Nasara Bye-Bye!

Okay,let me preface this post by saying that coming to Burkina Faso has taught me a lot and I'm very glad I came. So, it is VERY disppointing that it hasn't worked out for me. Yet I have decided that it is not best for me to stay. I have a number of health concerns and have found that this, in addition to other difficulties, has brought me to the conclusion that I need to leave Pissila. Donc, I will be on the next available flight for Paris.

Going along with this, and equally as sad for me, Jon and I feel that it's best he stay. He has not had the same difficulties and is also obligated to teach two classes until the end of the year. Eleanor also chosen to stay. She loves nasaras, but she doesn't want Jon to get lonely. So he gets to enjoy this wonderful climate sans moi.

I think it would be appropriate now to list some things I will miss about Burkina Faso so I will do it Top Ten style (since my dad likes Letterman):
10. benga (beans) for 25 cents
9. the marche and its array of thrifty treasures ( hello, i love my 'ok' belt and panda bag)
8. speaking french and being laughed at beaucoup
7. leopold sending me 12 blank text messages a day (leopold + cell phone= annoyed heather)
6. old men laughing at me when we're drinking dolo and i say animal names in moore
(donkey=buenga...not to be confused with benga)
5. little kids screaming "nasara BYE BYE" as I ride by on my bike (guess no one taught them
'hello')
4. my host sister Balkeesa clucking her tongue at me (and dying my feet black. who doesn't
love black toenails for two months?)
3. Africans wearing hats and winter coats when it's 85 degrees outside (sometimes mittens)
2. sleeping under the stars (with Sayka Sayka lulling me from my sweaty bed into dreamland)
1. great people (they've been the sweetest and nicest people and I am truly going to miss them!)

Here are the Top Ten things I can live without:
10. sweating at 10pm in my tent trying to fall asleep ( and Jon sleeping peacefully beside me..
..jerk)
9. beggar kids singing at the gate trying to make me get out of my tent'o'sweat and saying "Je
ne comprends pas. Je parle a Moore"(or the ones in ouaga who slap me)
8. biting into several small sand pebbles every time I get a loaf of bread (or a bowl of benga)
7. getting a bacterial infection when i eat 25 cent benga (and pooing my pants after said infection
on African public transportation)
6. cab drivers! (they either rip me off or try to kiss me, heather+scandalous driver+heat
= nasara tanrum... and a backpack might get dropped and kicked)
5. sweating, all day every day (and night too!)
4. LATRINES and their creepy inhabitants (who I might right a children's book about)
3. running out of toilet paper (and resorting to notebook paper)
2. having noodles, rice, and white baguettes every meal (sometimes with a side of... more
noodles!)
1. my Burkina BUTT RASH. (great for those long bike rides on my bike!)

BUSY BEES

Alas school has begun and the cool season has not. Steadily things are picking up around Piss-town. I am tres hereuse. Leopold has now officially introduced Jon and I to many important people and the school committees, donc, I am all set to begin empowering those girls!

Maintenant, I am in Ouaga for my out-of-site leave and a dr. appt. I have spent the day eating BEAUCOUP. I have also gotten to meet up with some fellow volunteers, which is always good.

Mommy and Daddy, thanks for the "mother package." i can now schedule the heck out of my village life! (which is tres importante what with the Africans being slaves to their sundials). You guys flippin' rock!

It feels like there's not much to recount... I have been reading and sweating a lot. We went to a dinner with the teachers that Jon teaches with and tore up the fanta! I am officially known as "Addo" by the Burkinabe. Whenever I am asked my name, my reply is met with a stare that might closely resemble one you would expect to see if I'd crouched down and did a headstand. The sounds of my name are an enigma that some people can only make out a long grunt of mushed-up syllables. I would resort to being fatimata again, but I am in a cathoic village now with many names like 'Simone' and 'Collette.'

