Sorry for the wait, but for your patience; i have two posts!! read the one below as well!!
So for about the past week we have been in our new training city, and I have to say it is definitely not as hot as Ouahigouya was! This last week I even wore my jacket! It also poured for a couple days, which does wonders in bringing down the temperature! I don’t have a thermometer like I did at my host family, so I don’t really know what temp we’re down to, but certainly cooler. I am definitely not looking forward to the hot season next spring, when it won’t rain for about 2+ months. And from what I hear, everyone just gets really crabby. But I’ve got plenty of time to worry about that. :)
We are now in our new host families! We are doubled up, two people to a family, just because they didn’t have very much time to find families. My roommate is Paula, a woman from the Girl’s Empowerment and Education sector, and she’s super nice. We share a room that is a little bigger than my old room, so definitely enough space to live in, but not enough to really unpack anything. But at this point there is only a month left until we swear in, so as much as I want to stop living out a suitcase, I can suck it up for one more month. Our family here has a mom and dad and probably about 8-ish kids who live here, but I know the couple only has 5, and 2 of those are in Ouaga. I think the other kids are nieces and nephews, but who knows. Our dad also introduces everyone as his “petit frère” or little brother, so family is pretty loosely defined here. Our mom doesn’t speak French though, only Mooré, the most common local language in Burkina. So unfortunately, I’m not able to talk much with her. Paula is learning Moore though, so they are able to communicate a little.
This past week was our first week of model school! Because it was the first week, the stagiaires didn’t teach, we just watched the current volunteers or Burkinabe teachers. But we start tomorrow, and I have to say I really am nervous. I am teaching Physics/Chemistry for the 3rd class (which is the last year of college). After 3rd, there is a big test that the students have to pass if they want to continue on to 2nd, so there is more pressure on teachers and students in that class. Most volunteers try not to teach 3rd for that reason, but because I will be the only P/C teacher at my school, there isn’t much choice. So my nervousness stems from a number of the contributing factors here: that I’ll be teaching a subject that I’m not entirely comfortable with, I’ll be teaching French, and there’s more pressure on that class to do well. That last one doesn’t really apply to model school, but it will in a couple months when school starts!
And to top it all off, I am still sick :( I’m starting to feel better, but still need to rush off to the bathroom more frequently than I’d like. So hopefully that doesn’t happen tomorrow at school! But I definitely am getting an appetite back, after a couple of days of not really wanting to eat anything, so that’s good! The hotel we stayed at for a few days before coming to the host families didn’t have toilets, so that was my first time have to deal with being sick and only having a hole in the ground. But my host family has a toilet, so I’m getting spoiled again here :) Talking to other people, it sounds like quite a few have toilets, so maybe this city just has the infrastructure available that other cities don’t.
But I will certainly let you all know how model school goes! Wish me luck!
Monday, July 26, 2010
Site Visit!!
written around 7/18/10
So last week, I was able to go to my site and see where I am going to be living and working for the next two years!! And I have to say, I loved it! The village is in an area that is a lot greener than what we have seen so far, and there were hills! (I will call them mountains, but they aren’t real mountains…) The parts we’ve seen of Burkina up to this point have been very flat, dry and red. So seeing parts of the country that were hilly, had little lakes and rivers, and very green, definitely won me over :) I realize that we are in the wet season right now, and that I probably won’t have green and lakes the entire year, but to have them at all is pretty sweet.
I saw my house and have some pictures up on photo section down to the right (I’ll put some below as well). It is a small house with 3 rooms, a salon and two bedrooms. I’m not really sure what I’m going to use the second bedroom for yet, maybe the kitchen area, maybe just more of a storage area. I have an outdoor latrine and an outdoor shower area (aka a cement slab with walls around it). None of the houses have electricity or running water, but there are several water pumps throughout the village. I’ll have to take bucket baths for my two years there, but I have to say, when it is really hot, an outdoor shower is really quite nice. I don’t have it now, but there will be a hangar in my courtyard, and I hope to make small garden somewhere. I don’t know if I’ll actually try to grow vegetables, but even just some flowers will spruce the place up.
