to Kumasi. We opted to go straight west across the Volta and the Afram Plains. This requires two ferries, two to three buses, two days, and a lot of patience. Our first ferry left from the town of Kpando. Based on the guide book and the people in town, the ferry left somewhere between 8:30 and 10:00. Like the foolish optimists we are, we arrived at the dock around 7:45. Once at the dock, our estimated departure time kept getting later as we neared the water. Luckily we found some nice ladies to sit with under the shade by the water. Within an hour of our arrival, our shady spot became a major fish market with more and more women arriving with buckets to buy fish as the men brought them in from their boats. We spent the morning watching and talking with them as they sorted through the fish by size, distributed them between the women, and kept books in their small notebooks stored under their buckets. Around 11, we asked if we could buy one and the lady in charge gave us a big fish for free and another woman cleaned it and made us a fish soup right there on the beach. At 12:30 the ferry finally arrived and around 4, it finally left for the 1-hr trip across the lake. I have to admit, our 8 hours spent hanging out with the fish ladies while we waited for the ferry was probably one of my favorite parts of our trip.

The rest of our journey across the plains was pretty uneventful. Lots of pretty scenery and another, shorter ferry ride before we arrived in Kumasi.

Part 6: Kumasi
Accra might be the country’s capital, but Kumasi is definitely the bustling heart. We got dropped off in some unknown central part of the city. We decided to walk around and find a place where we could watch the U.S. game first, figure out where we were second. It seems that Ghanaians are universally not accustomed to using maps. Throughout our trip when we would ask someone to look at a map and give us directions, they were always at a loss. The nice folks in Kumasi were no different. They couldn’t really tell us where we were, what streets we were near, or where we wanted to go but they were certain that we should down the road and take a right. So we did. After about 30 minutes of wandering around on the bustling downtown streets, we figured out where we were and made our way to a hotel.

Kumasi is a cool city because it is not catered to tourists. There are pharmacies and banks as far as the eye can see but you have to look a little harder to find restaurants or places to shop. We ate lots of fresh coconuts and spent half a day getting lost in what is supposed to be the largest open air market in West Africa (I believe it). When I went to buy our bus tickets back to Ouagadougou two days in advance I was told that the bus was already full and the next bus wouldn’t be for another 2 days. We needed to get back to Burkina on time so I bought tickets to get us to the border where we could find another bus for the remainder of the trip. We arrived at the border town in time to catch the second half of the U.S.-Ghana game at the bus station. Watching that game in Ghana with a bunch of Ghanaians was fun, at first. However, after the U.S. tied up the game, I soon realized that we probably wouldn’t want to be around if Ghana lost. Luckily they won and the town erupted in celebration playing every Bob Marley song in existence. We spent the night at the bus station waiting for the next bus to Ouagadougou that would arrive “around 3 am” but really came around 7. The rest of the trip back was uneventful. We made it back to Ouagadougou, unable to speak French for the first few transitional hours.

Overall, Ghana was great and I hope that we can go back again someday. A lot has happened since we got back that I can’t even begin to explain. Somehow our time here is almost done and we are flying out in 6 days!!! I’ll do my best to get at least one more post up before we leave.

Photos

I finally uploaded some news photos from this year. If you want to check them out, head to:

http://picasaweb.google.com/amynaaron

Also during the opening of our computer lab, a reporter from one of the national newspapers, Sidwaya, came and wrote an article about the lab. It's in French but we found when you use an online translator, you probably won't get the correct translation but you'll get something fun and often awkward to read. You can find the article at:

http://www.sidwaya.bf/spip.php?article4637&lang=fr

School's Out!

With a final scribbled signature across some carbon-copy paper that had become slightly damp from my sweaty arm, I finished my last report card and thus my career as an educator in Burkina last week. It was a good feeling. Maybe I’ll be nostalgic for the old days of teaching later but for now all I’ve had time to feel was “woo hoo!”