To conclude this post I would like to talk about Anselm. He is our daily visitor and is the most polite, well-spoken and adorable 11 year-old I've known. Whenever he comes over I am immediately cheered up. Anselm can make my day! I am really excited to finally start working with kids! One thing is for sure: the villagers are wonderful.

Well love to all!!!

heather's hellacious happenings

Jon has laready mentioned that things have not been particularly "peachy" the past two-three weeks....pretty much since we've been at site. First, sadly, we are down a kitty. Mali has gone to the hereafter and Eleanor is our only cat. I guess we learned the hard way that you have to be careful with beloved pets in Africa! Next, during a weekend visit to the capitol, a beggar slapped me in the face and a taxi driver tried to kiss me. Last week I had an infection in both feet and this week I had a bacterial infection with a really high fever and horrible stomach issues. I'm now recovering in Ouaga and feel a lot better. It's amazing how a little AC and Shrek will change your perspective on the universe.

So about our work! School gets going next week and we should both get busier. It is hot hot hot right now but we're told that November-January is "like paradise" (a quote from Sylvie the PCMO who tried to cheer me up yesterday) which remains to be seen. We have several friends in Pissila. We probably spend most of our time (besides with eachother) with Philippe. He is who serves us cold drinks at our local buvette "Kosnabas." The drinks are SUPER SUPER cold and the ambiance is outstanding (maybe a little too far on that last point). We are lucky though.

Here's a typical Day-in-the-Life if you will: wake up around six, lay around while someone makes hot water for an awesome cup of Nescafe (YUM) and then make some oatmeal. next, (and this might be around 8) we go for a bike ride down this dirt road that leads to surrounding villages (sometimes we go off road for a little exploration..hello Lewis and Clarke) this will include about one million greetings and Burkinabe laughing at the weird white people. Next we head back to the homestead for some bucket bath action. Hopefully around now it is close enough to eleven to warrant some benga and cold fanta/castel/coke/sachet de l'eau (water). Around 12:30 begins what we call here the repose (rest/nap time). This lasts until 3:30. I usually lie in our house fanning myself. The evenings are wild cards, sometimes we have a guest or two, sometimes we get invited for some socializing over dolo (local beer) and sometimes we just cook up a tasty meal around 4 and hit the hay around 6. It's a hectic schedule for us. Sometimes you just can't fit it all in!

Well thanks for the comments guys! Love to everyone over there in the Americas. Enjoy the fall t.v. lineup!
Au Revoir for now.

SWEARING IN!!!

tomorrow is our big day! jon and i both got traditional outfits made for our swearing in. we leave for ouaga the next day and have a day for shopping there. we then set off for pissila on sunday! one of the other stagaiares found us two tiny kitty cats that will be joining us at our new home. their names are elanor and mali. they are trés mignon! (very cute)

i am hoping to be a lot better at updating my blog in the future. life should be less frazzled and crazy busy. there is not much new with stàge... i lost my cell phone (a real shocker) and i have a marché addiction. i don't have money but still manage to find tiny treasures.

OHH! i forgot that today we found out that the house we originally were going to live in will not be ready ( t.i.a. or "this is africa"/"ça va aller" as they say here which is another version of t.i.a.) anyhoo, we will now be movong to a smaller house that we've never seen and know nothing about!! Pas de probleme ( no worries!). We are only a little bit frustrated which must mean that our training has been successfully. haha

i would like to end on a poetic note. here is a poem that me and my B.F.F.B.F. ( best friend burkina faso) wrote:
"Donkeys in the Mist"
Morning came, cloudless, warm.
The donkey stood strong, unadultered.

What is this feeling? The donkey cried.
Who heard?

The schoolhouse stood flat, as if to hear;
To understand the river of emotion.
It flows brave, stolen.

Come back! I wept inwardly. The donkey still bellowed.
The wails of longing. Tired, bitter, misunderstood.

The donkey's coat begins to shine below the sun's glare;
Perhaps with love we find life, with hope, understanding.

