1. Model School: Friday was the Conseil de classe and the closing ceremonies for model school. The conseil de classe is when all of the professeurs get together and talk about how well each of the classes preformed. We listed off the best two boys and girls in each class, and they received prizes at the ceremony. There ceremony itself was pretty fun. Each grade had an opening little song/dance to represent their class, except the songs weren’t actually sung by the students. They were just lip-synced, which the other volunteers said is actually really popular here. So I am definitely looking forward to seeing more of that during my time here, haha! The dancers were really good though, and it was just fun to get to that side of our students. Also, all of us professeurs decided to get matching clothes made (which is actually common here, sometimes schools will have one pattern of fabric that represents the school. Or people attending a wedding together will all get matching clothes made), so check out our sweet uniforms below!!
2. Sabou: Last weekend the Second Ed. Sector was able to take a little field trip to Sabou, where they have sacred crocodiles. The story behind the crocodiles is that the founder of the town was traveling through the bush, when he was overcome by heat exhaustion. A crocodile came up and have him water and saved his life (or something like that). So the crocodiles became sacred, and it is supposed to be good luck if a croc comes into your house if you live in the village. You should just feed it a chicken and send it on its way. The guys who worked there also insisted that they crocs were harmless, that it would be perfectly safe to swim through the lake the live in. None of us were quite brave enough to test that theory, but the workers were certainly fearless as the just walked in, grabbed one by the tail and brought it to land for us to take pictures of… It is definitely the first really touristy thing I’ve done here in Burkina, and it was just really weird to take that little break from trying to fit in (as much as 80 white people can fit in while living together in Africa…) to enjoy something like a vacation :)
3. General health and well being: After about 3 weeks of less than ideal stomach conditions, I have been back to normal for over a week now!! But in our last weeks, there have definitely been more incidents than usual! I fell off my bike into a mud puddle and sliced my hand open (it was actually pretty hilarious, don’t worry), and another girl also fell off her bike and got a pretty nice bruise. A friend got into a bike accident and broke his arm; while another was side-swiped by a moto and hurt her elbow. There have been the regular stomach issues as well within the group, but I just hope that everything settles down on the accidents front when we all get to our sites!! Ironically, the day I fell off my bike was the day of our first aid training, so luckily I knew to clean and bandage my wound :)
4. Language: So, unless I dropped a level on my latest test, I reached the level I needed to before swear-in. I’ve been pretty comfortable with the French since returning to a host family again, but I admittedly still make plenty of mistakes and really just need to work on expanding my vocabulary. I think I understand most of the structural rules, I just can’t think of what I want to say sometimes… When I first got here and heard how much the current volunteers struggled with English, I wished I would be able to get to that point, and now it doesn’t seem like it is that far away. Maybe all my blog posts next year will have to be in French…
5. Host Family: With my new host family there are a lot more kids who live here/hang out in our courtyard. My favorite is a boy named Elise, but there is also Elisabeth, Eli, Toma, Louise, Ines, and Martin. Elise is in about 5th grade, and whenever my roommate or I walk anywhere around the neighborhood, he will accompany us (if not the whole entourage). And even though is only about 10, I definitely feel safer with him. He also gives me gifts, so of course I like him, haha (and I just have to convince myself that he has permission to be giving me all these little trinkets and not that he is stealing them from his mom...) My roommate is much better about spending time with the kids, but we’ve had a few fun nights together. My favorite was the night mom and dad went to church and we stayed home and had a dance party! It started with the girls showing us some dances to local music, but my roommate got out her computer and we were all rocking out to some Black Eyed Peas in no time. I don’t think I will ever forget the kids jumping all around and singing along to “Imma Be.” Rockin like this my job!
It’s hard to believe that I have been gone for about 75 days. Haha, I remember I had a countdown going before I left, and it really doesn’t seem that long ago where I still had 75 days to go! But these 11 weeks or so of training have definitely been challenging, but also really fun. I think more than anything I will be sad to say goodbye to everyone I know in this country, and start the challenges of getting to know my community, my family, for the next two years. I think I’m ready for the challenge, but we’ll just have to wait and see!
4. Language: So, unless I dropped a level on my latest test, I reached the level I needed to before swear-in. I’ve been pretty comfortable with the French since returning to a host family again, but I admittedly still make plenty of mistakes and really just need to work on expanding my vocabulary. I think I understand most of the structural rules, I just can’t think of what I want to say sometimes… When I first got here and heard how much the current volunteers struggled with English, I wished I would be able to get to that point, and now it doesn’t seem like it is that far away. Maybe all my blog posts next year will have to be in French…
5. Host Family: With my new host family there are a lot more kids who live here/hang out in our courtyard. My favorite is a boy named Elise, but there is also Elisabeth, Eli, Toma, Louise, Ines, and Martin. Elise is in about 5th grade, and whenever my roommate or I walk anywhere around the neighborhood, he will accompany us (if not the whole entourage). And even though is only about 10, I definitely feel safer with him. He also gives me gifts, so of course I like him, haha (and I just have to convince myself that he has permission to be giving me all these little trinkets and not that he is stealing them from his mom...) My roommate is much better about spending time with the kids, but we’ve had a few fun nights together. My favorite was the night mom and dad went to church and we stayed home and had a dance party! It started with the girls showing us some dances to local music, but my roommate got out her computer and we were all rocking out to some Black Eyed Peas in no time. I don’t think I will ever forget the kids jumping all around and singing along to “Imma Be.” Rockin like this my job!
It’s hard to believe that I have been gone for about 75 days. Haha, I remember I had a countdown going before I left, and it really doesn’t seem that long ago where I still had 75 days to go! But these 11 weeks or so of training have definitely been challenging, but also really fun. I think more than anything I will be sad to say goodbye to everyone I know in this country, and start the challenges of getting to know my community, my family, for the next two years. I think I’m ready for the challenge, but we’ll just have to wait and see!
Also, i just tried to add a couple pictures, but it wouldn't let me. I think they will make it to my website though, so check that out!!
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