feeling hot, hot, hot!

Bonjour, toute le monde! I am now into week three!! This weekend the rest of my stage arrived here in Ouahigouya, and wow, there are a lot of them!! My group of secondary ed people came two weeks earlier, and there are only 22 of us, and now we have 57 new friends (whose names we might not know yet…)! But they few I’ve talked to seem as awesome as the rest of our group, so hopefully as they get settled and we actually have a session or two with them, I will get to know some of them better. They won’t be in any of my language or technical sessions, so it will only be once or twice a week where I’ll spend maybe two hours with them.


Sorry for the lame title, but for this little blog post, I wanted to discuss weather. I am amazed at how quickly I’ve gotten used to be in the heat! Every day when I wake up, the little thermometer in our living room says it is 30C, or about 86F. (I’m trying to get my head used to Celsius, but I’ll use Fahrenheit here for you guys :P) Right now, (5:30pm) it is 35C, or about 95F. And I can tell that things are cooling off by this time of day. 95F feels cool!! One of the guys in my group has a watch with a thermometer, and around lunch it is typically over 40C.

This is not the hottest part of the year, either. We are actually in the rainy season right now. “Rainy season” is used pretty loosely though, even now we’re lucky to get rain once a week. And rain is always a good omen. It rained our first night in Ouagadougou, and the next morning everyone was all excited for us, because it’s a really good sign! But the hot season is in March-April, where it will goes days on end at 120F or 50C and doesn’t rain once in those two months. I think they purposely have stage start right after the hot season, so we’ve been here as long as possible before having to experience that :P The cold season coincides with our winter, but I don’t think I’ve heard exactly what ‘cold’ means here. I’ll let you know in a few months.



A note about sleeping in the heat: I have only used a blanket/sheet twice since living with my host family. If you remember, I have a fan, meaning my room is significantly colder than my counterparts without one. But even with my fan, I sweat every night. I don’t have the circle of dried sweat on my sheets that some of my fellow stagiaires talk about, but I noticed that the tank-top I sleep in gets salty from dried sweat. (that is probably an over-share…) I no longer flip my pillow over to get to the cold side, I flip it over to get to the dry side! But it is crazy hot at night. And my room doesn’t get much of a natural breeze because it is about 3 feet from our courtyard wall. I do not look forward to sleeping in the hot season. At all. I have not slept outside yet, but I can guarantee you that without my fan, I think I would have been out there after one night.

Last Friday, I had my first little dust storm! We were sitting outside for class and the wind really picked up and things started to get really hazy. I have some pictures below, so hopefully you can see the difference. After about 10 minutes of dusty, windy stuff, it started to rain!! And the temperature dropped like crazy! We all loved it, I think it was the first time I felt anything close to cool since I got here. But some of the PCVFs (current volunteers who run our training) were practically shivering in the 23C temp (73F). But after the rain stopped, it got back up to 28C (80F-ish) within the hour. But it stayed pretty cool the rest of the weekend (in the lower 30Cs). Today got back up to a normal temp though…




When it was crazy dusty:

10 minutes later in the same courtyard, when it started to rain.

A couple exciting things coming up: this Sunday all 79 of the stagiaires are having a 4th of July party!! I’m not sure what that entails right now, but I’m sure it will be awesome.
And even more exciting: next Wednesday I find out my site placement!!!! CRAZY! I have a bit of an idea based on the local language I was assigned, but I’ll keep you all in suspense until I find out, hahaha! People ask if there is somewhere I really want to go, and to be honest, not really. At first, I really wanted to be in the south, but when I asked myself why, the only answer I could come up with was because everyone else seemed to want to go to there (that extra ‘to’ is for you, annakay!). For me, I’m more excited to find out who I will be near. Because everything can be awesome if I’m with good people. So, my plan is to update again after next Wednesday with my site assignment!

The important stuff: FOOD!

Well, I just got back from my first visit to the market (marche). It was crazy busy there and they had just about everything under the sun available. I went with my two host sisters and while I didn’t get anything myself, it was nice to see what they buy and how they buy it. For example, they bought little baggies of both oil and tomato paste. These are very popular ingredients in food here, but most people don’t buy them by the can or bottle because they don’t have anywhere to store what they don’t use. So, they only buy what they need, but have to go to the marche more often. I asked my sisters and they said they go to the marche everyday.

