The 3/4 way mark...

Hello again! Time for another update (you’re probably saying it’s about time!). Sorry, I write novels, so finding the time to sit down and write them out is not as simple. Anyways, since I’ve last updated you, I headed to the Ivory Coast on vacation, moved out (twice), got my moto stolen, and have planned a return to the Coast. Just read on for the details…


Week 27 – Mon, March 14th-Fri, March 20th

Last week before I head off on vacation, woot! This week the weather was pretty hot. Monday night a fuse in our house burnt out, so our power gave out, which makes sleeping a tad difficult (bad enough without AC, but imagine without a fan!) Ayayay. My moto is also breaking down like crazy. I’ve seen 8 mechanics in the past 7 days!

Still on the hunt for houses, but it’s getting pretty frustrating. It’s no ‘check on the net, see pics, then set up times to check out the ones that seem cool’. Nope. Here, you can only hope that the house is semi-decent, and most of the times we set up meetings, the people don’t show, which makes it a huge waste of time. We saw one today that had the most cockroaches I have ever seen in one place. You couldn’t step anywhere on the floor without stepping on one, it was gross. And although most appeared dead, the fact that they’re there means there’s a way in :S

Went to the post and received a package from the matantes and grandma . Supposedly it had been there for a month, so I had to pay a late fee to pick it up, but the notice was just sent today, meh. In any case, the box was full of cool stuff. The first 2 books from the Twilight series, cookies, Peanut Butter, Kleenex, etc. but best of all was a card containing individual notes from all my family that they had written for me at Xmas. It was too sweet and really made my day.

Went to get my visa made for the Ivory Coast. It cost me $80 to get done, instead of the regular $50 from all other countries. The woman told me it was because ‘that’s how much it costs for an Ivorian to get a visa for Canada’. So what, it’s like pay back?

Found a house! Things are looking up. My moto finally seems to be fixed, we chose a house and I’m heading for the beach in a few days! Was in a happy mood and brought a skipping rope I brought from Canada to teach the kids how to hop. But that was easier said then done, all the kids just wanted to jump all over it, so that lesson didn’t last too long. I also brought SpongeBob Squarepants dvds that my brother and Karen had sent me and showed the kids a couple of episodes (in English, but the teachers said the images were captivating enough for the kids). The teachers seemed to be more into it then the kids haha.

Sandra is in Ouaga as we are heading out to the Coast tomorrow. Just one problem, she sent her passport to have her visa prolonged (as it is only a single entry), but it’s not ready, and won’t be until tomorrow afternoon. Thing is, we leave tomorrow morning! We were lucky though, we were able to go to the office and retrieve her passport, visa-less and head off without a problem. The night before though, we decided to get the vacation started early, so we met up with a friend and went out to play billiards and bowling (yes, I know, a bowling alley in Africa! Haha. It was even more high tech then the bowling alley in Welland!) When we went to play billiards, one of our friend’s friend joined us at the table and said he knew me. I had no idea who this guy was, but he insisted we had met and I gave him my number (which I’m sure I didn’t). He even read it out to me from his phone. How did this guy get my number? So the mystery number that was sending me weird messages in English was him! But how did he get my number, and why would he write those things when I never even met him? He tells me I gave it to him when I was out dancing and that I was probably drunk so don’t remember, but I assured him I’ve never been drunk here, so that wasn’t the true story. So although the source of the mystery number was solved, the mystery of how he got my number in the first place boggled my mind all night.

Trip to the Ivory Coast – Week 28:

Friday, March 20th
Woke up at 6:30 to head out and retrieve Sandra’s passport then head to the airport. Getting on the plane was a slow process though, but by 10 our plane was off to the beach! In Abidjan, we met Dosso, a driver for the organization in which Sandra’s aunt ‘tanti’ works for. We dropped off our stuff at her place, then headed to meet her at work. Ate lunch at the office, then they sent us to a shopping center to walk around. A real shopping mall! It was crazy. The Ivory Coast is really another world from Burkina. I’d describe it as a ‘tropical Toronto’. High rise buildings and pretty developed, amongst palm trees and greenery. We spent a couple hours browsing the shops when a guy stopped us to ask us where our accent was from. We took his contact and figured he’d be a really good contact for the week since we knew no one but Sandra’s aunt to show us around. We have my English accent to thank for that hihi, see when it’s not confusing people, it actually benefits us .

Headed back to the office then back home. Contacted Moise (the guy we met at the mall) and turned the phone over to tanti, who gave him the third degree, making sure he was a good guy and okay for us to go out with. I felt really bad for him, he was sweating when he came to pick us up from the pressure haha. He had even put on a blazer and took it off in the car in an attempt to assure tanti that he was a respectable man hihi. He took us to a pub where there was a live reggae band. It was fun, we sat talking and listening to the band play. He told me about his love for animals (he’s even had a pet ostrich, but had to get rid of it because his dog kept plucking it’s feathers). I went on to tell him all my experiences with animals (most of which were in Burkina, dad is to thank for that one haha). How we had a dog that kept bitting our chicken, had a sheep but killed it early because it was making too much noise, stitched a pig after having put stuffing in it lol. The poor guy probably thought I was an animal killer or something. Sandra and I were so tired too from the past couple nights that I was at the point of hysteria. Making up stupid jokes and laughing at everything. Im sure he thought we were drunk, but I assured him that he could ask me any question tomorrow and I’d remember, I was just overly tired.

Saturday, March 21st
Woke up at 10:30 in the most comfortable bed of life! We had the AC on and did not want to get out of bed, and we didn’t. Sandra and I pretty much stayed in bed the whole day, got up to eat and watch a movie, then layed back in bed. It was that comfortable! Tanti’s friend came over that night and they had planned to take us out (and an excuse for them to go out too, they are both 50ish). So we headed to a street full of nightlife, hung out and had a drink at an outdoor bar, then headed inside to a club where we danced. We were pretty much the only ones there, but the ladies were having so much fun that it was a good time. At one point, the dj calls up ‘the white, what’s your name?’ then sent someone over to get the info. Minutes later he shouts out ‘Tiana, Tiana….welcome girls from Burkina Ouagadougou’. Lol. All night he would randomly say my name through the songs haha.

Sunday, March 22nd
We were supposed to get up at 6:30 to accompany tanti to church, but we were so tired that we fell back asleep and she went without us. When she came back, she took us to the beach. It was so pretty. I felt like I was in Mexico, except you couldn’t really swim because the undercurrent is so strong. I went in only up to my ankles and the undertow pulled me down lol. The waves were super high too. I spent most of the time sitting on the sand and reading the Twilight book my family had sent me. Had an amazing lunch at the hotel by the beach before heading back home. Headed to the office to internet a bit, then at night went over to Moise’s house, ate take out and watched a movie.

Monday, March 23rd
Read thesis articles (yes trying to get some work done over my vacation, although the amount completed I’ll neglect to mention). I feel so tired here, the true feeling of being on vacation and wanting to sleep all day. My appetite has been a bit lower this week too which I’m sure is not helping. Tanti called up one of her friends who took us to the market to do some shopping.

Tuesday, March 24th
Today we headed to Yamousoukrou, the IC’s capital, about 3 hours from Abidjan. The driver of tanti’s organization had to run an errand there, so we tagged along. He made us visit a huge Basilic church, which reminded me of roman architecture. Ate there, saw a crocodile in the president’s pond (that sound’s weird haha) then headed back. Moise picked us up and took us out for ice cream at a restaurant where people are dressed up as clowns on stilts (but very scary weird ones). I’m assuming they are trying to attract people to come to the restaurant, but someone should tell them that it is scaring more customers then attracting! I wanted to take a picture, but opted to take a video instead because I was afraid that the clown would see the flash go off! They were that scary lol.

Wednesday, March 25th
Slept in today. Headed to check out a zoo, which was the saddest zoo I have ever seen. The animals seemed depressed and very malnourished. I have never seen such a skinny pig in my life :S. Went to a coffee shop in the afternoon and took it easy the rest of the night.

Thursday, March 26th
Sandra had gotten home at noon that day! She had went out with a friend and didn’t get home until noon! Lol. They were out all night, billiards, ate, dancing, eating, etc. haha. So her and her friend got home and went straight to bed to recuperate. When tanti got home from work, we took her out for dinner as a thank you for letting us stay over this week. She has 3 kids and her husband in Canada, so she liked having us around and said it was really nice, even though we kept her up late some nights from going out haha. Sandra and I were considering expanding our trip by a couple days, as tanti had called to confirm our flight reservations. She asked us at dinner how much we thought it would be to extend our flight and we answered $75. She could not stop laughing. She says ‘While I’m calling to confirm you girls seats on your flight, you’re on the other line talking to the travel agent to see if you can expand your stay’ haha. It was too funny, and we’ve got a great picture to capture the moment!

Friday, March 27th
Took it easy today. We wanted to go to the beach, but public transportation is not the greatest/safest around here, so we opted to chill with friends. Sandra went out with her friend and I hung out with Moise. Napped and packed that afternoon. Headed to the airport after picking up Sandra at her friends and we were pushing time a bit too far to the limit, we ended up missing our flight. Well not missing it, but we got there too late that they wouldn’t let us in. Can’t say I was too disappointed (heck, we were checking to extend our trip anyways). So tanti turned around and came back to pick us up, we headed out for a bite to eat, then went out to a pub with our friends. Then we went to a club dancing, which was a lot of fun. I’m glad we missed our flight, because our last night wasn’t that interesting if we had left today, but we are celebrating tonight, so we’ll have a good finale to our trip! The club was great. They played recent music from 2009! Haha. The most popular American songs that play in clubs in Burkina are Aqua’s Barbie Girl, Lou Begga’s Mombo #5 and Boom Boom Boom by the Venga Boys! On our way back home, we were stopped by one of the numerous police barriers, and Moise pulled out his Dioula (the local language) which was too funny to watch. As we were stopping he says ‘watch this, I’ll really confuse them’. Then turned the serious gun holding cops to ones that were laughing and didn’t even check our IDs before letting us drive off. It was pretty impressive.

Saturday, March 28th
Took it easy that afternoon. I wish I could have gone to the beach, but unless someone brought us, we were pretty much stuck at home because transportation here is not the greatest. Headed to the airport that night and flew past Burkina, to Niger, to stop drop off people, then fly back to Burkina 3 hours later :S. Tried to call our taxi friend to come pick us up at the airport as it was past midnight, but our friend had messaged us as soon as we landed saying he was outside waiting for us haha. He took us out for a bite to eat then drove us home.