Mostly we haven’t had time to realize that school is over and our final months in Burkina are winding down. These last weeks have been really packed. The bike race in Djibo went pretty well. Of course everything changed up until the day of the race. After getting all fired up to race with the men, Emilie and I were told that the women’s race was actually 18km long with real prizes so we decided to enter the women’s race after all. I spent the 4 or 5 days before the race going on long rides to get ready only to find out the day before the race that it was only 5km after all. I’m shamefully terrible at sprinting on a bike and this race was no exception. Out of the 25 girls in the race, I was 9th. Luckily Emilie did a better job of representing the foreigners and won first place. The men’s race was really intense with over 100 people competing. After the first 10, they stopped counting the men, but Aaron came in somewhere between 15th and 20th. The real shocker was the bus that brought about 30 riders at the end who didn’t finish the race. According to Aaron there were some bad crashes in the beginning and some of them looked like they had definitely been through a battle.

As soon as school was over, it was time to start our weeklong computer camp. We did two classes every day for 5 days. In the morning, we had a class of students from 8 to 12 and the evening class was for adults from 5:30 to around 7:30. Overall the camp went really well. We did 3 days of computer theory and basics (how to right click, left click, what’s the desktop…) and then the last two days they made their own PowerPoint presentations and presented at the end. There were the usual hiccups, such as teachers who scheduled final exams during our allotted time so students had to leave early or arrive late. The biggest surprise was a 2-day power outage in town that forced us to cancel one of our evening classes and cut a morning class short once all the batteries were too low. I spent several weeks making nice to the head doctor of the hospital so that we could borrow their projector for the training. Unfortunately, after the first day the projector was nothing more than nice décor thanks to daily power outages that lasted anywhere from an hour to a day. Overall camp was fun and we’ve had lots of requests from both students and people in town to have more but I think any new camps will have to be done by someone else since we don’t have much time left and we’d rather spend it visiting our friends in town and seeing things nearby that we haven’t had a chance to see yet.

Our plans for June? Day to day activities may vary, but I think it will consist mostly of laying on the beach, eating fresh seafood, and speaking English…hello Ghana!

Put away your pagnes and get out those padded spandex...it's a bike race!

After weeks and weeks of sitting around while no progress was made on the computer lab project, things suddenly came together (as they tend to do) all at once. As of last Monday, the Lycée Provincial du Loroum Salle d’Informatique was officially open.

The lab is simple: four tables, ten chairs, and a fan (hoping we can add a second fan soon!). We have ten computers for the students to use and one for the supervisor. Since it is too late to start anything official with the students, for the rest of the school year and throughout the summer the plan is to open the lab for students and public who pay 10¢ and 50¢ an hour respectively. Though we’re open now, the “official opening” (when the important people will be present) is supposed to take place on Thursday. I’m not sure what the official opening would entail. Drinks are more or less mandatory; Aaron and I already had to veto the proposal to serve sodas and beer in the lab itself. (I just know somebody too important to chastise would spill all over the place.) We’re organizing a weeklong computer camp to take place in three weeks when classes are over for students and teachers. After talking with current IT teachers, it sounds like mastering the basics (click, double-click, and that ever-elusive right click…) will take most of the week. It helps that we’ve been helping students in the computer lab all week and saw what some of the major problems are. I think we’re going to spend a bit of time on opening day discussing the pitfalls of using the restart button whenever you can’t get back to the window you want. Also, iChat will have to be disabled for the duration of the camp.

We’ll get lots of pictures during the next few weeks and put them up for you once we get to Ouaga at the end of May.

Other big news, we found out this week that there’s a bike race this Saturday from Pobé (our neighbor, Emilie’s, village) to Djibo. The race is 25km long and there’s even money for the winner. I’m mostly entering to support Emilie. The organizers told her the race was for men only and there was a women’s only race in Djibo (a town slightly larger than our old grocery store parking lot). Well, this got our inner feminists all fired up so now we’re doing the race. I have no ambitions of winning and haven’t ridden more than 5km at a time in months. I’m like that Ghanaian from the winter Olympics: I just don’t want to come in last. Maybe Aaron can do well and win us some money for cold beers in Djibo, though.

Rat Again (Mom can't cook tonight...)

I have committed an act of American heroism and sin at the same time: I have killed a rat and eaten it too.

Amy has already posted about the other four rats we killed and ate. The other night was rat number five. This time was different, though. The past rats have been unfortunate enough to fall into a hole from which they can't escape. This time, however, I was heading to lock our gate when I spotted the mother of all rats (well, at least the mother of four rats!) just sitting there in front of me, looking confused by my bright headlamp. A chase ensued. Suffice it to say there was rock-throwing involved, many misses, and finally a hit.