There was also a wider variety of fresh produce than I was expecting. They bought tomatoes, onions, garlic, cabbage, and peppers. I also saw a variety of fruit, including mangoes and liane, and guavas. I had never had liane before, but it is a sort of sour fruit that you crack open, then you suck the juice off of the seeds. There isn’t actually a lot that gets eaten, but it was good in an acidic tangy sort of way. (liane is the French word for it, it’s called weda in Moore, and I have no idea what it is in English. I looked it up and it translated from French as “creeper,” but I feel like that isn’t right.)

As for the types of dishes we have here, most of what I’ve eaten is rice based, but the more common local dish is To (pronounced toe). It is essentially just flour and water boiled together until it becomes a sort of flavorless gelatin. My family uses corn flour, but I think millet is more common. It reminds me of gravy that just came out of the refrigerator, but thicker and more Jell-O like. And like I said, flavorless. My family eats it with baobab sauce, which is made out of baobab leaves and okra. (fun fact for you all: baobab, the iconic African tree, isn’t a tree at all. It’s closer to celery than it is to a tree.) Though, I have to admit that it is the only sauce that I don’t like so far, mostly because it has a really slimy texture that I can’t handle.

Other dishes I’ve had: riz sauce d’arachide (rice with peanut sauce)
Couscous avec sauce tomate (delicious)
Spaghetti (instead of cooking the sauce seperately, they make it a little thinner and cook the noodles in the sauce)
Des Haricots (Beans. This was also delicious and pretty close to chili)
Benga (actually a Moore word, but it is beans and rice, I can buy a baggie of it for 100CFA or 20 cents)
Omelette (More of a fried-egg sandwich than an omelette we would think of, but they mix in onions or on special days green pepper and it is awesome !)
Riz sauce vert (Rice and green sauce. I actually haven’t had this yet, but if it’s like baobab sauce, i probs won’t like it)
Riz gras (Fat Rice. I think this is my favorite dish! Like the spaghetti, they make the sauce first, then cook the rice in the oily, tomatoey, flavorful liquid, and make another thicker sauce on the side. It’s things like this that are the reason they warn us we probably won’t lose weight while we’re here.)

A note on meat: There is no specific meat that typically goes with any of these dishes. I’ve had fish in just about everything. And it is just a chunk of the fish that hasn’t been cleaned. So when I see fish in food, I typically pick the skin off, pull the bones out and break it up into smaller chunks in my sauce. When I first found fish in a dish, I was a little nervous, because Burkina is a landlocked country and I was curious where the heck the fish came from and how it was stored, but dried, salted fish is very very common. I even saw it in the market today! They were just entire fish, salted up and very brown. I’ve also had unidentified dark meat a lot of my food at the host family that I think is pigeon. They raise pigeons and I was around one night when they were catching one for dinner. I don’t ask a lot of questions though…

They also have chicken here, but they are definitely not as big as chickens in the US, they have a lot less meat on them. I’ve also seen goats, sheep and even a few cows around town, but as far as I know, I haven’t eaten any of them. Well, actually that’s probably not true, haha. I ordered a hamburger the other day, and while it definitely wasn’t a hamburger like I’m used to, I think it was beef. But as I said, I don’t ask a lot of questions.

While discussing food, I think it is appropriate to discuss water. My host family’s house has running water, at both the faucet in the yard and in their indoor shower. (like I said, I’m getting spoiled here). Even though they have easily accessed running water, I can’t drink it. It is full of amoebas and parasites that my body won’t like. So the Peace Corps provides us with these nifty water filters. There are made out of two buckets, two filters, and a spigot. The water goes in top, through one filter (which I think mostly cleans the water) directly into the second filter (which I think purifies the water. It has those black specks like my filter at home) and then sits in the bottom bucket until I’m ready to use it. But even after the double filter, we still need to add two drops of bleach to every liter of water to ensure that everything is good and dead.

There aren’t too many drinks that are unique to Burkina or even West Africa. Mostly we drink Coke and beer. I think I’ve had Brakina the most. It’s the Burkina national beer. They also have SOB-Bra, Flag, Beaufort, Castel and even the occasional Heineken. The first three listed, along with Brakina are the main choices, and really they all fall about somewhere between a PBR and Old Style. But they’re cold and therefore delicious.