Back to Reality
Spent all of Sunday in my pjs, packing my things as I am moving out tomorrow. Luckily we found a house because Benoit had messaged me while I was in Abidjan saying I had to move out by April 1st (2 days after my return) because the company he works for got mad at him for me being there, since now the company pays for the house, so having me there is like they are benefiting.

Week 29- Mon, March 30th-Fri, April 3rd
Moved all my stuff into the new house. We got a nice little house, recently built, 2 bedrooms, indoor toilet and shower, small kitchen (and by small I mean a sink and counter), and living room. It’s got a little terrace too which is nice, with a baby mango tree growing, which is the only non-concrete, sign of life in our yard haha. Got to the house and opened it up to a baby bird that one of my housemates got from a village and rescued it from a bunch of hungry kids, wanting to nurse it back to health. But she keeps it in the house since it cant fly and it pooped all over the living room. Yay!

It is so hot this week, and it is not helping that the power keeps going out. It is so hot this week, that in a final attempt to cool off and fall asleep one night, I put on my bathing suit (since I share a room with one of the girls), took a shower, went back to my room without drying off, spread my towel over my bed and layed down soak and wet under the fan, hoping that the fanning air would be a bit cool on my wet skin. It worked. So I wasn’t necessarily ‘cool’ but I was ‘cooler’ then before, so heck, I did reach some improvement!

Pretty motivated to work on my thesis because I am hoping to make another trip to the Ivory Coast and could justify going if I finally got my thesis proposal done! Went to a hotel with a friend, since I now live pretty far from the office. He goes to the gym there, so I was hoping to go to the pool where I could access the net and do some work. But they didn’t have the net by the pool, so we headed inside to the net café inside the hotel, and I got set up while he went to the gym. The price was ridiculous though. Get this, $12.50/hr for the internet!!!! We’re in Africa people. It doesn’t even cost that much in Canada! I didn’t pay, but I will never go back there again, even if I’m not the one paying, I refuse to contribute that kind of money for that kind of service. Pshh. Injustice!

So my hopes of having my moto fixed were crashed. My moto broke down everyday this week, one time 3x within one morning! So frustrating! But my problem was solved (but a bigger one introduced) when I was woken up to my housemate shaking me saying ‘we’ve got a problem…all our motos were stolen’. Ayayay, just what I needed! I went outside and was so shocked I was emotionless. I just sat there trying to understand how they managed to undo the deadbolt, and the key, and strole out with 2 motos and a bike while my housemate was sleeping outside just feet from where they were all parked (people sleep outside here because it’s cooler). And to top it off, the bird she was trying to nurse to health finally gave out in her hands while we were sitting there wondering what to do next. We headed to the police station, filed a report, then met with a detective, who our friend had called for us. He is in line with all the underground mafia happenings in Ouaga and works with the police, so brought us around to some alleys where stolen motos are sold to see if we could find ours. We didn’t. The whole morning though people including the police were telling us to move out of that house, that the neighbourhood wasn’t safe, that we’d get robbed again, etc.

I had reached a limit to my week and was so frustrated. I was just getting back from a great vacation and missed it, came back and moved out, tried to get reorganized with work, moved into a house where the power went out 50% of the time, our water would go out for 2 days at a time, we had no fridge, our toilet didn’t work, we went to the corner to buy bagged water (which was luke warm since the power was always out), I ate cereal for too many meals (since it was the easiest and with lack of fridge the most convenient), our motos were stolen, endless people telling us to move out that our neighbourhood was not safe! Ayayay! It was time to call mom! I ranted about my week for a good 20min and she calmed me down.

Matante Celine had sent me some cds and I brought them to school to play for the tantis. And surprisingly, a lot of the songs in the cds are songs they sing at the school, which they really liked.

I had waited to think about it overnight to figure out what I wanted to do with my living situation, and decided to message a Canadian family that is here to see if their offer still stood for me to go live with them. They have a 14 year old son (Jay) who is here now and their two kids are coming in May and June. Ill be sharing a room with the girl when she gets here, and the 2 sons will have the other room.

Sandra was down for the weekend, and it would be her last weekend in Ouaga before she heads back to Canada mid next week. So we had convinced Anne (who was also leaving this weekend) to go out with us as her last night out in Ouaga. So Sandra and I got together for dinner first at ‘Uncle Sam’s’, a restaurant we always drove by and said we’d have to try. It was cool. It looked like a cigar bar, with big leather sofas and very dim lighting. It was calm though, and we stayed there eating and talked a lot before heading home for a nap. At midnight, we got up from our nap and were picked up by our friend who took us out to 2 clubs. The second was great, they played 2009 music! Which is the first I have experienced in Ouaga up to now! I thought I was back in Abidjan for a minute haha.

Weekend 29
I waited 1.5hrs for a taxi today that was ‘on it’s way’ to come get me. Finally the guy admitted he got a flat tire and I should probably find another taxi because it would take a while. Urgh. Just be real with me when I call you at first, it would save me a lot of trouble!

Anne was having her ‘goodbye’ dinner that night and we were planning to check out a concert. So I headed into town to join them. The family was there too and said that of course I could live with them, which was a big relief. I had bought a ticket for the concert that night but was a bit down on moral and not in the mood, so I opted to head home instead. The neighbourhood is starting to creep me out, especially after all the warnings from everyone. I was so thirsty after getting home that night, but too scared to go out, that I treated tap water with chlorine solution before drinking it because I didn’t want to leave the house. It’s weird because I never get that feeling. I lived in Scarborough the last 3 years, the ‘ghetto’ of Ontario and could walk around at 1am by myself and not feel eerie, but here, I do, go figure. Spent the night re-packing my things as my friend would be coming over tomorrow to help me move out for a second time this week. My other friend was trying to convince me that I should of moved in with him (even though he lives way further away from work). He said he’d pay for me to have a chauffeur if I did haha. Not the kind of image I really want to give off as a volunteer here.

Week 30: Mon, April 6th-Fri, April 10th
Checking out another preschool this week to use it as a comparison to the way things are done at my school. It went really well. The school is a bit more advanced and known then mine, which served as a good reference to get some ideas and suggestions to bring back to my school.

Randomly, 3 of my friends in the past 2 weeks have commented on the state of my skin spots haha. So I have always assumed they were genetic, since my whole family has them, but 3 different friends all seem concerned about it haha and keep telling me to go to the doctors. It’s kind of funny and random (because neither of these friends knows the other). In the end, I got some cream, but it’s not disappearing, so now I have proof that a cream won’t make them go away haha. I tell them if they don’t like how it looks, that they should just not look at me haha. That would solve the problem wouldn’t it?!

Spoke to my Burkinabe-Canadian friend over the phone. He lives in Ottawa and had come to Burkina to see family and traveled with us to the Sahel over Xmas. He says that I have become Burkinabe and that I have picked up all the local sayings, which he finds too funny. I told him it’s a good thing I don’t speak French in my day to day life back home, otherwise I’d say all these things that would either confuse or insult people haha.

Sandra is heading back to Canada this week. So for her last night, we went out with friends. Finding a taxi from where I live now though is another story. Let me just paint a picture for you. I live in the newly developing ‘rich’ part of town. But where we are is not developed yet. So there’s our house, then all around us, walls of brick with nothing behind them, we are the only built house on the street, or in the couple surrounding blocks for that matter. So after calling 4 taxi friends to see if they could come and pick me up, I opted to take my chances and walk 25min to the nearest paved road where I’d have a bit more chances finding a cab. But a little luck struck me that day, and as I prepared with my iced bottle of water for the treck to find a taxi, I stepped out of the house, and what do I see under the mango tree across the street? A taxi, waiting to take me to my destination! Ok, well maybe he was there hiding from the police who were invading the roads checking for papers, but in any case, it worked out for me!

Sandra and I have also discovered our theme song hihi. ‘Goodbye my Lover’ by James Blunt. We have an inside joke that has lead us to call each other ‘my love’, so that song sums up our goodbye pretty well we think haha.

And to end off this week with another taxi story. I was at school and called a friend taximan to come pick me up. He said he was ‘on his way’. But after 15min after he was supposed to come get me, I called to make sure he wasn’t lost, and he said ‘um, im in the Ivory Coast’. What! You tell me you’re ‘on your way’ and you’re not even in the same country! Like common people!

Weekend 30
It is too hot to sleep! Even with the fan. Jay has AC in his room, and there’s another bed in his room, so they always say I’m welcome to sleep in there if I’m too hot. But that’s if he puts on the AC, and he hasn’t seem to have the urge yet haha. So all night I get up, drink cold water and keep checking if he turned it on lol.

Did lots of thesis reading this weekend and called Eric to thesis talk and sort out my thoughts to get onto the writing portion. We got a rain storm too this weekend! A good downpour which was nice because it cooled the air. We also got another visit, this one from Luc (the dad’s) brother who is visiting for a week.

Hung out with friends, and while we were out a man came up to my friend and said ‘if you need anything, you tell me and ill take care of it’. Later my friend told me the scoop on that man and that he was one of the leaders of the rebel forces in the Ivory Coast who often creates conflict and is on the hide out in Ouaga. Ayayay!

So it’s Easter this weekend. To celebrate, I called up the family and spoke to both sides, for a good while. Spent 45min on the phone on the one side, as all the family members passed the phone along to each other to say a word. It was good to hear everyone’s voice . On my end, hung out with friends at the pool then got together at their place for an Easter dinner, which was delicious! My friend who is also a Canadian volunteer was telling me her plans for my future, and how I’m going to marry one of their friends, move to Burkina, and work as a teacher in the Canadian school she’s planning on building. I told her not to hold her breath, because that was unlikely to happen.

Week 31: Mon, April 13th-Fri, April 17th
Did a lot of thesis proposal writing this week. Went over to visit the girls to hand over my key and discovered that they got robbed again! This time, a guy came to their door posing as a plumber (our toilet was broken, so it did make some sense). He went in and stole the girl’s camera and all the pieces inside the toilet. As I tell my coworkers, they tell me it’s very probable that it’s their friends who are helping them steal, like an inside job. How else would they know that the toilet was broken and stuff? One of the girls came over to sleep over since the other girl wasn’t coming home tonight and she was a bit freaked out to stay there by herself, no kidding. We keep trying to convince them to move out, and we’d help them find a house and move and everything, but they don’t want to.

