Another Update

So I wrote this long entry after finding out that week we didn't have school for an entire week. I'll save you the details. Suffice it to say that we asked plenty of questions about how to plan the final few weeks of class and were rewarded by showing to an almost-empty school. I'll note here one little quirk of the Burkinabé though:

Learning that class had been canceled for the week when I should be teaching and not the week before is one thing. But this information was not just passed on to us, "Hi Amy and Aaron, there is no class this week because of the strikes. See you next Monday." No, instead we walked into empty classrooms and then decided to go hang out with the other teachers who seemed to be waiting for the late students. It was during this casual prattle that the censure, the guy with all the info, mentioned in passing how there was no class. This is how it is with all important information. If you don't listen carefully you'll miss the whole point.

Another typical exchange: I sat down at my favorite sitting spot in town and this guy approached and asked if I wanted coffee. Well, this was new to me so I asked, "That's possible?" And he said, "No, there's nothing."

On another note, I've been meaning to mention the bird situation here. It is quite surprising, but Burkina is a mecca for bird watchers. On a typical morning or evening bike ride I'll see many awe-inspiring birds. There are the huge diabolical vultures. The intense falcon (that may have eaten one of our cats), the fighter jet-inspired hawks, the iridescent tropical birds, many brightly-colored song birds, white crane-like birds that go lost on their way to the Nile, something similar to a kingfisher... My favorite bird though is the feather bird. I know, aren't all birds "feather birds" and isn't that a stupid name? Here's the thing: imagine the longest feather plucked from a California condor's wing. Then shove it up a hummingbird's behind and you have the "feather bird." This minutely-bodied bird steers itself through the air much like a rafter navigating rapids--he paddles furiously and seemingly to no avail, but somehow he makes it out alive. A film of this bird in flight would be a great addition to that "air is a fluid" science lecture. Watching it swirl though the sky you have no doubt of air's fluid-like nature.

Book update:

Book Number 13: A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

An excellent book. It sums up the history of science from Newton to modern biology in a never-boring way. It's filled anecdotes of the crazy, boring, and sometimes evil figures in science history. Bryson set out to write the book because he had never taken an interest in science and realized as a result he had no clue how scientists knew the amazing things they know. Therefore the book is extremely accessible, informative, and entertaining. It could help change the popular geeky view of science in America.

Book Number 14: Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

Another winner. This book manages to write seriously, creatively, and... dare I say beautifully... while making fun of serious creative writing and never undermining itself. It's like a basketball star convincing everyone that basketball is lame and so are its players but yet you marvel at his talent and lack of arrogance. I think even the ridiculous critiques of the book on the back cover were written by the author. If you want to read something classically new, read this iconoclastic burlesque.

School's Out!

As of 7am this morning we are finished with our first trimester. All the grading and recording has taken us most of the last 3 days but we are finally finished. The thing about not having electricity is that you don't have Excel (among other things) so that means you are writing the grades for hundreds of students and calculating their averages by hand. And all school records are written in ink on carbon copy paper so you normally want to do it more than once to make sure there are no errors before you record the grades. What a pain!

Our students did pretty well. We can always tell which students have cheated on our tests because they will have the exact same completely absurd answers. On my last test I has a true/false question asking whether 'l'homme' (man) is an example of an autotrophe (plants that make their own food) and I had three boys say that 'l'homme' was not an autotrophe because it was 'les femmes' that prepare all the food at the house.

Our big victory this week was that Moussa, our student that hangs out all the time, has solved 3 Sudokus!! I'm so proud. At first, when it was taking two days to do a word search, I was losing hope, but he's getting the hang of it now. Also, we have a few sprouts in our garden already. We already have some little bean, carrot, thyme, and tomato plants.

Yesterday the US Ambassador came to visit us. Okay, she didn't come up to visit us specifically, she was in the area and stopped by, but we still felt like celebrities. She even brought us a Christmas present of homemade brownies and banana bread: it was awesome!

Animal update: we are down to one cat and one pigeon now. Moussa thinks someone stole our pigeon but we aren't sure. So I guess we have plenty of room for chickens now. There's this mangy dog around town that Aaron wants to adopt (he calls him a 'fixer-upper') but I think I might veto that (Editor's Note: With a little TLC he'll make a great dog. I think of him as an investment. Kind of like that VW 'fixer-upper' Bug that's been sitting in my parent's garage for years).

Well, I guess that is all the news. The weather here is still warm so it's hard to believe that it is almost Christmas. The other day it was actually cloudy and we got about 10 drops of rain, which was pretty exciting but aside from that it's sunny and warm. We've been told that midnight on Dec. 24th it will get cold (kind of like how in a month we will have electricity).
Thanks to Mom and Ron for the packages.

Tabaski

Nye Taabo a tout le monde. It turns out that this week is a big week of Burkinabé holidays. Monday was the Muslim holiday of Tabaski, Thursday is a national independence day, and Saturday is the anniversary of a reporter that was killed and all the students go on strike. Naturally, Aaron and I were about 2 steps behind everyone else learning about all of this. The whole situation was really confusing. We were told that Tabaski was coming but nobody seemed to know what day it was. We get the whole week off of school but we didn't find this out until we arrived at school ready to teach. These holidays are a big deal, too. It would be like if nobody told you about Thanksgiving in the States.

So Tabaski is called the fête of the mouton (sheep) and is one of the big Muslim holidays in the year. Everyone starts early with prayer in the morning and then around 10 they kill the mouton and start preparing a big meal. So what better way for us to celebrate and learn about it than by eating chicken with our Catholic friend? Our friend, Bernard, had us over for some chicken, soup, and dolo (imagine really bad wine). He was telling us that in Burkina, Muslims and Christians celebrate each other's holidays. So on Tabaski or the end of Rhamadan, his Muslim neighbors bring him food from their feasts and on Christmas and Easter he brings them food. (Basically, they just like a good party.)

We are thinking of getting a chicken and starting a chicken family at our house so that next year we will have our own chickens to eat for the different holidays. Bernard picked out a cock to give us so we just have to buy the hen and we're in business. We haven't seen the turtle in a while and one of our cats (the one good one) has been missing for a week (there is a chance that a neighbor ate it), so our animal population is almost back down to a reasonable level which means it's time to add some more. I think we will wait until after Christmas.

For Christmas this year we are going backpacking in Dogon Country, Mali for 5 days. It is supposed to be a must-see in West Africa so we are really excited. I'm not sure if we'll have cellphone reception so sorry in advance if we don't answer between the 23rd and 28th. Then we'll be back in Titao for New Years (Bernard has been building Titao up to be the Times Square of Burkina for New Years Eve, but I'm a little skeptical).
Okay, miss you all and hope you have a great Christmas!