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.