Getting to and from work this week has been a bit troublesome moto-less. I’ve been lucky by getting rides half way with Luc, who works in the same area as I do, so it’s easy to get a taxi the rest of the way. But getting one to come back is another story. Most don’t even want to come in the direction of the house because there’s no customers, and if they do, they charge you a ridiculous amount, which I refuse to pay. So I have to pull over like 4 taxis before I can find a reasonable taxi fare. The one day there were tons of police checks, so all the taxis were avoiding the cops and heading in the other direction. The one cop was talking to me practicing his English and was trying to help me out. Most police checks pull over random cars to check for papers, so if a taxi doent have the paper work, they’ll avoid the checks and drive the other way. The cop who was talking to me was trying to help me out and was pulling over taxis (haha, they couldn’t just keep going and ignore me, it was the cop who was pulling them over after all).

The woman that the moto was sold to upon my departure (the girl who sold me the moto, had made sure that it was sold to her cook when I leave). So I either have to leave her with a fairly new, good conditioned moto, or the money she paid me to buy it. I was looking into a different kind of moto though. Right now I have a moped, but if you buy new, motorcycle-style bikes are cheaper, so I was considering that. But I asked her what she wanted, if she was really sold on a moped or if she’d take a motorcycle, and she only wants a moped, so that’s what it’ll be. She was super nice though. She came and visited me at work and brought her friend, who she had asked to pick me up and drive me to work then drop me off everyday as her way of helping me out. Although it would save me a lot of headaches and money, it’s so out of the way, it would be a huge inconvenience so I insisted that I would work things out.

On my way back, trying to call down a taxi, I was walking down the road and some guy yells out ‘Je t’aime…I love you!’. Lol. That has got to top the record for most sentiments expressed in the shortest amount of time seeing me. Keep in mind this was a complete stranger, who didn’t even say hi first lol. Too much! Got a visit from a friend late that night, who had brought over my old housemate, who had just been robbed, for a third time! Ayayay! This time, while she was riding her bike in her neighbourhood, some people on motos came up and pulled her purse off. Luckily she had nothing really important in it, but poor girl. This girl just got here a couple months ago. She is really not getting the right impression of Burkina with things like this always happening.

The next day, I headed over to the hotel to visit a family that was leaving for Canada in the next couple of days. This is the family who was part of the group I traveled here with. They decided to leave early. So many people are doing so. Out of the 20 or so volunteers I have known this year, more than half have left their mandates early, mostly due to financial reasons (spending out of their pockets to be here since the allocations aren’t sufficient). Thus the family was joining the crew.

After the hotel, I went out for a bite to eat with a friend to a cool, art gallery restaurant. After eating the owner (who knew my friend) brought us some home made afterdinner drinks. Ayayay, the things were so strong, you could get drunk just off the smell. I opted to pass on the offer haha.

Weekend 31
Sevrine’s family was heading back to Canada this weekend, so we all met up with them at the pool and hung out with them before wishing them off. That night the girls at the other house were having a house warming party, so I headed over there and hung out for a bit.

Sunday, I headed to Koubri, a town outside Ouaga to chill at a hotel pool for the afternoon. It was pretty relaxed. Jay finally opted to put the AC on in his room, so I’ll be sleeping there for the next little while in an attempt to stay cool and get some sleep.

Week 32: Mon, April 20th-Fri, April 24th
My friend found me a used moto for sale and sent his local friend to negotiate for me. So I headed over to where the moto market was with his friend and ended up buying it. It was still expensive, but I couldn’t of gotten a moto in that condition at that price (remember there’s a ‘white price’ for everything). And this would give me a method of transportation too, which will help me get around and be mobile. It’s pretty scraped up, and I’ll probably get it painted before leaving it to the woman who bought it, but for now I prefer it look like that. The crappier it looks, the least likely someone will want to steal it ;)

Been working a lot on thesis proposal stuff. Coming home from work at lunchtime, then working till I go to bed in order to try to finalize it by the weekend. The people at the office keep asking me when I’ll continue the computer program workshops. Since I’ve been back, I told them I’d be taking a break from giving them as I wanted to concentrate on doing stuff at the school (it is after all my mandate) and then when school is done, I’ll spend more time at the office finishing off the formations.

It is really hot these days (seems to be a reoccurring theme!) Today, we opted to take the temperature under the fan in the house (the house is much cooler then outside) and it was 37* (under the fan!) Opened the lemonade mix my parents sent me, and it really helped me to keep cool .

Called the doc to get final test results as I’ve been really tired and thought I may have an infection. Turns out I did, a rare blood bacterial infection. But the doc was cool, he liked my accent haha, but now text msgs me all the time lol. In any case, he gave me some meds. Let me just say that docs here often overperscribe meds or the meds that are available are pretty strong, because they don’t want to take any chances. Whereas back home, docs are weary to give us simple meds because they don’t want us to build up resistances to them. Just to say that the meds he prescribed me are also used to treat Anthrax! Ayayay! :S

Weekend 32
Jay had fallen asleep with the fan the other night, so I tried to tough it out with the fan in my room because I didn’t want to wake him up. But by 4am, I hadn’t managed to fall asleep yet, and I opted to move into his room and turn on the AC.

Went fabric shopping with Linda (the ‘mom’) this morning in downtown. It was quite an experience, as usual. Some vendor finds you walking down the street, then escorts you to all the stores in hopes that eventually he’ll lead you into his and you’ll do all your purchases there haha.

Spent 3 hours Skyping with friends back home, which was long overdue. Then headed to the pool and watched some episodes of Lost the rest of the weekend.

Week 33: Mon, April 27th-May 1st

I think that I bought a moto with bad tires. To be honest, I think when the vendor saw that I was white, maybe he was a bit pissed off that a local had went to negotiate the price for me (because he could of gotten more money if it had been me) and he changed the tires. Reason I’m suspicious is because when we went to go get it, it took him an awful long time to get the moto, so maybe a quick swap with some crappy used tires happened while he was in the back? I’ve gone to patch my tires 3 times this week from holes in them!

Got a couple rain storms this week, which has been a nice cool relief. The only bad thing is that since most roads are dirt roads, the rain creates huge mud puddles which often can’t be avoided. So you ride in a calculated speed in hopes you won’t get stuck and have to put your foot down in the mud to prevent yourself from falling over and getting completely covered in mud. Let’s just say that the couple times it has rained, I have gotten home and headed straight to the hose to rinse off my foot haha. There’s also been a gas company strike. The representative of the workers at one of the biggest gas station companies here was fired, so all the workers in all of the stations have gone on strike (well just blocked off the stations and not gone to work) in protest. And workers from other gas stations have decided to protest in solidarity with them, which is kind of cool to see that kind of collectiveness, but a tad inconvenient.

Visited my friend after nearly 2 months of not hanging out with him. We always talk about interesting topics, and I always make him think about unconventional things, or things like religion and politics, that most people aren’t really open about. Today, we left the conversation talking about homosexuality. Desensitizing the world, one person at a time!


Ok, that’s about it for now. Until next time.
Take care everyone.
Hugs sent your way!
Tiana

Week 20: Mon, Jan 26th – Fri, Jan 30th

A new UofOttawa student got here today for a 2.5 month coop. She brought me a bunch of stuff from my friends in Ottawa which was cool. Ange and Charlotte sent me a bunch of stuff including some much wanted workout and pilates videos woot! Physical activity!

School was funny today. I stayed after it had ended to go through a bag of outdoor games that the school had received from tourist visiting; half of which they didn’t know what it was. So I taught them what a Frisbee was (they thought they were plastic plates), how baseball worked (by drawing them a little diagram) and a bunch of other stuff like yo-yos and bouncy balls. It was cute.

The cold season is officially over. Yep, 2 weeks after its beginning. And I was holding off from buying hot cocoa since I thought it wouldn’t last and after caving in 2 days ago, it got hot again! Boo. I tell the locals that 2 weeks of cold weather cannot be considered a ‘season’. Seasons last months, but I guess it was good while it lasted!

Benoit also signed a new contract with a Canadian mining company (yep, Canada owns gold mines over here, 7 to be exact). So they just signed another 2 years of their lives in Africa, but the offer was too good to pass up, so they went for it. Besides with today’s economic slum, it’s an opportunity they couldn’t pass up.

Our organization had a conference today which was a report of a volunteer’s work in analyzing volunteer contributions within all partner organizations in the last 5 years. It was interesting. Turns out 10% of volunteers who come end their contracts early! 10%! It seems high, but since I’ve seen more then 10% of people decide to leave early since I’ve been here, I guess the statistics aren’t as off as they first appeared. The conference results were interesting and did trigger some thesis potential, so I’ll be looking into that. At night since everyone was in town for the conference, we headed to the Verdoyant, a great restaurant (with good pizzas and ice cream!) I ate way too much, but it was so good I couldn’t resist.

Made a deal with a friend for the next day (he doesn’t speak any French, so a solo expedition to the post office would be less then amusing for him). The deal: I drive him to the Post office and in exchange I get to use his internet (he’s got internet at home!) So we internetted for a while, then I took him there (where he proceeded to lick a ridiculous amount of stamps instead of using the wet sponge, which made the clerk laugh). We then stopped on our way back to a store, which I always pass and was curious to see. It’s a kind of department store, you can get anything and everything there (well not Everything, but it’s probably the most selection of goods found in one building I’ve seen so far here, so that’s got to count for something!)

Weekend 20

This weekend was the school director’s daughter’s wedding. So as it is customary to invite friends, families, neighbours and cousins twiced removed, I was invited too. I went to the place where the wedding ceremony was happening, and I stood outside with a crowd of people waiting to notice someone I knew. But no one. I waited 1.5hrs in the sun looking around for anybody who would signify that I was in the right place. I watched a total of 3 weddings pass through the hall (one finishes, they leave, the crowd waiting outside move into the hall, a new couple go in, get married, and it happens all over again with a new crowd of people and new couple). It’s like a drive through wedding haha.
After too long under the sun, I recognized one of the staff from the school next to ours and went to say hi. Turns out we were at the right wedding and that the director was not there, neither were any of the other teachers I work with since they were at her house preparing food. They didn’t even go to their own daughter’s wedding because they were making sure that food was ready for the guests! Ayayay. We left there and headed to the reception where they sat me at the VIP table in front of everybody (even though I insisted sitting hidden within the crowd). We ate a bit then headed to the director’s house for more food.

By early afternoon I was tired and hot and headed home. I called a friend and we met at the pool for a swim and lemonade, yum! Later went to her house for supper, then headed home tired and ready for bed.