The next morning I skinned, gutted, and seasoned the rat for a Rat Tandoori lunch. It was delicious.

Harmatan

And now Aaron's perspective on the dust:

We're snowed in. We're rained in. We're dusted in! Today we're fortunate enough to have the morning off from school. We woke up to a bright red sky and it hasn't yet abated. This is the Harmatan: dust blown in from the Sahara. The past few weeks have been similar--huge dust storms kicked up by the wind and ultimately caused by deforestation laying bare the land. Our house is in a perpetual state of decay. Even with the house "sealed up," one gust brings in enough dust to visually coat everything. Today, however, brings a new phenomenon. The Harmatan does not come and go with the caprices of the wind, but steeps us in a sea of orange. Relief will only come with the rains. We have heard from volunteers up to 40 miles away experiencing the same thing.

I wish I could include a photo. If you'd like to approximate, go to Paint, set the color to orange-red, click fill.

That's all for now. Back to school this evening or tomorrow.

April Update

Happy Earth Day everyone! Well, everywhere else it is Earth Day. Here in Titao it’s more like “ the day of yellow”. We had a big dust storm roll in and it’s so cloudy that everything outside is in a yellowish red haze. It’s 9am and people are still using flashlights to get around outside because the visibility is so bad. Now, I’ve never lived on Venus but I imagine it’s something like this.

The good thing about days like this is that it gives us a small break from the heat. We’ve been hitting around 120 degrees the last few weeks and it’s been pretty miserable. Our mode de vie has involved several bucket baths a day, keep a hand fan in every room, and no trips in town unless the destination has cold water sachets. We had a brief glimmer of hope last week that our 6-month rain drought was coming to an end when all the villages in the area got a rainstorm. By the time it reached us, there were enough drops to help the dust stick to our bikes better but no real rain.

One of our students invited us to his annual family meeting in his village to discuss the affairs of the Komi family. We couldn’t make it but afterwards he gave us a debriefing. I guess the main part of the meeting was recounting the history of how the Komi family got their name. I asked for the story and after 15 minutes of recounting it, I still can’t for sure say that I know the answer. I’ll give you the highlights: a woman gave birth in a tree and there was a clay pot nearby that had four eyes. Then some kids were given a pet giraffe and the evil dad rode off on the giraffe and got decapitated. And, voila, the Komi family!

We had the annual fête de la pomme de terre a few weeks ago. There was the usual speeches and opening of the potato market where you could choose from many different piles of similar-looking potatoes. Unfortunately this year, since Easter Sunday was the day after the potato festival there was no all night dancing party, which means no Miss Pomme de Terre competition. All my campaign efforts over the last year went to waste.

No Regrets

Whenever PCVs get together, the conversations always gravitate towards a long list of complaints and frustrations about life in Burkina. This obviously stems from the fact that we spend most of our time in our villages dealing with little annoyances surrounded by people who don’t see them as annoying. What was great about our COS conference this month was that for the first time, the conversations began to shift toward the little things we will inevitably miss about our life in Burkina.

Yes, it has been difficult and those stories of transportation breakdowns, promiscuous pets (did I mention we just had our fourth generation of kittens), and digestive gymnastics always make for good entertainment but they don’t tell the whole story. We have been robbed, frustrated, angry, homesick, and just plain sick during our time here but the more honest description is that we have been happy. Despite all the difficulties and frustrations, we have been happy and have never regretted our decision to join the Peace Corps and our decision to serve in what is considered one of the more difficult PC countries because of the living conditions.

How could we regret such a decision? We don’t regret learning a new language and learning the power of communication when there is no common language. We don’t regret making tô with Bernard and Clarice, eating rat with Coach, and making American food for Mariam and her kids. We don’t regret rocking out to the Celion Dion, Beyonce, 50 Cent, and (the untouchable) Phil Collins in the teachers lounge at school. We don’t regret eating a dinner of mangos and peanuts when it was too hot to cook. I don’t regret Bingo, the Hokey Pokey, the Happy Song and all the other games and songs we did in class that pulled in even the most determined “cool kids”.