Other than cheap beer, there is one new drink I’ve discovered: bissap. It is brewed from habiscis flowers, but then chilled and mixed with ginger and sometimes other juices. It’s served cold and it’s pretty delicious. My host sisters make and sell bissap frozen in baggies (saches). (Yes, my family owns a freezer. Yes, i am losing friends because of how spoiled i am at my host house. But whenever i bring icewater to class i always share, so i'm not losing too many friends :P) I usually can’t drink the bissap as strong as they make it, but watered down a little, it is awesome!

Well, there is a look at food and drink in Burkina. I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to add when I actually have to cook for myself. Or maybe I’ll just continue to buy baggies of benga and never actually cook :)

An Intro to Stage

Bonjour! Well, believe it or not, today was only our second official day as stagieres. (trainees). Last week was week zero, so we are now in week one!

Monday night was my first night with my host family and it went really well! I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting, but I have to admit the family was more modern than I was anticipating. They have a TV and computer in their living room. And I am one of the more spoiled stagieres, I even have a fan in my bedroom. My host father is the director at a lycee (school) and he is actually Congolais, not Burkinabe. My host mom is Burkinabe though, and I’m pretty sure she is from Ouhigouya. But because my father isn’t from here, he doesn’t speak the local language, meaning French is the common language for the family, so even their daughter speaks it really well, when most five year olds haven’t really started learning French yet. Their daughter’s name is Love and she is adorable by the way. I’ll have to get some pictures up here (I’ll have to start taking some pictures!!) My host father speaks English as well as French, which is really nice, because he is able to correct my French, which I definitely need. I tested lower in French than I had hoped, but even after my first night with the host family, I felt much more confident. We have French for at least 2 sessions a day, 6 days a week. By the end of Stage, I will have about 128 hours of language and I think an additional 15 hours of technical language (the vocabulary needed to teach each of our subjects). I have to reach a certain level in French, and once I reach that point, I will switch over to my local language.

Other than just language, Stage is when we learn everything we need to know for the next two years. We have sessions on medical, security, culture, our technical area as well as language. So far we have learned how to prepare our own blood slides to test for malaria and how to prepare a stool sample to test for parasites (We had to practice the blood slide, but thankfully, not the stool sample :P). We haven’t really started the technical sessions yet, but had an intro where they explained the process.

I can’t really believe that I’ve been gone for less than two weeks at this point, it seems like we’ve been here for about a month, but I’m still getting used to little things. Like being sweaty all the time, having to use a pit latrine (both my host family and where we have classes have a pit latrine, but the one at school has bigger hole, it’s nicer for beginners, haha!), and having to be careful about what I eat. I haven’t had anything I don’t like yet, but we just have to be careful that all the fresh produce we eat has been cleaned properly. So far it’s been a lot of rice, beans and sauce or egg sandwiches.

So, there is a little look at Stage. It will be the hardest part of being a PC volunteer, but I’m still really excited to be here! I’ll explain some of the other areas in detail as we learn more, but for now, I’m just hoping to improve my French!
I hope you are all doing well! Miss you all!

i'm here!

well, i have about 4 minutes left of my internet time, but i just wanted to say i'm alive; i'm in burkina faso and i think i have about the coolest group possible with me!!

it's been a crazy week (only a week!) and tonight we meet our host families; more to come soon!
miss you all!

address!!

This can now be found over on the right under contact info, but my address for the next 3 mos is:

Danielle Parshall, PCT

s/c Corps de la Paix

01 B. P. 6031

Ouagadougou 01, Burkina Faso

Tomorrow we actually fly to Burkina! This morning i left MN for staging, which has been mostly policies and getting to know some of my fellow trainees. They seem like a pretty cool bunch :)

well, i think i'm going to give my luggage one last go over before the long flight, and maybe try to get a little more sleep than the 2 hours i got last night!

miss you already!

it's go time!!

so, roughly 30 hours from now i will be driving down to msp airport to begin this adventure!

my last day at work was just over a week ago, so i've had most of this week to just hang out and get ready. I would say i did a better job at the hanging out part and not so much with the getting ready. :)