Week 21: Mon, Feb 2nd – Fri, Feb 6th

Started working on computer program workshops I’ll be giving at my partner organization. I’ll be doing workshops on Word, Paint, PowerPoint, Excel, and Photoshop. But I’ve been working a lot on them and it’s getting really redundant.

Took out the pancake mix I brought from Canada to make pancakes for supper. The first time I’ve opened it. (Still have my Kraft Dinner and chicken noodle soup reserve ). Our friend is over tonight. She has been having problems with her landlord. She is leaving her mandate early because has done over 2.5 yrs of volunteer work and needs a break. The landlord is saying that she owes him money because he paid the taxes on the rental for the entire year, and now since she is leaving early, he paid taxes on months pointlessly, and is telling her to pay the difference (he even threatened to sew her and our organization if she didn’t). To cheer her up, we went out for a drink at our favourite maquis. But because we were 3 girls alone, guys kept coming up to us to say hi and ask to sit with us. I guess when we rejected the one, his buddies never got the hint that when we said we were having a ‘ladies night’ that that meant we didn’t want any boys to sit with us haha.

Took up the school’s programming again this morning. This is something I did at the beginning of the year, but that the director is just now questioning. So although it is redoing work that has already been done, I’m happy since it shows an interest and that whatever we do will more likely be used in future years. After school, I headed to the university to join the club in a discussion of how to cut a budget for a conference we are hosting this weekend. But agreeing on what is important and what could be cut out for the sake of cost was not as easy as it seemed. They requested funding from their organization but only received half of it, so they had to cut somewhere. But apparently cutting a $75 1-time use poster was not in their plans. So it was a bit frustrating because I come from the Canadian perspective (the ones giving the funding) and they from the local perspective. But agreeing on what was important was not happening.

A couple volunteers are heading back to Canada this week. One today and another moved into our house to spend her last couple days before heading out this weekend.

Headed to the school again today and suggested getting armoires and a shelf made in order to organize the supplies and toys that they have (which now sit in boxes), so that we can evaluate what is missing and integrate what they have into the lesson plans and activities. After asking for a price analysis, I learned that to make 2 armoires and 1 shelf, it would cost $500! Ayayay. Way too much. So I’ll have to do some serious negotiating with the partner organization to show them the value of getting these items. I also brought the Magic Bullet to school today (see mom and dad, I’m spreading the joy!). I made them mango, banana smoothies. Mmmm. They liked!

Came home to a powerless house, which has been happening a lot lately. Because it’s getting hotter, people are using more electricity, which is resulting in daily power outages, and under this heat, it is not cool (excuse the pun).

I headed out to an electronics store to see if they could fix my cooling pad for my laptop since it’s been heating up a lot faster lately. The owner of the store (an older Lebanese guy) said that it would do nothing since my laptop was full of dust, but he offered to clean it out for free woot! So I was nice and sat through a complete description of all the products in his store, a sampler of the speaker systems he sells, a private drumming session, etc. I was trying to get out of there, but considering he was going to fix and clean my laptop, I toughed it out. Finally I managed to escape and on my way home took a wrong turn which led to 20 minutes of being completely lost. And my attempts to backtrack just led me deeper into the dirt roads of Ouaga. I was just praying that eventually I’d hit a paved road which would ring a bell and lead me home, which I did, thank god!

Spent the night trying to call people back home (unsuccessfully) and playing UNO, which Ange had sent me through Sandra.

Went to work again this morning and on my way was following a truck which was carrying a couple barrels of oil in the back. But they didn’t have lids, so oil was splashing all over the place, even hitting me, when following meters behind it. Went to the office that afternoon and Anna in her boredom at work (she’s on a coop in Honduras) developed a list of 50 themed parties to consider for next year haha. Oh themed parties! She even planned for a ‘party planning party’ haha. This list went on and continued to develop among a couple of my friends, so hopefully we’ll be implementing some of those ideas next year when we’re all back in T.O. (I’m especially looking forward to the dip and Magic Bullet party ).

I met up with Damaris to discuss once and for all if we are serious about finding a place together. She wants to find a place for $85 per month unfurnished. Hopefully we can find something that is decent, but I think we’ll have to up the price a bit if we don’t want to live in a hole. Later that night, the guy from the electronics store called to see what I was doing (he got my number from the repair form). Ayayay. Headed to le Gigot a la Ficelle as my friend’s last dinner in Burkina, before having a bonfire and wishing her off to Canada.

Weekend 21

Electronic store guy called at 6am this morning! What is he thinking. I had to stop by and pick up my cooling pad and hopefully get my laptop cleaned. He said that the cable was broken and that it would have to be re-wired with a cellphone charger cable in order to work (which he said he just so happened to have an extra one at home which he’d give me). He kept me there 45min before I made an escape. But before I did, he showed me his house which is under construction (and near the store), gave me the complete history of the store’s construction, asked if I was single (which I said no so that he might get the hint) and asked me to stay and have lunch with him. Luckily I was meeting some friends at the hotel pool, so was able to get out of there.
I met up with the German crew at one of Ouaga’s swankiest hotels (well before the new ‘rich’ part of town was constructed. So going there was nice, but cost me $7.50 just for using the pool! Yikes. Left there unwillingly and headed to the campus to set up for the conference which is tomorrow. I spent an hour wiping down desks and chairs that had been sitting unattended for 6 months (because the university has been on a strike). Items which had also been exposed to open windows, which made them ridiculously dusty. As if I didn’t breathe enough dust outside on a daily basis.
Got a txt message from the electronics guy saying he was thinking of me and to come by for him to play me a song on his drums. I didn’t answer. Maybe eventually he’ll stop trying. Even after telling him I had a boyfriend, not to mention he’s my dad’s age (no offence dad, but I’m no Celine Dion).

Sunday was the conference to discuss the clubs’ plans and strategies for the coming year. It included members from the clubs of all 3 universities. My attempt to save them money resulted in me making homemade flower pots with mayonnaise jars, coloured foil paper and ribbon (and random plants I cut from our garden). They were amazed. ‘We could sell these on the streets!’ they kept saying to one another haha. It was funny, but I think a good tip learned for future needs .
The conference ended late, 7pm (after a 6am start to the day). So I got into my pjs as soon as I got home. And who else comes knocking at our door, but my friend who insists that there is something between us, which he can tell when he ‘looks into my eyes’ (oh brother). Just what I needed after a long day. So I went outside and talked to him for a bit, all the while with my other friend (the guard of the house across the street) standing right beside us, arms crossed the entire 20 minutes he was there, as if looking out to make sure I was okay. It was funny. My ‘friend’ didn’t have too much to say. Kind of just stood there, trying to convince me to go out for a drink with him (he didn’t care that I was in my pjs). Eventually I told him I was gonna go back inside and he left. I spent that night unbraiding my hair with the help of Anne and another cooperant who was staying over our place after having dropped off her mom at the airport.

Week 22: Mon, Feb 9th – Fri, Feb 13th

Worked on these never ending workshops. Got the info from the conference that analyzed volunteer contributions from my boss to analyze it for thesis potential. Since I unbraided my hair last night, it’s super crimpy today and I feel like a diva haha. Later that night I brushed it out (yes, I know you are all asking yourself how much hair I lost. Let’s just say a sink full haha, but I have so much hair in the first place, you can barely tell I lost any). But the weight off my head was relieving. And brushing it out, woof! What a fro haha. It was fun. I washed it good that night and spent the rest of the night designing a logo for an event I did advertising for last year on campus. Grrrlfest, a conference centered around women’s issues and interests is going on again this year at my campus back home and this year’s coordinator asked me to help design this year’s logo. So I came up with a couple ideas and emailed them out the next day.

The workshops started today! I decided to do one-on-one workshops. Letting people reserve a time in the days I’ll be spending at the office to have sessions on any computer program that they want. I realize that doing it this way (with 12 employees, averaging about 2-4 hrs per program, per person), it will last months. But I figured this way, they are more likely to retain the information then if I were to do a powerpoint style group presentation. So hopefully my assumptions will turn out correct!

Benoit got back today from spending the first 10 days in the desert at his new job. It really is out in the middle of nowhere, full of sand and scorpions and he sleeps in a container (at least it has AC!). The 3 of us are sick though. Glad to see that he was also sick since I would of wanted no responsibility in transferring my sickness to him upon his return haha. He also got a satellite installed to offer Anne some sort of entertainment while he would be away for 10 days at a time. And maybe we’d be able to get the news.

The more I live here, the more I feel guilty that I’m living so luxuriously though. And it’s convincing me that moving out with Damaris is the right thing to do. I just feel like I was happy to get away from a materialistic environment in Canada just to find one here in Africa.

Electronics guy txted me again. Eventually I’ll have to go back and get my cooling pad, but I’m avoiding all contact until then! That night met up with a friend to go check out a concert. It was interesting. The guy was like the James Brown of Africa in the way that he dance (don’t worry, I captured it on film!) And the band was a dozen piece band complete with trumpets and sax.

Called the rents later on and mentioned that I had just hit my half way mark this week. My mom was cute, she said that she knew I was at that point and could actually tell me that I had exactly 25 weeks and 2 days left haha. I figured she had a general countdown going, but to the day, impressive!

Next day, I asked Benoit to accompany me to the electronics store, assuming arriving with a guy would make for a much quicker escape. It did help. We were in and out there within 5 minutes! But my cooling pad wasn’t even touched. The guy was like ‘if I knew you were coming, I would have fixed it for you’. Ugh, I told you I’d be back to pick it up between Monday and Friday. It is now Friday (the last possible day) and it’s still not fixed. And there was no way I was going to go back there another time (especially because I couldn’t always count on a guy to accompany me hihi). So I told him to just give it to me broken and I’d deal with it. So I wasted 3 weeks on having it there and got nothing out of it but personal drumming serenades, historical descriptions of both his house and company, and a request to have a Canadian contact send me a Canadian made cymbal for his drum set. (Upon his original request, I was going to contact you Allan, but didn’t want to get any friendlier with this guy, so decided not to bother).

Weekend 22

Today is February 14th, Valentine’s Day. Usually I am opposed to VDay just because it is a Hallmark holiday and places so much emphasis in telling someone your appreciation for them through jacked up prices. I was happy to have escaped the commercialization of the holiday by coming to Africa, but it’s a big deal here! There’s even people and companies that will do events to celebrate Valentine’s Week!!! An entire week! Ayayay.

Sandra is down, the UofO student, to spend the weekend in the big city. So I took her out grocery shopping and we headed to the hotel to do some internet. I spent 4 hours skyping friends back home who were online and giving me all the latest gossip on the crew. It was great to talk to them. I haven’t had the chance to do so since I got here really.