A fly gently swoops around the donkey's visage.
I am here, I think. The donkey, the fly, moi.

I take a step back; I weep and the donkey echoes.
He stands blandly, as if to say, " I commend you my friend."

The sundrifts down in the sky of whirling dust; the donkey crouched down.
It is time for rest. No more stàge; it is time to be still.

My friend Beth and I composed this and performed it for the talent show. It was hysterical... maybe we've been in village too long!

last month of stàge

hello!!! i am still alive but thinner or in french maigré (i think). i have gotten several letters and am so happy!!! thanks to everyone and i will try very hard to get back to you. it is kind of chère (expensive) to send letters so i am trying to wait for someone going to the the u.s. to mail them there.

so i have been getting along very well lately. burkina faso is really growing on me. we found a place to get cold milk!! and i am a marché junkie. it is so great; you can find anything!!! i got a lord of the rings shirt, a teapot, a belt, and tons of other treasures! it is like a thrift-store DREAM.

jon and i have been going to yoga and that has been great; although last nite a blister beetle crawled in my pants and stung my butt about five times!! we also got to spend a few days in ouagadougou and that was amazing. the food there is other-worldly compared to village food, although i LOVE LOVE LOVE benga (aka: beans and rice).

well i better go, but i have two little funny things to say 1. i heard a new version of sting's song "i'm an englishman in new york." it is reggae and it goes "i'm a rasta-man from ouaga." dad, you would have died!
2. there is a city close to pissila ( aka piss-town) and it is cqlled poutanga! that is for you, brian!!

love to everyone and stay in touch! you can also leave comments on this blog and i will feel special!! i'll mail some letters soon!!!!

Yeah!! I am on the internet!!

Hey everyone! I have been in Burkina Faso for almost a month now...sorry this is my first post. It has been a fun-filled couple of weeks. I live with a family in a village called Bogoya F. My new name that everyone in village calls me is Fatimata. It is HOT here; that is for SURE. Sleeping outside is my favorite thing here...under the African sky. ahhhhhh.
Also, I have a cell phone!! My # is 011 226 767 93 192. If you get an international calling card it is only 11 cents a min! It is amazing to be able to talk to mommy or daddy anytime.

There has been way too much going on for me to stay in touch too well this last month, but I will do better after stàge (aka: training). I am slowly learning french...I do speak fluent franglais, though (a delightful combo of english and french). Hopefully I can post some pictures soon of my host family. They couldn't be sweeter or more accomodating. I adore my 15 yr-old sister Balkeesa. She's my new pal and we talk a lot. All in all, things are going really well; we found out where our site will be (Pissilla- a big village in the middle of the country- 2hrs N. of the capitol), we both got sick and it lived through it, and we've met some spectacular and exceptional people. I'd say everything is peachy.

Love to everyone!!! Keep in touch!!

so long, farewell!

Today is our last day in Kansas City! I said goodbye to some incredible friends and it was pretty emotional. I got some very sweet gifts that I will treasure while I'm in Africa... thanks Jen, Sarah, Daniel, Jonah and Lydia! My sister got me an amazing gift; it is so special. Thanks, Laura!!! I love you baby sis! My parents and Jon's parents have really taken care of us this past month. I'm gonna miss 'em... it's too bad we have such great families... makes it harder to say bye-bye!

On a side note, Jon cut his hair and shaved!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I feel like a stranger just walked in. It looks awesome.

Well, if I didn't get to say bye to anyone....'bye.' I won't forget you! I'll try to keep this blog updated and if you write me a letter, I can guarantee I'll write back.

BYE GUYS! I'm out!

Colorado and Utah

It was chilly yet gorgeous... a great time. We got back and realized that we leave in a week for Africa!! Ummmm

....yeah.

We have some stuff to do, but I am in constantly- excited-mode.
Oh and we had a beer that tasted like pickle juice at New Belgium. It was WEIRD. The rest we tried were delish. We sent ourselves a postcard in Burkina Faso!

