Just Added...

I just added a new "Books I've Read Section" to the right. I'm going to post my review of the books here though.

1. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn

Considered a classic text for the history of science. A bit dense. The concluding chapter and postscript are the most interesting. Now I have more questions as to the actual scientific revolutions cited in the book.

2. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

This was an amazing book. A quick read, great adventure story, but most importantly a lesson on the muslim culture, where all these terrorists came from, and the most effective way of defeating terrorists.Because it was such an imortant lesson that all Americans should know, and probably most don't know, I'm going to go into detail here.This guy Greg went to climb K2, considered the hardest mountain on Earth to climb, tougher than Everest. When he left he promised a small village, on the edge of the glacier in the middle of nowhere, that he would build them a school. He has now built about 50 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

He has the official blessing of muslim leaders in both countries and has had the high muslim courts issue statements in his (non-muslim, American) favor. During his time there, since 1993, he has watched madrassas spring up all over the countries. These are schools funded by the Taliban. Some are simply schools, but of course others are the training grounds of the anti-American fundamentalists. In places with the option of going on to higher education, the children and parents will take that option. In the places without schools, and with madrassas, the children turn to their only option, thus the strength of the Taliban and terrorists has increased over the years. Greg actually has a former Talibanist who has sworn allegiance to him. He was only in the Taliban because that was his only choice, now he's happy to serve a good cause. Thus, by simply building schools, Greg Mortenson is fighting terrorism more effectively than any war. The people he works with love Americans but hate American planes-it's that simple.

This, is of course what the Peace Corps does--works to strengthen nations basic resources and set a good example of Americans to promote peace long before peace-keeping efforts are needed.

Site Announcement!

These last few days have been really exciting. First, we had our 4th of July party on Friday. It was a lot of fun and we had a lot of good food that reminded me of home. It also reminded me of how much I miss the everyday devices which make cooking at home easy. I think I spent 3 hours chopping and peeling in preparation for the party. We did have a local band, called Laffi Bala (pictured here) which is Mooré for "is it good" I think, and we danced a lot. Towards the end, some local people came by and joined us in the dancing. The only downside was 3 days later over half of our training group was sick, so we are thinking there was something wrong with the food. It tasted great at the time, though. :)

I spent the night in a village called Bogoya F on Saturday to get a taste for village life. It was really nice and really different from how we are living in Ouahigouya. At our host family's house, the tv is normally always on and we can communicate with a hybrid French-English concoction pretty easily. In village, I was lucky to find someone who understands French and English seemed out of the question. This led to a lot more awkward silences, but it was okay. Aside from the huge, man-eating spiders that seemed to occupy Joanna's house, it was really nice.

I bought some fabric this weekend called a pagne. I am not sure if it's because of the pagne or something else, but my mom came out of her room on Sunday all dressed up and said, "Amy, take your picture with me" ( in French, of course). She had me put on my pagne and gave me a wrap for my head and taught me how to sit for pictures. It was really cute and a little surprising. The picture is to the left.







Yesterday was a big day for everyone because they announced where our sites are. The way they do the site announcements is there is a big map of Burkina they put on the wall. Someone will read a small clip about the site and then they will announce who is placed there and that person comes up, finds their site on the map, and places a little cutout of themselves on the map (pictured here). Aaron and I are going to Titao. It's actually close to where we are now in the north. When we flew here a month ago, we met a Peace Corps couple at the Paris airport who were returning to Burkina to finish their service. They were on our flight and we chatted with them for a little bit. Well, it turns out that Aaron and I are taking over that couple's site. Crazy. Everyone says they have a great house so we are excited to visit next week.

We played soccer yesterday against a local girls team. I am pretty out of shape but it was really fun. We ended up tying. I think we are also going to start playing volleyball against a local team. That will be lots of fun.

Mom and Ron, we got your packages yesterday. Thanks so much! It was our first piece of mail and it totally made our day. If anyone feels like sending a letter or a package, feel free. We can always use more peanut butter, granola bars, and mixes (sauce, cookie, drink, anything).

USA! USA! USA!

Happy 4th of July everyone. I hope you have something fun planned. As for us, we are trying to go as all-American as possible here. We are grilling hamburgers and eating the mutton that the chief gave us a few weeks ago complete with fruit salad, potatoes, and even a little watermelon we were able to find at the marché today. I heard a rumor that some local drummers are coming to play, which isn't American, but it is way cooler.

The other day we got a cookbook compiled by former and current PCVs who have created some recipes with local ingredients. I cannot wait to start cooking. Ok, really, I cannot wait for Aaron to start cooking so I can eat and I will start baking. That's right, you can bake here. There are instructions for making a dutch oven along with recipes for breads, cookies...all the good stuff.

We had a class yesterday on how to use the black board here. It was really interesting. The students do not have textbooks so their notebooks are their only resource for studying the material so they are very picky about what they write. This means that you have to be really organized in how you present information on the board so that they don't fill up their notebooks with stuff they don't need. Also, there are specific sections of the board that students will copy everything you write, other sections for where students can work problems, and a section for where you outline the days activities everyday, and a section for equations and new definitions. We also learned how they do basic math operations here. The division is a little different and some of the numbers are written differently. It was just really fun and interesting.

Thanks to the Clem family and Mama Duck for your messages and prayers.