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Monday, January 24, 2011

Un Petit Repos

So here I am here at the end of my weekend in the capital, in an attempt to get a little work done. For the most part, i really just did some research and gathered resources for ideas of things to do in village. And being on the internet... :P

But one really cool thing that may be starting up: i may be starting a women's group!! I talked with the man who works for WaterAid in my village, and he is super excited to work with the women in the village. The conversation we had was simply amazing. He started by saying that women are the most marginalized group, and when they suffer, the entire family suffers. And he (we) would love to start something like a microcredit (basically a small bank, where people apply for small loans to start money making projects. The original capital can either come from an outside source, or people can each put in a small amount), but he has seen too many situations where money just disappears. So maybe down the road if we have a solid group we can talk about doing that. By the way, his name is Somé and he is Burkinabé. I met his wife earlier this fall when she would come chat with the women at the CSPS, and after i got to know her, i got to know him. He is super motivated and super excited to be doing things in the community, so i really hope that this goes somewhere :)

I also realized that i haven't written about Christmas or New Year's yet! I have to admit, Christmas just felt so non-Christmasy, that it wasn't too difficult for me. Haha, in some ways i feel that when i get back home, i'm not going to realize that two entire years did actually pass. But the holiday was celebrated much like Tabaski and Ramadan were, with lots of food and going to visit your friends to get said food. I went to the house of another prof, and he actually was really sick, so we didn't do a whole lot.

New Year's was a lot of fun, though! I spent the night at the local bar with friends, where we danced and generally hung out. That entire day was kind of cold, meaning that the night was even colder! Most of the guys wore suit jackets, and when i asked if New Years is normally that formal, the said no, it's just cold! (It was probably 55 at the lowest...) But at midnight, everyone goes around and shakes hands with everyone else and does the head touch thing (like the french cheek-to-cheek thing, but with the side of your head instead of your cheek) and wishes everyone else a happy new year. The usually wish longevity, prosperity, success, and health for you as well. And you have to do this hand-shaking/head-touching greeting whenever you see someone for the first time in that year. So i'm still wishing people a happy new year... But that night, after we went around to greet everyone, we sat down and ate at about 12:30. I didn't realize that we wouldn't be eating until after the new year, so i was pretty hungry at this point, haha. And the next day, people celebrated, like Christmas or other days. It was kind of weird, because in the US, you party on the 30th, but then the holiday's pretty much over. Here it was more like Christmas Eve and Christmas, where the real holiday is actually the day after.

Well, i head back to village bright and early tomorrow, but i just wanted to let you know i'm still alive! And Happy New Year to all of you!