As for the no electricity part, I may invest in some solar panels. I ate my meals with my counterpart and he had solar panels that he used to charge up car batteries, then would run lights, the TV, radio and satellite dish. He said that each battery lasted about a day, and I think he had 3 or 4 of them. But before I decided to do that, I want to see how common it is. If only the director of the school is able to afford it, I don’t want to make myself a target for theft by getting it, too. My house is also pretty close to the center of town while my director lives right on the edge of town near the school.
The village has two primary schools and the college (middle school) where I will work. A college has grades 6-3, while a lycee has all the grades. Also, the grades here count down instead of up. We also discussed what classes I will probably teach, and it looks like I will be doing more physics/chemistry than math. I will have two classes of P/C and one of math. I almost had a class of biology too, but I talked my way out of it because it was definitely more than what is recommended for your first year.
My village only has market every five days, as opposed to the larger cities where they have market every day. That just means that I will have to be a little more proactive with planning out my meals. There is a mini-market every day, but they really only had a few small ingredients mostly for making sauces.
There is a CSPS, health center, in the village and it’s actually pretty close to my house. There isn’t a police station or a gendarmerie there, but we have both a Prefet and a Mayor. I’m not entirely sure what the equivalents to these things are in America, but there you go.
After the site visit, we all met in the capitol and were able to see the Peace Corps Office and the US Embassy. The Embassy is off in a new part of the city called Ouaga 2000. The building is super new and I think they’ve only been there for a few months. After the visits, we went to the American Rec Center where we all very much enjoyed eating an American lunch!! They even had milkshakes!! And ranch dressing!
We are now in our new training city, and will put in new host families by the end of the week. I’m really excited to be back with host families, and hope that I can actually get settled in for the month or so before we get sworn in! We counted and between all the moves, we will have packed and unpacked our things about 10 times, which is getting a little old :) Another unfortunately side effect of site visit, is that my body had gotten used the food in the bigger cities, and I still haven’t really recovered from something I ate in village. But I realized today that it only hurts when I eat, so I’ll just have to stop doing that :P
Well, here are a couple pictures, but also check the link to the right, I think the new picture I added made it to the album!!
So last week, I was able to go to my site and see where I am going to be living and working for the next two years!! And I have to say, I loved it! The village is in an area that is a lot greener than what we have seen so far, and there were hills! (I will call them mountains, but they aren’t real mountains…) The parts we’ve seen of Burkina up to this point have been very flat, dry and red. So seeing parts of the country that were hilly, had little lakes and rivers, and very green, definitely won me over :) I realize that we are in the wet season right now, and that I probably won’t have green and lakes the entire year, but to have them at all is pretty sweet.
I saw my house and have some pictures up on photo section down to the right (I’ll put some below as well). It is a small house with 3 rooms, a salon and two bedrooms. I’m not really sure what I’m going to use the second bedroom for yet, maybe the kitchen area, maybe just more of a storage area. I have an outdoor latrine and an outdoor shower area (aka a cement slab with walls around it). None of the houses have electricity or running water, but there are several water pumps throughout the village. I’ll have to take bucket baths for my two years there, but I have to say, when it is really hot, an outdoor shower is really quite nice. I don’t have it now, but there will be a hangar in my courtyard, and I hope to make small garden somewhere. I don’t know if I’ll actually try to grow vegetables, but even just some flowers will spruce the place up.
As for the no electricity part, I may invest in some solar panels. I ate my meals with my counterpart and he had solar panels that he used to charge up car batteries, then would run lights, the TV, radio and satellite dish. He said that each battery lasted about a day, and I think he had 3 or 4 of them. But before I decided to do that, I want to see how common it is. If only the director of the school is able to afford it, I don’t want to make myself a target for theft by getting it, too. My house is also pretty close to the center of town while my director lives right on the edge of town near the school.
