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.