I don’t regret my failed girls club. It taught me that youth development work is not my strength (a.k.a. I’m awkward and don’t know what to do with teenagers). I don’t regret the sameness of available food. It forced us to get creative and start eating food we wouldn’t touch in America (hello canned tuna and potted meat product). I don’t even regret our favorite nemesis: the Titao bus that breaks down every other day. I learned how much better if feels to pig out in the big city after biking the 47k to get there. Even if, after our departure, corruption wins out and our computer lab doesn’t get a chance to impact many students, we don’t regret bringing such a powerful resource into our community to people who would otherwise never have a chance to work on a computer.

Every faux type has forced us to get creative in blowing them off (my favorite: I’m from Antartica and only speak Antartican). Every late meeting has honed our waiting skills until we can easily sit for 2 hours without getting restless. Every laughing crowd has taught us to be self-confident. Every challenging class has taught us patience and a sense of humor. Every old woman offers us the best of her garden vegetables as a gift has humbled us. And every toothless old man or woman who has defied their age by singing, dancing, and laughing with or without us has made us smile.

How did I get here?!

We just finished our Close of Service (COS) Conference in Ouaga. It was three days jam packed with info on everything that needs to be done over the next few months before we leave the country, how to put these crazy adventures into words for resumes and job interviews, and how to adjust to life back in America without annoying all our relations with “well, when we were in Burkina…”. No promises on this last point.

Aside from the comfortable hotel (AC!) and good food (shrimp) COS was a little stressful. I think we all left with long to-do lists and that excited, nervous feeling right before a big change. After two years of learning to do things much slower than reason would deem necessary, we are on our way back into the “land of bonnes choses”. We’ve learned a lot of great things here but I think we have also picked up some habits that Americans may not appreciate. I would like to go ahead and ask our family and friends to forgive us the following:

· Slurping tea
· Arriving late
· Talking about people right in front of them (in English)
· Eating with our hands (especially meat).
· The full hand lick that follows eating with your hands
· “outfit of the week”: Wearing the same outfit to work everyday for a week (hey, as long as there’s no stains or holes…)
· “send a kid to do it”: Forgetting that children are not public property and you cannot discipline them or send them on errands for you
· Arriving unannounced at dinner time ready to be fed
· Carrying a spare roll of toilet paper on hand at all times (you just never know)
· Elbowing or shoving to ensure we get our spot in the car first
· “Visiting”: coming over and then sitting in uncomfortable (for you) silence
· Referring to the left hand as the “poop hand”
· Picking our nose (seriously, with all this dust a Kleenex does not get the job done)

We are hoping to tone some of these down before getting back. Like I said, life in Titao is going to be busy the next few weeks. The third trimester is only 6 weeks long and somewhere between lesson planning and grading we are hoping to get the computer lab open. In June, after school is finished, we are planning on holding a computer camp for teachers and students. We’ve never been to Ghana and still have three weeks of vacation time left so we would like to spend at least a week at the beach before heading back to Titao in July. Then we have four weeks to pack up, make the rounds saying goodbye to everyone in town, pig out on mangos and chicken, and head to Ouaga for a final medical exam. It’s hard to believe we’re only four months, one final trimester, one potato festival, gallons of sweat, and a metric ton of mangos away from finishing our service.

*All the pictures are from my parents' trip to Burkina in December. About time I posted some new pictures, right.

Rat Out, Rabbit In

The project to start a computer lab is moving along. We hit some unexpected hiccups last week due to some philosophical differences between the school administration and Aaron and me as to how we should present – or not present – the project to the other teachers. The school principal and treasurer that we’ve been working with thought that it would be best if we kept the project hush-hush. So they asked the representative between the teachers and administration to announce that we have computers to sell but he wasn’t informed as to how many were available, where they came from, why they were being sold…he knew nothing. The day of the announcement, 14 teachers signed up to buy the 10 available computers. The treasurer, unsure of how to handle it, told them there were only 6 for sale and for the moment nobody could buy one. I’m not sure how he came up with the number 6 or why he thought that that was an adequate solution to the problem. I’ll probably never know. When I heard teachers grumbling that they were only selling 6 computers, I got scared that they had stolen 4 and given them to friends (pretty likely) so I stormed into the principal’s office demanding to see all the computers. Over a period of 45 minutes, he explained the problem to me interspersed with other woes (the water pump is broken again, the government hasn’t sent money to pay the teachers yet…) that had nothing to do with the computers and about which I could do nothing to help.