I did have a few productive days though: tuesday i went to the bank and got all monetary issues taken care of. Thursday we had extended family portraits taken and i finished off the evening fill out all (most? i should probably check that again) of the paper work sent to me by the US government over 3 mos ago... And friday was a little bit crazy with a dentist appt (where they told me that my sudden sensitivity in one tooth was nothing. not quite what i wanted hear, especially since it's acting up again today), I signed my power of attorney stuff, and worked at my job at the church, where i managed to pull this off:

I was playing SPUD and part of the games includes running until someone yells Spud!, at which point you need to freeze! Well i attempted to stop, but the gravel under my feet had other plans and this was the consequence. To be honest, this past week or so i have been paranoid that i will break a bone and not being able to go to the peace corps. So, i'm just happy that there are no broken bones!! unfortunately the buckle from my sandals really got my ankle, so sandals aren't much fun right now.

But today i finally got down to packing!! so, i have decided to include my packing list because people have asked about it and it seems to be a peace corps blog tradition (which i have found very helpful!!)

Luggage/Gear:

55L backpack (if you're buying a backpack for the peace corps, 55L is probably too small to be very useful. but i already had it and buying another seemed silly. it has a 20L daypack that zips off, but i already had a daypack)

30L backpack

large suitcase

bug hut (screen tent)

sleeping mat

mesh bags for packing

Clothes:
4 skirts

2 pairs pants

1 pair jeans

2 pair shorts (pajamas)

1 pair capris

7 nice shirts (i'm sure this is too many, but i just did one shirt per skirt/pants. and by 'nice,' i mean not screen printed.)

2 tee-shirts (pajamas)

1 long sleeve tee

1 light rain jacket

lots of underwear

bras and sports bras

2 pairs socks

swim suit (they tell us there is a pool at a hotel in the capital that some volunteers use)

belt

hiking shoes

chacos

dress sandals

flip flops

General:

2 water bottles

small camelbak pack

2 pair sunglasses

map of USA

map of MN

map of the world

scissors

games (skipbo, phase 10, bananagrams, frisbee)

journal

pens/markers

photo album

sheets (twin size and for my sleeping mat)

pillow/pillow case

bike helmet

Kitchen:

2 knives

small skillet

small sauce pan

can opener

pot holder

dish towel

ziplock bags

Electronics:

computer

camera

extra SD card

solar charger

ipod

speakers

shortwave radio

usb drive

headlamp

rechargeable batteries (AA & AAA)

power converter/adapter

calculator

Toiletries:

deodorant

shampoo

conditioner

body soap

face soap

tooth paste

tooth brush

hair brush

hair binders

headbands (for my bangs, as they grow out)

nail clippers

nail file

sunscreen

neosporin (see photo above :P)

bandaids

lady products

mascara/concealer

razors

tweezers

Food:

spices: chili packets, italian seasoning, pesto mixes, cinnamon

dried fruit

granola bars

tortillas

(i might add more food like tortillas, that are more like part of meal than snacks)

Maybe not terribly exciting for some of you, but hopefully it gives a glimpse into what's to come. From talking to some friends currently in the program, I am sure that I am bringing too much. But from this side of things, that is really hard for me to grasp. so i try my best to not bring everything now, and a year (or less) from now, i will once again admit, that i brought too much.

here are some more pictures!

ok, so there doesn't appear to be too much different between the two pictures above, but the second one is zoomed in more and there was another shopping trip in between! :)

I haven't tried to shut it yet, but i'm confident it will happen. and if you notice above, most of this suitcase is just my sleeping mat, so it shouldn't be too heavy either! i know the mat is big, but i decided that if i do end up sleeping on it most of the time, i might as well get a thicker one.

i did receive a few emails this week telling us a little bit about what to expect our first few days. i knew we fly into ouagadougou (the capital) and have training in ouahigouya (another large city, and actually both these cities are on the map to the right), but i found out that we are actually in the capital for a couple days and will have a little bit of our orientation there. we won't actually get to ouahigouya until friday. i know we have homestays during training, but looking at the schedule, we must start those sometime after friday.

well, i probably won't update this again tomorrow, so i want to thank everyone for their love and support as i head out on this journey!! i will miss you all and look forward to hearing how things are going stateside! and i promise to update when i can! i know these first few days will be crazy, but we are in the bigger cities, so hopefully i can get to an internet connection to let you all know i arrived safe and sound!

miss you already! :)