That night the girls (Anne, Sandra and I) headed for a romantic dinner at a new Italian restaurant. It wasn’t bad. Cleanest bathrooms I’ve seen in Africa thus far. They even have individual towels to dry your hands! Heck, I’m happy if there’s even a toilet bowl to sit on! But towelettes…too much! We left with roses from the restaurant’s owner and Sandra and I headed to see a boxing match (no better way to celebrate VDay then by a showcase of violence haha). It was cool. I had never been to a boxing match, but the locals were really into it. Especially when it was a white Algerian guy against their national champ (who ended up winning). Everyone upon his victory started and revved their engines to celebrate.

Worked again on the workshops this morning and wished Sandra off back to the village. Went back to the hotel to Skype with the rents. After 30 min some woman came up to me saying ‘excuse me, but you are talking really loudly and I cannot work. Really, it is really rude what you are doing. You’re talking 5x the normal volume’. I was frankly taken aback. I told her that I was sorry and that she should of just came up and asked me if I could be quieter or move. Like chill woman. Her reaction was really unnecessary and unappreciated.
I realized then how quickly someone could change your mood here. Just because you’re having a bad day doesn’t mean you’ve got to take it out on everyone around you. But luckily I was talking to my parents, so my mood changed quickly back and I was fine. I moved to the other side of the area and faced my back to her so that my 5x too loud voice wouldn’t project in her direction. But I was constantly on the lookout for the hotel birds which tend to approach people (and they’re evil, so I feared an attack). My parents were quite amused by my paranoia.

Week 23: Mon, Feb 16th – Fri, Feb 20th

A cooperative is in Ouaga (he’s been coming almost every weekend for a couple months, constantly at the doctors, trying to figure out why he’s always sick). They finally found out that he had a parasite that had created a mass on his liver from bad fish he ate. (Don’t worry mom, he eats a lot of sketchy street food, so it was bound to happen). But it’s nothing major and with the meds, it’ll go away on its own.

Did a MicrosoftWord workshop today. Oh man, it was like teaching my grandma how to use a computer (which I told her after she was very frustrated with lack of understanding. She didn’t really seem to appreciate the comparison though lol. I tried to explain that I wasn’t calling her old, but rather the lack of experience and growing up with the computer. By the end she was laughing, so hopefully no damage done).

It rained today!!!!!!!!! The first I’ve seen in 5 months! Ok, so it was just a drizzle, but still, it’s the first thing to fall from the sky besides dust! At school today, Madia, a 3 year old girl was watching me drink juice and turns to me asking ‘What are you drinking?’ I said ‘Teodo’ (a white opaque locally made juice). She asks ‘Is that what makes your skin white?’ It was too cute.

I have the biggest hamburger craving these days. But my cravings were not met since I was heading out to meet a friend to go check out a Magic System concert. It was sold out by the time we got there (first time I go to see something and it’s sold out, big hit). So we went out for a drink instead and were going to go check out the concert tomorrow, which they had added at the last minute due to popular demand.

Next day at the partner organizations office, I spoke to the director to remind him of the workshops I was giving, and he wants me to teach the workshops at the college. Ay. I have so many things that I still want to do with the school, not to mention finish up the workshops at the office, which will take me months, I don’t know if I’ll have the time. But I told him the least I could do was to give him the documents once they were finalized since I made them to be a workshop in itself (explanations and activities for each section). So someone with basic computer knowledge shouldn’t have too much trouble following them. These workshops are making me tired though. I do a couple per day, so about 4 hours the days I’m there, but it’s redundant and sometimes frustrating because it’s difficult to simplify something which you already find so simple. But although it is a lot of work and fatigue, I feel as though I’m being useful, so I don’t mind.

Left the office and my hamburger craving has not ceased. So I met my friend (who got the tickets for tonight’s show) at the American pool for a burger and fries mmmm. We headed to the concert early to make sure we wouldn’t have any problems, and the concert ended up starting 3.5 hours late! So we hung out, mostly in line waiting. Sometimes I wonder the level of patience in people. In theory, I am used to things being on time, so naturally I should be the one frustrated when things go over the time they’re supposed to happen. But it seems as though the locals get frustrated faster, even though they are used to waiting around. Maybe it’s because I’m just really patient. And even more so now. It will be ridiculous when I get back. The concert was good though. A bunch of acts (not Magic System because they had to fly out for a show in France). But I wasn’t disappointed. It was pretty gangster though, rappers and reggae were the main themes. But the best, and probably the most interesting act I’ve seen thus far in Burkina (and trust me, I’ve seen some interesting things) was an African dressed as a cowboy (I know, already there…but wait it gets better…) rapping the song ‘Quanta la mela’. It was too much. I couldn’t stop laughing while attempting to capture it on video, because opportunities like this cannot be passed up. I must spread the joy to my friends and family.

Ended the week at the school doing data entry for the director (since she was suffering, from malaria, which we found out a few days later). I managed to contact both grandparents this week. Finally. The phone lines aren’t the most reliable, especially since I don’t have much access to the internet, so limiting the time for which I can attempt calling (since I use Skype to avoid a ridiculous phone bill).

Since Sandra wanted to go out last weekend but I was sick, I took her out this week since she is back in Ouaga. So we headed to a concert (to avoid falling asleep before going out) and then headed to a club and sat drinking a coca cola outside (since the place doesn’t start moving until past 1-2am). I had invited a bunch of other friends to join us, but here, if you invite someone, you are supposed to pay for them for the night, which I really didn’t get. I was just mentioning that I’d be there, so if they wanted to dance, to meet us there. So that led to a bunch of misunderstandings and minor insults after I told a few friends that I couldn’t afford to pay for all of them (since the club we went to is expensive and I was only planning on buying one drink for myself then dance). So it was ladies night and just the 2 of us, which turned out good. We had a lot of fun and ended up meeting a couple of really nice Lebanese guys who danced with us and later invited us for lunch the next day.

Weekend 23

We got home late and headed straight to bed. But by 8am I couldn’t sleep anymore (after having gone to bed at 4h30!) So I was tired. We headed to internet at the hotel and as I attempted a nap, the guys from last night called us to say that they had finished work and were heading home for lunch. So I got up tired, and we headed over.
They get together every Saturday after work to have lunch and swim at the one guys house. So there were about 5 people there and a buffet of Lebanese food. We ate then swam and hung out by the pool for the afternoon. These guys are so funny. They love love songs and the one guy put on ‘My Love’ by Westlife. Lol. I used to be in love with Westlife when I was 13yrs old and haven’t heard from them since. It was funny because they’d play love songs and know all the words to them. Quite entertaining. We had a lot of fun though. They reminded me a lot of my Canadian friends. The same attitude and humour, which was fun to be around.
At 7pm, we headed home for a much needed nap before planning to head out that night. One of them picked us up and we headed over to a restaurant called ‘Apalooza’, which was like walking into a whole other world. It had a Boston Pizza kind of feel. The place was packed with foreigners, it was a restaurant with booths aligned along the walls, a nice bar, a mini dance floor (with the best dj and music I’ve heard in 6 months!). We just hung out and had a drink and watched the old foreigners get up and dance traditional Lebanese songs. It was fun. After that we headed to a club to dance a bit before heading home after another late night. I haven’t gone out in 2 months, then this weekend, 4 late nights in a row. It felt good though and was a much needed stress relief.

The next day, I met up with a friend in a forest for a walk. He was asking me a bunch of questions trying to analyze me, saying that I seemed as though I was reserved. I told him of course I was, I don’t know how people take me, so of course I’ll be more careful what I say and do, to not send out the wrong message. He finds my opinions really interesting though, so we talked openly about religion and politics and my intentions and reasons for having come to Africa. We left there and headed to one of his friends’ house to have tea and sit chatting. But by 9pm I was so exhausted from the weekend that I headed home and straight to bed.

Week 24: Mon, Feb 23rd – Fri, Feb 27th

Received a notice that I got a package in the mail. Thinking it may be from my aunts and grandma (which my mom keeps asking me if I got yet). But turned out it was from Ange, a package she had sent me 3.5 months ago. I had to open it in front of the customs guy (like always, ruining the surprise) and lifted the first item out of the box, which were wooden spoons, well ‘spoontulas’ to be exact (a cross between a wooden spoon and a spatula). The guy just looked at me and said ‘you know you can buy these here eh’. Lol. I tried to explain my love for wooden spoons and that my friend probably saw them and thought they were cool and thought of me. I think he got it. She also sent me the newest Nickleback cd (a band who she personally dislikes haha). But Ange, let it be known that when Sandra saw the cd, she was very happy to see it and copied it to her computer for her listening pleasure. So you see, you’re spreading the Nickleback joy to more people then you thought. I even got an Xmas card. It’s like Xmas all year round here. Because the post is so unconsistent, I get an Xmas card almost every month haha.

Where is the cold season? I miss it. It’s getting hotter and hotter everyday now. Today, a balmy 46*. I take day showers just to cool off. And I don’t know if the weather has anything to do with it, but there has been a recent upsurge in the number of cockroaches appearing in my bathroom and room. I kill about 3-4 per night. Yes, they are gross, but I’m getting used to them, so it’s not so bad (I can feel you guys shuttering as I write this hihi). But what’s best is that they sleep on their backs (or maybe they are just pretending to be dead). Whichever, it works for me, that way it’s easy for me to squish them with my shoe without them trying to run away.

Dropped by my friends house to say hi, but he wasn’t home. I did see the monkey he had told me that his neighbour had. I don’t know why I pictured a cute friendly monkey when he had mentioned it, but this one was tied by its tail to the tree and did not look friendly one bit. I wasn’t going to approach it, that’s for sure.

Sandra is back. She just can’t get enough of Ouaga haha. Did a house search this morning looking at potential places to move. At night, some Canadian volunteers from another organization had organized a meeting at a restaurant to meet other Canadians (which he had sent out by email). It was like being at a Quebec family reunion. But quite enjoyable. They were loud and funny. Situations like this always remind me of my grandparent R’s 50th wedding anniversary, where half of Quebec had come down. We headed home afterwards and started a fire as we had invited some friends for a bonfire. No marshmallows though, I guess merguezs (tiny sausages) will have to do. Later that night, a friend of one of my friends from UofT came by. He is here for Fespaco, an international film festival, and had gotten my contact through her.