Aaron and I decided that all this sneaking around and avoidance of direct questions was unnecessary and frustrating everyone, so we decided to have a meeting with the administration and the teacher’s rep, Coach. Coach was already in the loop because I had told him about the project, but since he hadn’t been “officially informed” by the principal he played dumb. This was somewhat frustrating when it was just Aaron and I in the room and he continued to return all my questions with a shake of the head and “I’m not informed about that.” The day of the meeting, everyone was still “uninformed” so I went around and informed them myself that we would meet and find a way to resolve the problem of not having enough computers to sell to everyone. The problem is that people here are pretty sensitive. All those objective, impersonal (American) methods like first-come, first-serve or auctioning them to the ten highest bidders don’t fly. So we decided that we would offer them 14 computers and use the extra money to buy a printer for the school and 4 cheaper desktop computers from an ex-PCV in Ouaga. We have a strict payment plan established so I’m not sure if all 14 teachers will actually be able to buy a computer anyway but if we didn’t offer everyone the option, there would be drama in the teacher parking lot (under a tree in the school yard). Aaron and I also did a quick presentation to all the teachers about the goals of the project and where the computers came from so that they didn’t think we were running some kind of business.

There’s still a little frustration with the teachers who ask us to change the due date for the first payment for them. This is where we’ve been laying down our cold-hearted business side and telling them that selling the computers is a means to an end for us and we don’t care who buys them. We offered them to the teachers first as a favor but if they can’t buy them we’ll offer them to other people in town who can. Obviously, they aren’t happy to hear this but they’re getting used to it.

Women’s Day was last Monday. I was really excited to play in the soccer game again this year, but it ended up being a little too much for me. My team had over 20 women on it. The first time I touched the ball I was knocked over by my own player; the second time, there were no players from the other team around so I tried to dribble but couldn’t get anywhere because of the 4 players from my team that were in my way and ended up taking the ball from me. The game wasn’t fun enough for me to endure an hour of being called “nassara” on the loud speaker so I made up an excuse and left at half-time. We have a teacher vs. student soccer game coming up next week. The teachers have started training every night and they are always inviting Aaron to join them. Finally, I told them that I would come and play. There was an awkward pause followed by “ok, you can play defense.” This got my inner-feminist all worked up so I showed up ready to knock their socks off that night. I was totally schooled. Those guys are so good and so fast I didn’t have a chance. It didn’t help that the field was surrounded by students and everytime Aaron or I touched the ball or even got near the ball they all start laughing. Oh well, at least I tried.

On the bright side, mango season is here. Mangos are the only thing that makes the hot season tolerable. We’ve settling into a comfortable diet of about 3 mangos a day each. It’s convenient to have a readily available snack that is so delicious because it’s getting too hot to cook and we’re hardly home anymore anyways. Aaron is always studying for the GRE and I’m always at school working on the computers. Luckily, we’ve made some good friends who like to send over extra food when they cook. The other day we were the enthusiastic recipients of rabbit soup and I think lunch will be taken care of today because our friend, Mariam, wants us to try her tô sauce. How can we refuse?

Mmm, mmm, rat. Bon Appetit!

February has come and gone already taking with it any last remnants of cool weather. Here in Titao, that little month was packed with activities. We began by discovering a new culinary delight: rat. Before you start squirming, I just want to say that I wasn't too excited about eating rat and never thought I would do it but I did (4 times now) and I don't regret it. That stuff is good.

Here's how it came about: we have this big hole by our house that is supposed to collect water but just collects plastic bags and other trash instead. One night we heard a bunch of noise from the hole and found a rat in there that couldn't get out. Aaron was really excited about killing it and eating it so we called our friend – we call him “coach” because he's the P.E. teacher from our school- and he came over really excited to help us kill it. It was late and we'd already eaten dinner so he said he'd prepare it and call us the next day. The next day we went to his house for some homemade rat soup. Two days later, another rat fell in the hole and coach came over to teach Aaron how to prepare it: rat with rice and sauce. Another two days and rat number three took the unfortunate tumble: breaded and fried rat with mashed potatoes. Finally, three days after that, Darwin put the fourth rat on our plates in the form of an Indian-style barbecue. I can't say I'm exactly proud of getting this new dietary notch on my belt but Aaron's pretty proud of preparing an animal all by himself and the meat is good so I'm not complaining. Also, it helped us start a pattern of eating with Coach and his wife a few times a week.

