Aaron's Random Thoughts

When we got here the heat was unbearable. Aside from being 100+ degrees it was 100% humidity. Thus, 2 minutes outside and you were drenched with sweat with no AC as backup. We showered 3-4 times a day, which is normal here.

Then, one day after it had rained a bit something marvelous and unexpected happened--I got cold! I was so excited that I yelled it. Now, it is officially the rainy season and I have a big problem-it's too cold to shower.


Speaking of showers, I call it that because the Burkinabe use the french word for shower. It's actually a bucket bath. Everybody has their 5 gallon pail, their plastic cup, and their piece of nylon mesh netting for a washcloth. A shower is just lathering up and rinsing off with 3 gallons of water.


Getting sick is frequent/normal. Amy and I have spent just as much time with ailments as without. Diarrhea, headaches, stuffy head, coughing, funky stomach, and today our first case of vomiting! It's uncomfortable never being comfortable, but as they say here, ça va aller (or, get over it, I think that's what they're saying...).


Cell phones. Their is no cellphone etiquette. If you have one, it's in your hand. If it rings, you answer it, regardless of what you're doing. You may even be able to spy the cell phone in the Chief's hand in the pictures I posted.


Oh yeah. Pooping. We Américains are just not used to pooping in an 8 inch hole at ground level. Peeing also. We guys are not used to aiming for an 8 inch hole 3 feet away. And then the first time you get to try this thing out, of course you have diarrhea! Enough said. Cockroaches come out of the hole at night.

If I've repeated something, sorry, it costs too much to reread it all.

Aaron

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.

We have a cellphone

Today we bought a cellphone. It is free for us to receive calls and texts. Our number is 011-226-76810990. The first three numbers are to get out of the US and the second three are the country code for Burkina. We look forward to hearing from you.

Another quick story:
We brought pictures from home to share with our host family and they included a picture of a cactus from Arizona. When we were explaining what a cactus was the three teenage girls in our house were giggling but we did not think much of it. Today we learned that the word for "thorn" in French is "epine" and not "pin" as we had thought. "Pin" is actually the word for a male body part. So we described a cactus as a tree with a lot of reproductive organs.

Bonjour tout le monde!

Only 10 minutes left, so I'll be quick. A few observations: There are some pretty cool lizards here with yellow heads that like to do pushups. The napkins are hit or miss. Sometimes they smell horrible, especially when blowing your nose. We get called "Nassara" everywhere, basically means foreigner. Cell phones are a big deal here. People who have them always have them in hand and will answer them in the middle of a conversation or even a lecture (and they're the one lecturing). Even the chief had his in hand when we met him. Yo-yos and cameras will make kids come out of the woodwork. Everywhere looks like you see on TV, but doesn't seem as bad when you're in it. The end.

Training

Bonjour everyone! We have just finished our first week of training (except for 4 hours of language class tomorrow). Everything is great so far. We are adjusting to the heat and getting pretty good at bucket baths and using the latrine.

On Saturday we met with the chief here to get his okay that we live here for three months. We have pictures and hopefully we can post them this week. Sunday was our adoption ceremony where we were adopted by our host families and moved in with them. Our host family is really nice. Our host father is a math teacher and can best be described as a jolly, Santa-like man. Our mom is also really sweet but she does not speak a lot of French so we have a lot of awkward silences. There are five kids at our house and most of them are really shy and just giggle when we talk to them. Our family is pretty well-off and we were shocked to get there the first night and see they were watching a dubbed episode of Prison Break.

The Burkinabé people are incredibly kind and hospitable. Greetings are really important here and can take up to 10 minutes. It is not a simple "hello" like in the states. A greeting here goes something like: "hello, how are you..how is your family...how did you sleep...how is the work...how are the kids..."

Aaron and I have learned enough Mooré to greet our neighbors as we ride our bikes to class everyday and they normally just laugh at us, but I think they like it. I cannot express enough how nice the people are. The latest example is that I was having lunch with some other trainees and when we left, one guy forgot his bag. We were already a few blocks away when a man from the cafe came honking at us from his moto with the bag.

I tested into the very beginner French class but my French is really improving. It is hard not to improve when almost all of our classes are in French and we live with a family that does not speak English.

Fun Fact: Burkina Faso has the 2nd highest rate of diarrhea among PC Volunteers of all the African countries. Yay.

Just as a closing note, while we are having a good time and making some great friends, life here can get pretty tiring. Studies show that PC Trainees experience stress levels equivalent to someone who just lost a family member. It is hard to communicate and gets really frustrating, a lot of the food is hard to eat and sometimes makes us sick, and you never get a full nights sleep because of the heat (a fellow volunteer with a thermometer said her room was around 100 degrees). But we hear that getting mail from home can lighten your whole week. So, if you have some time, please send us a letter or email (we prefer a letter) during these next three months. We would love to hear from you. Tomorrow we are going to get cell phones so we will post the numbers when we get them.

We love you and miss you all!

First Impressions

We are in Africa. So far everything is great. The weather is hot and humid since this is the rainy season, or so they tell us; we haven't seen any rain yet. Today we drive up to our training site where we will be living for the next three months. On Saturday we meet our host family and move in with them on Saturday night.

We actually slept with AC last night which was a pleasant surprise. The driving here is pretty crazy. Lots of bikes and motos. To get here we had to cross the street frogger-style. We will type some more and post some pictures when we get a chance. The keyboards are laid out differently so the typing is pretty slow and the connection is going at a turtle-like pace.
In conclusion, we are happy and healthy and cannot wait to start learning some French so we can get around better.

Off We Go...

Today we leave for Africa!!! After two whirlwind days of group activities and discussions of Peace Corps policies and such, we are finally going. I am so ready! There are 31 people in our group. My first impression of everyone yesterday: everyone was really nice. Normally in a group this big there are a few personalities that you know you'll clash with but I have sincerely enjoyed meeting everyone so far.

We are going to a clinic this morning to get some shots and then we fly out later tonight. It sounds like we won't be able to call, email, or anything until Thursday at the earliest. So if we don't write, it doesn't mean we've been eaten by a hippo already :)

Greetings from Philly

We arrived in Philadelphia last night after a teary goodbye (for Amy) at the Phoenix airport. We'll be starting our pre-departure staging today where we'll be introduced to the Peace Corps and our fellow volunteers. Except for a brief encounter in the hotel elevator, we don't know anyone we'll be going to Burkina Faso with yet.

We'll be taking care of paperwork and attending clinics until Tuesday when we'll fly out to Ouagadougou (waga-doo-goo). We'll spend two days in Ouaga before heading to Ouahigouya (why-hee-goo-ya), where we'll be for the three months of training.

Arizona has definitely spoiled us, weather-wise, because this Philadelphia humidity is horrible. We're staying in the college section of town, which is way too hip for us, but the food is good. Unfortunately we won't have much time to see the city during the day. At least we'll have time for cheesesteak. We'll let you know how staging went before we leave.