Weekend 24

Slept in till 9h40! That’s a record. Sandra and I headed to Air Ivoire, since she’s got an aunt there she’d like to visit. The tickets to fly to the neighbouring country are $500! Ayayay. We headed the guys’ house for lunch and a swim. After coming home I badly wanted a nap, but Sandra convinced me otherwise so we watched a movie before heading to see a reggae concert that was supposedly happening in an outdoor location. But when we got there, we couldn’t find the reggae. There were bands, but nothing like reggae. We stayed there until midnight then decided to finish our night on a positive note and headed to the club to go dancing. The place was full of tourists who are here for the film festival, so naturally the music was good. Already this club is one of few that plays some Western music, but even then, maybe 25%. But this night, it was maybe 40% which was great. We had a great time.

Sunday, I avoided my phone all day. I’m getting tired of always doing stuff. I just want to spend time by myself. And all my local friends want to always do something at the same time, but always different things, so trying to balance seeing all of them is making me tired. So I spent today away from communications and some much appreciated solo time.

Week 25: Mon, March 2nd – Fri, March 6th

Today at school, another little girl asked me another question about my whiteness haha. Déo, a 5yr old asked me ‘How did you get your skin so white?’. I introduced the concept of genetics and told her it was because my parents had white skin, and that she had brown skin because her parents have brown skin. Not sure if I lost her in the explanation.

Because of the film festival, there are tons of road blockages, which are making the usual rush hour traffic ridiculous. Especially because the detours are in small back alley roads (who thought that up?).

I emailed the Canadian travel doctor a pic of a hardening red patch growing around a cut I got a couple months ago. I always email him with my ailments since it saves me a trip to the doctors, and is faster (believe it or not). I don’t know if he carries a Blackberry or something that advises him when he receives an email, but he usually responds to my emails within an hour! He suggested that it may be exheema, nothing a little hydrating cream shouldn’t fix.

On my way home through the detours, I narrowly missed smashing right into a 4 meter pole that some passenger on a moto was holding over his shoulder. Was it marked you asked? Yep. There was a red bag tagged to the end, but that bag was covered by a black bag over top. What is this guy thinking? I’m sure he whacked a few people in the face with it, especially while turning through those detoured side streets. Some people are just very hazardous. Like seriously!

Finally got a Fespaco program. Yep, 2 days after the festival started, it has come available online. But it’s slightly confusing, and only states the name of the film, the country in which it was made and the director. No synopsis, which makes picking a film to go check out a little annoying. I headed that night with a friend to the big market they had set up for the festival. It was very cool. The ambiance was like being at a Canadian art or food festival, with booths set up all over the place selling various goods.

Got a txt msg last night at 2am with broken English saying stuff like ‘sweety lips, sweet dreams, kisses’ lol. It was random and came from a random number which would be like the Canadian equivalent of 123-456-7890 (I’m thinking a number purposefully hidden). There are few people who I know speak English, and even fewer that would write me that kind of message. My best guess would be the electronics store guy, who maybe hid his number hopping I’d respond asking who it was (which would show him that I was actually getting his msgs and ignoring them haha). So naturally, I didn’t answer. Later that afternoon, I got another msg from the same number saying ‘will you be hungry tonight’. Ummm, no, actually I wasn’t planning on being hungry tonight tonight. Is that even a question? Of course I’m going to be hungry tonight lol. I didn’t answer anyways.

Did another tour of houses that afternoon. We’ve got some potentials which is good. Headed from the office to see the houses, then back to the other office to continue on with the day. So tired and hungry, so stopped at a gas station to pick up a lunch of champions, a bottle of Coke and cakes lol. (Don’t worry mom, this is not a usual meal). After work, Anne and I headed to Luc, Linda and Jerome’s (a cooperant family) house for dinner.

Been thinking a lot why I’ve been feeling like I want more time to be by myself and not hang out with people here. Talking about it with a bunch of people made me realize it’s the money that I spend when I go out with my local friends, which is not that much, but since I’m seen as the ‘white foreigner’ who has a lot of money (they think), I am expected to pay for everyone when we go out. And it’s getting on my nerves, even if I’m told that ‘that’s how it is in Africa’.

Been going out with a different friend every night this week. All my friends seem to want to do things around the same time, so when I came home Thursday night I was tired from being on the go all the time and got right into my pjs at 4h30. Spent the night doing nothing and watching Lost, which was great.

Friday, I met up with another friend and we went out for Senegalese food (so delicious!). He wants me to plan a trip to Senegal (where he’s originally from). It’s possible. I found out there’s a direct flight from Senegal to Toronto, which would be a cool stop over on my way back (instead of Morocco or France). We’ll see. After eating, we met up with another friend to check out a festival film that was playing at the open air theatre in my neighbourhood.

Weekend 25

Met up with Damaris to show her the nice house I had found earlier. After long consideration we decided to call up the landlord and seal the deal. But not thinking I said we were there for another 4 months, and he said he didn’t rent for less then 1 year. Bah! After we left, we plotted ways to convince him to let us have it (saying that we knew a bunch of other Canadians and Germans who were coming, so they could take over the house).

Came home and ate before heading off to check out the Fespaco’s closing ceremony. We called the mining dispatch, SUVs with air conditioning and leather seats! It’s fancy stuff. Since Benoit is an employee of the mine, him and Anne have access to a 24/7 dispatch service, which is awesome, especially when your moto breaks down. Got to the stadium and the seating area was just cement slabs, and they were hot! The people there were smart and had brought some fabric and stuff to sit on, and they were all nice enough to spread it out so that we could sit on it with them. But even then, the heat coming off of the cement was penetrating right through the layers of fabric. What was even smarter, where the young boys who had brought a bunch of broken boxes and were selling bits of cardboard to people to sit on. We bought some and it worked much better then the fabric, but we could still feel the heat.

The ceremony was pretty good. Scary masked people on stilts and bunch of performances, mostly dance and music numbers. There was even a group of 30ish muscular white men (out of the blue) who did gymnastics lol. It was so odd and out of place it was funny. But the crowd loved it and roared when they’d land tricky flips. We headed to the Verdoyant for pizza after and to the French Cultural Centre where they were showing one of the winning films.

Lazy day today, debating spending it at the pool when Damaris called me and asked if I wanted to go and spend the night in Kaya, a town known for their leather goods. So we met up at the pool and took the bus later that afternoon to Kaya, about 2 hours away. We stayed at some rooms rented out by the ministry of environment (despite my friend’s desire to sleep in some random place in nature…I wasn’t really up to sleeping on the ground in some unknown place, especially because I don’t know what could crawl or attack me during the night haha). We sat outside and talked about our experiences then headed to bed fairly early since we were super tired. But I did more sweating then sleeping that night, so I was even more tired the next day.

Week 26: Mon, March 9th – Fri, March 12th

It’s a long weekend so we got Monday off, and we spent it in Kaya. Checked out the leather goods, and shopped in some artisans booths. I didn’t expect to buy anything, but ended up picking up a few things. After shopping, we headed to the lake (water!) to sit and relax before taking the bus back. But on our way, we had a little collision with a donkey cart, not our fault! If the donkey cart was driving on the RIGHT side of the road, we wouldn’t have had this little incident. I was following a truck to my left and the cart decided to cut across the street right in front of the truck and cornering me between both. I couldn’t turn left (or else I would of hit the truck) and turning right would of rammed me more into the cart, so I had no choice but to squish my body as narrowly as possible to avoid hitting it, but the cart caught my pedal and started dragging us back. A bunch of people saw what happened and ran up to try to slow down the donkey since we were stuck. I hate it when people drive on the wrong side of the road, like really, if you’re going to drive dangerously, at least do it on your side of the road! We were fine though, just a few scrapes and a wolverine scratch looking burn on my leg from pressing my leg against the motor to avoid a major brush burn.

All weekend, we ate only fruits. Because Damaris lives in a family, she cooks her own food, well not really cooks, more like prepares. But since she’s solo, she mainly eats fruits and veggies. But I was so hungry from the lack of sustenance haha, I went on a sandwich search (which vendors sell on the streets), but apparently sandwiches are only a ‘breakfast item’, so I ended up buying cakes (this seems to be a reoccurring theme…)

The bus on the way home was packed. People standing in the hall of the bus and in the stairs. Luckily I sat on the backwall, so the door was right beside me (and didn’t close) which provided a nice breeze when we were driving. Got back to Ouaga and my moto broke down twice on the way home, a problem with the oil mix. Broken down motos are annoying.

Starting to think that I’m allergic to tea tree oil, a natural anticeptic that I bought before coming to Africa. I thought at first the skin reaction was an infection, but since I’ve been cleaning my latest ‘wounds’ with it and been getting the same effect, I’m thinking it’s a reaction. Which is good to find out now, at least it’s not an infection.

We’ve got new guards now at home. The mine provides guards 24/7. And one just so happens to be a mechanic by day, so he took a look at my moto and fixed and replaced a bunch of parts. Did I mention I just got it back from the mechanic a couple days ago? Yep, and it’s worse now then when I brought it in.

Had to watch the big section of the school today because the teacher was absent. So the kids were set up with some activities, and I went around helping those that were sitting and separating the others that were up and fighting each other (the majority). There was even one girl who had a tight chocking grip on this one boy who I tried to loosen, not so successfully.

Sandra is back today for the weekend. She offered for me to go with her to the Ivory Coast. Sweet! I was supposed to travel with another UofT student who’s in Ghana and finishing up her coop, but she’s been MIA the past month, so I was glad at least I’d have other travel plans over the school’s March break. That night we tried a new restaurant for their burgers, not bad. Then we walked around the street and did some window shopping. I thought everything closed at 6pm, but there were a few boutiques for women’s clothing open, so we took a long walk and stopped in to some of the stores on our path. The clothes were expensive though. More so then I’d spend in Canada so I didn’t buy anything.

The next morning I met up with the house guy to try to convince him to rent us the house for 4 months. But when I spoke to the landlord, he said that both houses were taken! Bah! That sucks. It was the perfect location and house. Everything is going wrong this morning and I’m getting really sick of things, and the heat is not helping. But I kept it positive and headed to the office. I webcamed with my cousin and aunt for most of the afternoon and that night took another walk around with Sandra. The nights aren’t so bad, and seeing as though we are 2, we don’t get harassed as much which is nice. Some guy though, which caught me off guard yelled out to us as we passed “the Fespaco’s over, you can go home now”. I thought that was kind of rude, but I must admit it’s the first really rude thing I have heard someone say to whites, so I guess it was bound to happen at some point.