Aside from our culinary exploits we've also been busy with the arrival of the 30 laptop computers to our school. The school administration has found a place for us to set up a computer lab and they went over their proposal with us last week to cover all the expenses so I'm hoping the lab will be set up in the next month. We are going to pay for the shipping costs, the new furniture, the electricity, and all other expenses over the next 6 months by selling ten of the computers to teachers at school on a first come first serve basis. After that 6-month period, the lab should be self-sustained based on the hourly charge for students and locals who use it. This was all supposed to be started last week before the end of February so I'm hoping we can at least announce to the teachers that the computers are for sale before the end of the trimester mid-March. For the moment, I've been busy with 12 hours a week of "informatique" class where I teach any teachers who want to learn how to use Excel and Word for their classes. It's been fun overall but I often feel like I'm dealing with the 6ème students. The other day, I heard myself saying (translated of course): “Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop! No more space bar! Use 'align right'. No, stop. I said no space bar! I'm going to take the computer away.”

We're getting into holiday season and hot season at the same time. This means no one, students and teachers alike, is motivated anymore to have class. Last week was Moulard (this is a guess at the spelling), the all-night Muslim prayer party. Everyone goes to a village about 3k outside of Titao and there's a lot of praying until about 3 am. Aaron and I spent a few days pumping ourselves up with how this year we weren't going to miss it because it was our last chance to participate... we were in bed by 9. We tried but you'd be surprised how exhausting is it just sitting around being hot all day. Anything after 9 or 10 is not going to happen for us until we get air conditioning back in our lives. Tomorrow is Women's Day. This is a holiday we can handle because they have activities all day. My friend, Mariam, bought us the official 2010 Women's Day pagnes so that we can get outfits made. She brought over a model that I might want to have copied: I swear there were frills sewed on top of other frills. I had to politely decline the cake icing model and opt for something a little simpler. I've been told that I am on the women's soccer team for the big game against the men on Women's Day. If conditions are the same as last year: the men's team is drunk, we have 5 goalies, and all calls are in our favor, I think we'll be able to pull off a W.

2010

Happy (belated) New Year! Aaron and I brought in the new year like most 20-somethings with functioning livers: we were sitting on a couch watching "UP" with some other volunteers who were also too tired to party. It seems that New Years is the biggest party of the year in Burkina. I'm not sure if it's because it is the one holiday that Christians and Muslims can celebrate together or if the Burkinabe just like a good countdown, but they definitely love New Year's.

After the new year, the next time you see friends, before anything else, you are supposed to greet each other with a 4-step head tap manuever. While tapping temples, you wish each other good health, happiness, prosperity...the teachers at our school just cut to the chase and we wished each other "everything good". I'm honestly not very good at the head-tapping yet; my efforts to show sincerity have resulted in more than a few head butts and I always run out of stuff to say so then there's an eternal awkward silence while our faces are really close together.

I didn't make any new year's resolutions this year. I normally don't keep them anyway; who needs the disappointment? Speaking of disappointment and failure, after two failed attempts to grow our own garden, we've handed our seeds over to the professionals. Someone in town offered to give us some of his land, prepare the soil, plant the seeds, and water them along with his plants. In other words, there's no way we can mess this up. All we have to do is eat (and as my mom's been telling everyone, that's something we are good at). They also planted us a few rows of potatoes so maybe we can get ourselves a booth at the potato festival.

School is about the same. I try to remind myself that this is our last 6 months of teaching here so we can make the most of it, but the kids don't always make that easy. These days, after particulary dumb questions I find myself just quietly walking away. Our neighbor, David, always has the best examples of these irritating questions. Last week in David's math class, he had just finished working a homework problem on the board when student asked: "Mr if you found the answer was 1/2 but I have 1/5 on my paper, is that okay?" Just walk away.

I did have a bizarre surge of motivation last month and decided to do a song competition between the 4 6e classes. I taught each class The Happy Song and we spent two weeks outside of class rehearsing a preparing routines that Aaron and the other English teachers would judge and decide on a winner. It turns our that in French, or maybe in Moore, The Happy Song translates to "let's go crazy". Rehearsals were about 20% constructive work and 80% madness. I swear the other day there was a kid with both arms out, head tossed back, eyes closed and yelling. Just yelling for no reason. He got a big shock when his yelling was suddenly muffling by the big piece of paper I shoved in his mouth. I think after the initial shock of doing something that doesn't involve copying from the board in silence wore off, practices went better and all the classes ended up doing pretty well. I took a video of each group so if I find myself with decent internet, I'll put it online. Despite the good result, I'm not sure if I have the patience to do it again unless the other teachers want to help out.