Sick sucks

I never get sick... but this cold I have right now is kicking my rear. Anyway, I am glad that I am getting this cold now and not the day we leave for staging. Enough complaining, I will suck it up! (Literally I am sucking lots of snot up my nose)

We leave in 2 1/2 weeks! I did a "mock pack" and felt really good about it. I'll probably read this later and think about how badly I was mistaken, but you can only take so much... Jon and a few other people put up a packing list. I don't like lists. I am drawing myself a map of my luggage because I tend to forget where I pack stuff. My system works for me... and I have some things that I don't want to admit I'm taking...ie. my Hello Kitty blanket.

It's off to Colorado tomorrow. We're gonna tour the New Belgium brewery! Yeah for Trippel! That is my favorite. Then we are going to Utah to climb rocks!

Oooooooklahoma

We are visiting family in Oklahoma and it is so fun telling everybody where we're going and what we'll be doing. Many people in my family have been to Africa so it has also been fun hearing them reminisce about their experiences. We also just ordered our airline tickets for Philadelphia!!! We fly out at 6:20am. Yikes!!

Why NOT?

Jon and I disagree frequently about what we need to bring with us on our trip to Burkina. The current argument, in an extensive, ongoing debate, is whether or not we should bring our video camera. Okay, let me preface this argument with the fact that our backpacking trip in Vietnam was what prompted the purchase. A picture is worth...you know, a thousand words...whatever, but a picture cannot capture an accent, a mannerism, a whole experience. In all fairness, video cannot capture everything, not even close to. My point is, we bought the video camera to capture experiences and places that we want to treasure for a long time. I remember wanting to describe the people, villages, mountains, etc. of Vietnam and knowing that if we had video it would take our friends and family that much closer to where we'd been and how it felt. No matter how much we paid for the durn thing, and even if we can only charge it once every blue moon, I think the value of capturing our experience makes up for the expense of the camera. So there! We're taking it. Thanks for helping me reach this reasonable and wise decision.
p.s. I was inspired by this argument to check you tube for PCV video and there was one from Burkina! So I posted the link because it was tres cool.

To Mingle Friendship Far is Mingling Bloods -The Winter's Tale

The birds are going crazy outside. They are jubilantly singing their little heads off. I am sitting in my parents apartment and it seems like I'm in a tree house. All the windows are open and the soft, wet breeze is carrying the songs of an array of my winged friends. Does it sound like I'm in a good mood? You're right, I just happen to be.

Here's a funny story from yesterday: There is a little boy named Ivan who lives next door, and is about 3 or 4 (not old enough to go to any kind of school, that's all I know). He is one boisterous kid. So, quite frequently we here Ivan outside screaming, talking to himself and others, wailing, sobbing, ( do you see a pattern here?) crashing things, etc. It is a little shocking at first, but sometimes I think the parents or whoever get so tired of his whining that they just leave him on the porch to have his boohoo-fest by himself (or with the rest of the neighborhood). Anway, I was sitting inside trying to read my book and, needless to say, getting an earful. So he kept hollering and finally I hollered back at him. He thought this was hilarious and had no way of knowing where I was. He yelled "who ARE you?" repeatedly, so finally I answered him. "This is SpongeBob" I yelled this after deciding it was not in good taste to yell "God, you better be good!" He didn't buy it so I went through my arsenal of kid characters, spiderman and scooby-doo. Then he yelled for me to come down and tried to entice me by informing me that he had easter eggs. Ooohh, when you put it that way, I thought. But then Jon decides to come in on our game and yells "this is the Easter bunny and I want my eggs back!"
Ahhh, the fun games to play when you're unemployed.