The village has two primary schools and the college (middle school) where I will work. A college has grades 6-3, while a lycee has all the grades. Also, the grades here count down instead of up. We also discussed what classes I will probably teach, and it looks like I will be doing more physics/chemistry than math. I will have two classes of P/C and one of math. I almost had a class of biology too, but I talked my way out of it because it was definitely more than what is recommended for your first year.
My village only has market every five days, as opposed to the larger cities where they have market every day. That just means that I will have to be a little more proactive with planning out my meals. There is a mini-market every day, but they really only had a few small ingredients mostly for making sauces.
There is a CSPS, health center, in the village and it’s actually pretty close to my house. There isn’t a police station or a gendarmerie there, but we have both a Prefet and a Mayor. I’m not entirely sure what the equivalents to these things are in America, but there you go.
After the site visit, we all met in the capitol and were able to see the Peace Corps Office and the US Embassy. The Embassy is off in a new part of the city called Ouaga 2000. The building is super new and I think they’ve only been there for a few months. After the visits, we went to the American Rec Center where we all very much enjoyed eating an American lunch!! They even had milkshakes!! And ranch dressing!
We are now in our new training city, and will put in new host families by the end of the week. I’m really excited to be back with host families, and hope that I can actually get settled in for the month or so before we get sworn in! We counted and between all the moves, we will have packed and unpacked our things about 10 times, which is getting a little old :) Another unfortunately side effect of site visit, is that my body had gotten used the food in the bigger cities, and I still haven’t really recovered from something I ate in village. But I realized today that it only hurts when I eat, so I’ll just have to stop doing that :P
Well, here are a couple pictures, but also check the link to the right, I think the new picture I added made it to the album!!
Friday, July 9, 2010
Site announcement!
Things have been a little crazy around here the past week or so!! because of some things that had happened in burkina, we were all pulled out of our host families and moved into a hotel. We hope to move to a new city soon, but right now, we are all just rolling with the punches :)
We missed a couple days of classes in the move, meaning site announcement was moved from wednesday to today!! (we were a little nervous that would happen, but two days wasn't the end of the world :P) I have been instructed not share my location on such a public forum, but i can tell you that i will be north of Bobo-Dioulasso (or just Bobo) and south of Degoudou (it is on my facebook, because i have higher controls on who can see my info there, if you're really curious!! or just send me an email and i'll let you know)
I know that i will be the first education volunteer, and i think the first volunteer there at all!! I believe there have been health volunteers in the area before, but not in my city/village. The region i described is part of the cotton bowl of burkina, meaning it is greener than the parts of the country i have seen so far!! I did find out that i will NOT have electricity. that definitely makes a minority in my sector, but i knew it was certainly a possibility. I am certain that i will have more to write on that after i've lived there for a while. But right now, i'm at a hotel with free wi-fi, so that is a little hard to imagine a life without electricity at the moment.
Next week we have our counterpart workshop next week which means that we all get to meet the person from our sites who will be our go-to person for the next two years!! For teachers, our counterpart is typically another teacher at the school or a parent on the PTA (APE in french). After the workshop, i get to go to my site!! For five days next week, i will get to take a bus, a bush-taxi and my bike out to my site. i'll get to see my school, meet all the important people, see my house (hopefully) and get a feel for what the village is like. I will hopefully also get an idea of what subjects are not being taught at my school, which typically translates into what subjects i will teach! I'm super excited to get a little bit of independence and see how things work here when i'm not being chauffeured around in air-conditioned government vehicles. (not that i don't enjoy air-conditioned vehicles!)
Well, that's all i've got for now! i think my next update will be after my site visit, and i'll let you know how everything went! Also, today is the one month mark of landing in burkina, and i can't describe how crazy it seems that i've only been gone a month!! it seems like so much longer (but in a good way!)
as always, miss you all and love all the little updates and messages i've gotten. they really mean a lot! :)
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