The other, bigger, news at school is that we'll be recieving 30 laptops in the next month! Aaron's dad arranged for us to get 30 used laptops that are ready to be used at school. Since our school doesn't have electricity and isn't likely to get it in the next year, the administration is going to rent a house in town where there is power and we can set up a computer lab for teachers, students, and (in the future) paying people from town. There will be a lot of work required in order to train people and make sure they have a good system set up and the computers don't just disappear to the homes and families of various school employees, but this will be a really exciting thing for our school and can help us out a lot. Keith, you're amazing! Thanks so much.

Since we arrived in Titao 17 months ago, and even before, during our site visit, we have been told of a previous volunteer named Tom who was in Titao and taught at our school in 1999. Everyone knows Tom. Everyone loves Tom. He has a small shrine in the school office complete with hand-drawn photos and a poem. Well, brace yourself for this, last weekend we met Tom!! He was in Burkina for a conference (he's still living and working in Africa) and came up to visit Titao for a day. After 10 years, he still speaks better Mooré than I'll ever speak. It was fun to finally see and meet the man himself. I have accepted the fact that Aaron and I will probably never reach the Tom-level of remembrance on our own, so I am thinking of launching a campaign over the next few months where I'll be distributing my own hand-drawn photos of us and sonnets proclaiming our great deeds and incredible good looks throughout the region. Since we are now entering the uncomfortable transition month before the heat arrives, I'm about to have a lot of time on my hands so it would be a good way to fill those long hours spent under a tree, trying to limit any movements.

Tour du Faso

After all the fuss of the holidays has died down, do you find yourself bored, changing channels between CSI: Miami to CSI: Las Vegas to CSI: New York? (What's that, all reruns.) Are you tired of knowing you car, bus, or bike will arrive in working order and on time at your destination? Ever wanted to see a new place and eat new foods with unknown digestive consequences? If you answered yes, maybe, or even a small grunt (we're not picky) to any of these questions, you should follow my parents' example and embark on a 10-day tour de force of Burkina Faso.

We'll start the tour with 3 days in our quaint village of Titao. Think we'll be relaxing and enjoying the simple life? Think again. Titao is a little-known tourist haven with lots of activities to make those 3 (actually 2 1/2 after the car ride) days fly by. After strolling through original dirt pathways leading to town, you can visit the "marché ladies". With a big smile, open arms in case babies come your way, and a lack of preference for what they decide your name is that day, the marche will be lots of fun. After the market, relax at "the garage" and sample one of Burkina's 6 (count 'em, 6!) beer options. Once we arrive back at the house, don't get too comfortable in those chairs, folks, because you'll be treated to a steady flow of visitors dropping by to say hi and offer tastes of the local cuisine.

If receiving visitors isn't your thing, Titao also offeres an all-inclusive 5-hr school and garden tour. This package comes complete with a full lycée tour, a planting demonstration at the town garden, warm beers at the nearest buvette, and free lycée t-shirts at the end for all visitors. In the evening, enjoy a nice stroll through town on your way to dinner at our friend Bernard's house: tô, mmmm mmmm. Keep those forks at home folks, we'll be eating this mean a la main.
In case you are worried about missing anything by sleeping in, Titao (and I suspect most of Africa) comes with complimentary roosters, donkeys, women pounding millet, and calls to prayer available every morning to drag you into the day. It's so loud, you'll swear they're actually outside your window! Market day is not to be missed. If you're like my parents, sometimes you get so tired of all this personal space and just need to get squeezed in an impossibly small space with strangers. The Titao market is the perfect place to toss that "body bubble" aside while parusing local fabrics, cookware, vegetables, mystery pills, and jewelry. Need those flip-flops repaired? We can do that too.