fried caterpillars

Seeing as how I am between jobs and we are not travelling anywhere until Tuesday, there has been time for me to catch up on web-based research of Burkina Faso. Which leads me to a very educational travel site where people posted a lot of Burkina pictures. I happened upon some fried caterpillars, and it appears that they are quite the dish in Bobo. I am almost ashamed to say, as a vegetarian, that they looked kinda tasty. I eat fish and am in no way a strict vegetarian, but I wonder if caterpillars and the rest of the bug world will interest my buds. (taste buds, that is). Jon and I are currently trying to gather all the things we will bring to Africa with us and we just ordered a Solio. Oh , and we also ordered Chacos. It is thrilling for me to consider that Jon will retire the Crocs periodically and sport the Chacos. Even better would be if he loved the new sandals enough to abandon the Crocs forever. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I do believe it would be a big step for him. My fingers are crossed! I have put the link to the new site I found up. Enjoy!

Total ZEN

I am sans keys. Nope, no keys do I own. No car, no apartment, no safe or store keys! GONE! It is 2:30 and I am sipping a Guiness, about to read a book, and listening to the soothing rain rapping on the panes of my mother's windows. Ahhhhhh. The rest of my time in America will be spent with the people I care most about. I plan on taking many baths, eating tons of green grapes and drinking nothing but Guiness and fresh coffee. Seriously though.... it is so nice to finish work and get rid of our car and apartment. There is a little celebration in my soul and I love it! It just feels like the cosmos are aligned and everything is falling in its right place. ahhhh....

a farewell to excess

So today I packed up a sizeable portion of our accumulated crappola. I tell you what, wow. We don't even seem to have that much, but it feels so good to bag it up and haul it out. It's not that I don't like stuff, it just weighs you down. One thing I will not miss at all is our glass dining room table top. We got our table at a modern furniture store downtown and it is unique and sleek (hey that is a great rhyme), but it is a major pain to clean the glass ALL the time and it looks dirty five seconds after you clean it. I hope it finds a good home. Bonne Voyage, la table.

The major bulk of what we are storing is my book collection. Truly, I did make an effort to part with some books and I did manage to rule out about 4 books (and of those one was a duplicate). So what if I hoard books? I reread...and there are many I will get to in the future and am keeping around until that day (i.e. the "Great Books" collection I inherited from my grandpa).

If anyone happens to read this and has been fortunate enough to peruse our appartment and our various possessions please let me know if you saw anything you liked (sans pictures/art and books). We have a barely working t.v. that is maybe 10 years old in our room and a stereo that only plays brand new c.d.'s. If you love us, you will come take our crap!

first new items

It feels like our big adventure is finally drawing near! I just purchased a new back pack, a rear-view mirror (for the bike the Peace Corps furnishes), and a new pair of kicks to blaze down the the dunes of the Sahara. I have one week left at the S-Bucks and I am going to miss many people. Maxine and her cute sweaters, Dennis and his "pink tea" (and honking at me in the parking lot, scaring the daylights out of me), and the numerous Danny's (decaf Dan, mocha coconut Dan, and Mailman Dan). I won't miss some aspects of the job, though, and I'm glad to move on to doing something I am passionate about. Oh yeah, I will also miss Shannon and Elizabeth (enjoy my Hello Kitty umbrella, girl!) I'm off to do some more packing/shopping.
Oh yeah, it's April and it's snowing... in Missouri! I guess it's a nice send-off from the big guy upstairs. I want to be in the sweltering heat of Africa!!

Me without Jon

I just found out that Jon and I will be living apart for the first three months while in training. So, I kind of suspected that this was a possibility and was a little scared but now that it seems definite I'm just trying to brace myself. A part of me is afraid it will be SUPER hard, but a part of me thinks that it will make training that much more effective and might actually save us some extra stress. (ie. arguments that are pointless and are just a result of stress and being worn out). It will kind of be like being single again, and I survived as a single person for quite awhile before ole' Jon came along. Anyway, this is my little therapy session for myself where I try to work out how we will cope with the separation. This could be interesting...maybe even exciting.

Salut!