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.