Weekend 26:

Saturday had lots of errans to run. Went to the fabric store, booked our plane tickets for next Friday to the Ivory Coast, scrambled to find a bank machine that would give us cash (4th times a charm) since the travel agent only took cash, got some ID pics taken for visa applications, and did some groceries. Left with the moto, but after 2 break downs and a mechanic, we came back in a taxi, frustrated. So when we got home, we put on some music to brighten our mood and I attempted to make mom’s ‘Eagle Bran Bars’. Not bad, they taste good, but are a little less hard then usual, so eating them with a spoon will have to suffice.

That afternoon, the guard worked on my moto and lent me his while we headed out to check out some necklaces for Sandra. I did not like his moto, the brakes hardly worked and he lacked mirrors. And thus why people are bad drivers in Ouaga. And this guy is a mechanic, umm…maybe pay a bit more attention to your own moto before fixing someone else’s eh. So I rode super slow, stopped way ahead of the lights and avoided ever taking his moto again the following days.

After supper, we headed to the hotel to Internet which was nice. Spoke to the rents before they were off to Brian and Mel’s stag (I hope it was successful!)

The next day, I met up with the girls to house search. We parked our motos and walked around the streets asking randoms if they knew of any places for rent lol. We did find a few, but nothing really good (one house did have a wood cutout of Santa Clause though, it could be Xmas all year round in that place!) By the end of our search, we were so exhausted and hot and frustrated, we headed to the pool for a swim and lemonade. I don’t think I’ve ever been more thirsty in my life! I headed home super tired and plotted myself on the couch to watch an episode of Lost under the fan before bed.



And so, there it is. My latest activities. I’ve got one week to move my butt and get lots of work done before heading off to the Ivory Coast (and the beach!) next Friday. I hope we get nice weather. It turns out it’s rainy season over there right now, but quite frankly I am so deprived of water that I will go to the beach rain or shine! Haha. So stay tuned for the next blog entry which will hopefully describe a great trip!

Take care everyone and Happy Early Easter!
xoxo,
Tiana

The holiday season is over, a new year has begun and I’m approaching the midway point of my coop. Here’s a little re-cap on the last month’s worth of events…

Week 16: Mon Dec 29th- Fri, Jan 2nd

Monday we were leaving for a 5-day trip to the Sahel (the desert in northern Burkina). Our plan was to leave at 8am, so 10 of us rendez-vous’d for 7h30, but when one of our vehicles was much smaller then we had expected, it led to a 4 hour delay while our friend/driver Issiaka found us a second truck. Finally on our way, we stopped not long after as it was lunch time. Okay, so I realize that African time is much slower then Canadian time, and going to a restaurant, you have to go at least 1hr before you think you’ll be hungry so that you don’t starve while you’re waiting. But this was the record (we broke a lot of food waiting records that weekend). Since a bunch of our group had opted to go into town and buy sheep off a street vendor, there were only 4 of us waiting for food. In the end, we waited 2 hours. And it’s not like we ordered a well cooked steak here, we asked for 2 plates of couscous and 2 plates of rice…2 hours people!
We drove into the night as we had got a late start on the day and eventually found ourselves in sand dunes which led to our encampment. The trick we found out was to drive fast enough so that you wouldn’t get stuck in the sand, so our friend in the other truck seemed to have mastered the concept, but our driver got stuck 5 min in. We got out and watched as the wheels spun deeper in the sand and we tried pushing it loose, but ya, that didn’t work. So our friend dropped off the first bunch, came back for us then went back to tie the truck and try to pull it out.
The encampment was pretty cool. We got there to a lit fire beside a long table (we hadn’t eaten supper yet). Around the outskirts were a series of mattresses set out on the sand, where we were going to sleep. I hoped there weren’t any scorpians there :S. It didn’t take long until we bundled up and headed to bed. Man, did I freeze that night. The desert night gets pretty cold, I don’t know how cold it was, but around 15*C I’d say. I had leggings, a long sleeve shirt, my pjs, a hoodie and socks and a small fleece blanket with the one sheet provided. Brrrr. I hardly slept all night and most of the group went inside (there was a building we could move to if we were too cold). But the view was too amazing. When you went to turn around in bed, you opened your eyes to a clear sky full of stars, and as cold as I was, I figured when else would I ever get the opportunity to sleep under the stars in the middle of the desert, and so I opted to freeze.

The next day we took a walk through the sand dunes to a museum. I opted to wear shoes, but without socks and that wasn’t a very good idea. Within 10 minutes I had open blisters on both feet full of sand, so I took off my shoes and opted to chance walking through the sand which was full of pricklies. We checked out the museum which was an archeological site, then headed to a small water spot, where there were thousands of cows and donkeys (the appeal, I know, too much).
We ate lunch then argued with the owner of the encampment as he was charging us more then we had previously been told ($7 per person for a plate of couscous!). We then left for the next encampment, where we were spending a couple nights, including New Years Eve. So we packed up our things and were off.
Okay, try to appreciate the irony of this next bit. So we’re driving out of the encampment when our driver decides that he rather veer off the frequently used path to ride through the slightly forested area. And of course, we are driving through sand. So he goes to drive between 2 trees, and a combination of not turning fast enough and speed led us, yes you guessed it, right into one of them. I have never been in a car accident before, and it’s pretty humourous that my first car accident occurred by hitting a tree in the middle of the desert! Luckily no one was really hurt, just some sore limbs. I totally saw it coming though, and tried bracing the impact with my knee and was a little disoriented when it happened, but we all got out and were fine. So we waited while the other group was brought one hour or so away to our next camp while we waited around and were eventually picked up by a tourist going to the same encampment.
The camp was cool. A big sandy hill with a bunch of tourist groups all spread out around huts and campfires. We beat another record that night. 3.5 hours for spaghetti and fries! Man, and a server in Canada gets in shit if they don’t bring out food within 20 minutes of ordering! Imagine… 3.5 hours!

The next day was New Years Eve. We woke up that morning and decided to take a walk around. A bunch of kids followed us around as we walked near villages and saw random groups of donkeys and camels just hanging around. Ok, so I have always wanted to ride a donkey, so when the kids grabbed one of them, I ceased the opportunity and got on. Okay, so I didn’t really ‘ride’ the donkey, but I sat on it .
That afternoon, we had arranged to take a camel ride. So as I walked towards the herd of camels awaiting us, I scoped out the one that looked like it had the softest blanket on the saddle. It just so happen to be the biggest of the pack, so I wasn’t sure if they were going to let me have it (maybe it was the leaders?). So as some of our group starting getting on the camels, I walked up to the guy and asked if I could get the big one. He laughed and said I was small, so I tried to breathe in lots of air and make as if I was getting bigger. He laughed, but eventually let me have it…success!
They are tall though, when we got up, I was afraid I’d fall off, since these are single humped camels (dromadaires, not sure if that’s a word in English) so the saddle pretty much sits in front of the hump and is ‘strapped’ down. But one bad turn and I was going downhill, and far. Yikes. It worked out though, eventually I got comfortable with my camel and my guide even gave me the reigns, so I got to control him myself.
Got back to camp and waited for our mishui, which is roasted sheep (the new years specialty they were cooking up that night). Ate at around 10pm then headed to another part of the camp, where they had set up a large fire so that everyone could come ring in the new year together. We brought out some sparklers and sat watching a group of Italians sing and dance around the fire. Rang in the new year, danced a bit, then were off to bed by early morning.
That night I was determined NOT to be cold. So I loaded on the clothing. 3 pairs of socks (one of which knee highs), leggings, pj pants, a tshirt, a long sleeve shirt, pj shirt, and a hoodie. And guess what, I WASN’T COLD! Woot!

The next morning, we were off to Gorum Gorum, where there was a big market to check out. So we piled all our bags on the top of the truck and piled into the truck (yes the 10 of us plus the driver). An hour later, Issiaka (our friend/driver) dropped half of us on the side of the road as we were getting into town as he didn’t want any trouble if we were stopped by the police with 10 people in the vehicle. So he pulled over, told half of us to get out and ‘start walking’ and that he’d ‘be back in a bit to pick us up’. We’re in the desert! You can’t just drop people off and tell them to start walking and that you’ll be back later lol. Luckily it wasn’t too far and he was back within 25min.
Since we were 1 truck down (yes our truck that hit the tree stayed in the tree), half of our group were going to take the bus back to Ouaga and the rest be driven by Issiaka in the truck. But since one of the main attractions to come to the Sahel was the market, the group didn’t want to take the next and only bus to Ouaga which was leaving in 25min (since it wouldn’t give them time to check out the market). So after much frustration and arguing that we had paid for the use of the truck and driver and should get to use it however we wanted, the driver agreed to wait for the group to check out the market and drive half of them to the next town an hour away where they could catch another bus to Ouaga, then drive back to pick the rest of us up and drive to Ouaga.
We all got back around the same time. But built up frustrations led to some arguing between myself and some others as I was trying to mediate the situation and they were pissed off by the series of events. So that got me pretty upset, but luckily they apologized and by the next morning, I was fine.


Weekend 16

I hit the 4 month mark this weekend. So far so good. The only thing I really miss is just being able to see my friends and family and just hanging out and being able to give them hugs (more on that later…)
This Saturday was Anne’s bday, so we went out to a Vietnamese restaurant, which was amazing. Something I could buy in Canada from an Asian restaurant, I was impressed and very satisfied. Made a cake for Anne with strawberries that just came into season (we had heard a lot about Burkina strawberries), but at $10/kg I think we’ll wait a bit for the price to go down before we buy more.

Went fabric shopping today with Fanny, who is visiting Anne and Benoit from France. She wanted to get some outfits made before she heads back, so we took her downtown. I have never been (I’m sure I’ve started many sentences that way already haha) more harassed to buy stuff in my life. There were about a dozen men surrounding us at all moments, trying to pull us towards their shops. I kept telling them not to grab my arm and to get out of my ‘personal space’ lol. Oh man, I was totally in the mood for shopping that morning, but after 20min, I was fully annoyed and ready to head home.
Sunday night is Bollywood night at the cinépark, so we headed over to catch the flick. There were some songs where people starting brraping, and I so wish someone was there to appreciate the gansterness with me! It’s really too bad.