What's that? You're looking for a party! Well, look no further than chez nous. Bernard and the men will kill, clean, and grill the chickens while the women can whip up pumpkin pies in the kitchen (mom, that pie mix was heavenly!). I know what you're thinking, "what's a party without music?". Don't worry, our neighbor, David, has all the greatest beats for any occassion (NSync's Christmas album, oh yeah!).

And already our time in Titao has flown by. It's now time to head south: land of rainfall, trees, and non-domesticated animals. There is an all-paved route from Ouahigouya to Bobo, in the southwest, but you drive on paved roads everyday, right? My parents felt the same way so we took the shorter, dirt road south that leaves you with a healthy coat of Africa on your clothes and respiratory system. Bobo, what a town! You'll know you've hit the big time when you have a fender-bender just trying to drive by the market. Bobo has lots of friendly people offering to organize tours for you, but I'm guessing you'll want a more local experience: enter our fellow volunteer and Bobo resident, Micheal. Though he's still waiting on his official guide badge, Micheal knows his stuff. He'll show you the Grande Mosque and take you on a tour of the old quartier, all while fending off faux types with his banging Jula and his own brand of faux typiness. The old quartier is the oldest neighborhood in town and home to the "sacred catfish". Catfish that can live in a trash-lined stream where local women do their washing - there's got to be some kind of divine intervention involved! Micheal can also lead you to his friend's shop in the market for your one-stop souvenir shopping.

Had enough of the big city life? Let's get a little more rustic with a trip further south to Banfora. After all the shopping and hustle of busy Bobo, I'l guessing you will need a drink. My parents did. Welcome to Canne a Sucre. A nice-looking (we didn't stay here because they were booked) hotel with a great restaraunt serving homeade rum. I recomend getting the rum sampler. The four different flavors will tickle your tastebuds and send you off to a peaceful slumber.

At this point, you're saying, "Enough mosques, markets, and weird meals. Let's see some animals." A short drive from Banfora we'll find oursevles as Tengrela Lake, home to hippos, crocodiles, and the occassional monkey. This boat trip isn't for the faint of heart so leave your fears and any expensive camera equipment in the car as you climb into canoes in search of hippos. Leaks are optional, but you know my parents, they want the full experience; we went for it. Once the thrill of paddling by hippos in a canoe with a steady intake of water is over, it's time to unwind with a picnic lunch next to Karfiguela Waterfall. What, you say, waterfalls in Burkina Faso?! Oh yes, my friend, but don't let that cool crisp water tempt you into taking a dip unless you're looking to take home some more souvenirs of parasitic origin. Before leaving the Banfora region, we'll stop and visit the domes for some quick rock climbing. Again, I understand your surprise: rock climbing and hills do exist in Burkina. Man, this trip just keeps getting better.

On our way back to Ouaga, we'll make a quick stop to see some sacred crocodiles. What's so sacred about them? They're not even tempted to eat the live chicken we brought as a gift until it's practically placed in their mouths. The guides will offer to let you touch the crocodiles but my parents had some bizarre attachment to their limbs, so we passed this time.

Before heading back home to those comfortable beds and temperature-controlled cars and homes, there's one more must-see stop to make: Nazenga Park. A quick trip south of Ouaga towards the Ghana border, will bring you to Nazenga where you'll sleep in individual huts and eat meals overlooking a lake (supposedly, you can spot elephants swimming in the lake sometimes). Nazenga offers driving safaris through the park twice a day, but you're just as likely to spot elephants, wild pigs, and various deer-ish animals driving in and out of the park. Bring along the goal of seeing "at least one" animal, no need for electricity before 6pm, something to keep you occupied while you wait on meals and you won't be dissapointed.

Sadly, our trip is coming to a close. Before leaving, there is one thing on our to-do list: dinner at Gondwana. This chiche restaraunt is also an art gallery displaying African art from different ethnic groups. It's a classy place. It also has delicious food so go ahead and stuff your face with everything from the pre-dinner rolls to the after-meal tea and liquer. A final note for making your trip to Burkina a success, follow my parents courteous example, and refrain from getting sick until returning to America, so as to not inconvenience anyone during the trip. (Just kidding, mom. I'm glad you're feeling better.)

More sincerely, a huge thanks to everyone who stuffed my parents suitcases with cards, cookies, and other assorted gifts for us. You are fantastic and we really appreciate it! Thanks to my parents for being such troopers during their trip despite a few hiccups. We had a really great Christmas and hope you all did too.