Week 17: Mon Jan 5th – Fri Jan 9th

Back at school today after the 2 week of school break and I was glad to see the kids. My friend and taxi driver lost his taxi today. An insight, in Burkina, if you are rich enough to own a car, you can ‘rent’ it out as a taxi. So you pay a guy to take care of renting it out. That guy finds a driver, who pays $20/day to drive it and receives about $75-100 at the end of each month as salary. So the owner of my friend’s taxi has a little brother whom my friend was teaching how to drive. Once he succeeded in getting his license, the owner of the taxi decided to put my friend to the street and give the car to his little brother. So my friend was left trying to find friends to work with and they’d share the salary together. Luckily 2 days later, that little brother got into a car accident, so the taxi was given back to my friend. It’s so frustrating because so many people here are paid so little per month that the owners of things can keep them on such a tight leash that they will never be able to come out of it, which leaves them pretty much dependent for life.

Did some work at the office this week, but I haven’t been able to sit still for more than 1 hour at a time as my back has been a little sore. So after some confirmation with the insurance company that message therapy or chiropractic sessions would be covered if prescribed, I went to the clinic to see if I can get that done. My leg was causing me the most hassle right after the accident, but as that got better, I started getting pain in my back and neck, but not severe enough to worry. I just wanted to take care of it now to avoid more problems come 2-3 months from now. But my attempts to seek a natural solution ended in a prescription for pain killers and muscle relaxants. The side effects on the latter were so concerning that I opted to only take ½ of the prescribed dose one night before bed before stopping to use them (even though I got a 20 day prescription). The box was covered with warnings of seizures, addiction, etc. so I opted to put them in the drawer and forget their existence.

Went out Wednesday night for a drink with some friends. Invited a friend who was a Burkinabe student who worked and lived with the engineering students who were in Bama. Since they left, he has been by himself taking care of the building they built, so he was happy to hang out since he was in Ouaga visiting family for the holidays. We agreed that next time I’m in Bama, we will eat caterpillars (supposedly they are a big thing in Bobo)

Got a couple birthday cards in the mail this week. Thanks for sending them! They were very sweet and don’t worry, I didn’t open them until my real birthday!

Our house is still full this week. We have Sevrine who is a cooperant in Bobo and her husband down to pick up her mother who is arriving from Canada to spend a month with them. Fanny and Melanie (Anne and Benoit’s French and Canadian friends) who were here for the holidays are also here, but are leaving this weekend. So for their last night we figured we should take them out to experience Ouaga night life, but our tiredness led us to just go to a local bar, in which we were the only ones there! So much for showing them the nightlife haha.

Mom also called to say hi and told me Eric had a surprise to tell me. He gets on the phone and says “I bought a Mac” lol. Eric, how is that a surprise for me? Here I was expecting ‘Im gonna come visit you sis’ haha. Now that would be a surprise. Silly Eric.


Weekend 17

Went for a walk this weekend. There was a nice little breeze, which made walking in the sun bearable. Spent the afternoon at the artisans village with Melanie and Fanny as they wanted to pick up last minute souvenirs. That place is like my second home, the vendors even know me since I’m always bringing friends there to buy stuff. Went for ice cream that afternoon before heading over to Gigot A La Ficelle for dinner to complete their experience in Burkina. Then it was off to the airport to say our goodbyes.

Week 18: Mon, Jan 12th – Fri, Jan 16th

One week before my (and Benoit, who shares the same birthday as me) birthday. Since it’s both our birthdays on the 22nd and Anne’s birthday earlier in the month, we used it as an excuse to throw a big party. Our friends and collegues always bug us and ask when we’re going to invite them over for dinner, so this was an opportunity to invite them all at the same time (since individually we’d always have someone over!). So I worked on birthday invites and sent those out to our friends and workplaces.
The last couple weeks have been the most productive weeks since I’ve been here. I really hope it continues, because I want to feel as though I have made a difference during my time here.
Checked out a movie at the French cultural center with a couple friends. Kung Fu Panda was playing, which if you haven’t seen it, is a great movie. One of the best animations I have ever seen.

The guard of the house across the street, who is kind of our friend told me he’d teach me some stuff on the jembe. So he took me to his hood and taught me some stuff as a bunch of his friends came in to join our ‘jam session’ I guess you can say. Myself and my friend were on the jembe, another guy on a guitar, another guy freestyle rapping, another guy saying random gangster words like ‘checkk checkk’, and a bunch of kids dancing around us. It was pretty gangster. I tried to get the ‘checkk’ guy to brrrap, but he didn’t want to. (I’ve uploaded a clip of that day on facebook if you want a visual… http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=28123092#/video/video.php?v=698393012922

Weekend 18

I felt lost this weekend. There are tons of things I can do, but nothing I particularly want to do. So my moral is a little on the down side. Being yelled at today did not help that situation. Some people who have been here a while are frustrated more easily and maybe they were just having a bad day, and I just so happen to be the target of their vent. The last time someone yelled at me was in 11th grade when the principle of my high school was unhappy about some of the images we used in posters promoting positive body image. So being yelled at twice (today and after our Sahelian trip) within a couple weeks was not appreciated and I took it pretty hard. I was pretty much in my room the rest of the day and watched movies to cheer up.
Its times like these that I especially want to talk to my mom and dad or friends, but I hate upsetting them over the phone since I’ll just be emotional and they’ll just feel bad that I’m sad and they can’t really be there to consol me. Reading and watching videos that my friends made me ‘for a sad day’ or videos from good times with friends is like laughing while being more sad because it reminds you how awesome your friends and family are and how much you miss them. But don’t worry; it’s all part of the experience. I have been more emotional in the last month then in the last 4 years, but it’s all part of being in a strange environment and situation with nothing familiar. In the end it always works out and I’m sure it’ll make me a stronger person. By the night I had calmed down and we were all off to a restaurant as one of the cooperants was leaving that night.
The next day was pretty calm. I worked on organizing music for the bday bash next week (I downloaded a cool dj program, where you can easily mix songs and sort music by speed, its super cool). That afternoon, a cooperant’s family came over and we played a German postal board game, woot good times.


Week 19: Mon, Jan 19th- Fri, Jan 23th

Today I was hoping would be the day. To receive my Magic Bullet that is! A wonderful personal blender that I got for Christmas which can make really good smoothies. I had convinced my parents to send it to me from Canada instead of buying one here for $50-60 which would maybe work for a couple months before breaking down. So it was worth spending that much money sending it to me knowing that it would work really well and it wouldn’t be a waste of money, considering I was going to bring it back to Canada. And so it was the day. I got a couple slips for received packages and headed to the post. The second package was not found though. Pretty sure it’s the package my mom told me about last Friday that my folks had sent 3 months ago, that got lost, sent to South Africa and eventually here. So I got the important one (the bullet!) and stopped to pick up some fruits to make smoothies when I got home. That night had an avocado banana smoothie, it was delightful! And wait till the hot season comes, I’ll be drinking them like water.

Got to the school today and was told that the teacher had an appointment, so I’d be taking over the class today (this is not the first time that happens). So I followed what the other classes’ ‘theme’ was for the day, learning about objects that are used to get washed. I opted for a more interactive lesson and tried to get the kids to act out how they wake up in the morning and go about getting washed and with what objects, but they were completely lost on my style, so I resorted to the African ‘lets write on the board, say the words and get the kids to repeat them over and over’. The teaching style here is very memoristic, it is based on the French system, which could be an interesting thesis topic… (something I have yet to pick, ayayay).
The sheep we are killing for our birthday party arrived this morning. Screaming and calling out to the neighbourhood’s sheep…at 5h30 in the morning! Ayayay. So giving that it was super annoying and noisy, we opted to kill it that night instead of in a couple days (meh, extra time for it to marinate). We found out that in order for our muslim friends to be able to eat it, it had to be the oldest muslim who had to kill it. So that would be our guard. Hmmm…how to ask/explain to him that we need him to kill the sheep when he gets here to work, when he hardly understands French nor speaks the local language… Well in the end we managed to convey the message to him, so they said a prayer, cut the main vein in the neck and let it bleed out (the Hallal tradition). It was much less dramatic then I thought. I was expecting to hear the sheep cry out and try to escape, but it was very calm and we had people over to help hold it down and stuff.

On Wednesday, I decided to get my hair braided with extensions. It took 5 hours, not bad for the work involved, but it looks cool.

Thursday is my birthday! Went to school (bundled up, tshirt, long sleeve shirt, hoodie, wind jacket and scarf to ride to school). The nights have been just as cold. I searched the house for all the extra sheets I could find (I now have 3 sheets and a fleece blanket) and I sleep with my hoodie.
Went out to the Vietnamese restaurant for dinner (seems to be the bday hot spot). Ate well once again, crispy noodles with veggies, and apple donuts for desert, yum! For the first time EVER I think in the history of my life, I did not eat cake for my birthday! I know crazy. I was going to have a slice of pineapple cake in our fridge, but I opted to eat a pack of Pringles that my parents had sent me (the package that was lost, well it was found today, woot, a box of singles Pringles and a Xmas card hihi). My dinner was free, which made it even better (my friends paid for myself and Benoit) and Anne also got me some leather Xmas ornaments and a cotton scarf, both from the artisans village (things that I had spotted and loved, but didn’t want to spend the money to get for myself).
Spoke briefly to the rents over the phone and opted to go to the cyber café to webcam with them (got the webcam in the package too!). So headed there, talked with them for an while, then as I was leaving Ange called me to sing me happy birthday. We talked for an hour, it was just like good old times.

The last couple nights have not been very productive in the sleeping department. Touching my head hurts. The extensions kill with any pressure applied to them, so laying on them was not so hot. The only solution was to sleep on my face, but I figured breathing was a little more important then a painful head.

Friday night is the bday bash. Did a bunch of running around today. Premixed and recorded 3 hours of music for tonight. I could ask a friend to dj but that would result in hours of endless African music that all sounds the same, with no Western music at all. So to please both sides (our Burkinabe and oriental friends), I mixed 50%-50% African/Western music). Got home, the house was set up for the night. We put the furniture outside on the porch as we were hoping most of the party would occur outdoors, and it would leave an open space inside for dancing. We even set up a bonfire in our driveway to keep people warm if it got too cold.
Overall, we invited about 60 people, but we calculated that about 150 showed up. That’s what you get when you have a party with free beer and food (which is the standard for any African party, you furnish everything). So our neighbours, their friends, their cousins twice removed all showed up. Half of which we didn’t know, answering the door with them asking ‘this is where they are serving people?’…uhhhh…..i guess…
It worked out well though. We somewhat ran out of food (well we had to go buy more meat twice that night, ran out of ‘side dishes’ like salads and such) but we were okay. We controlled the beer too, serving people and keeping the beer in another room in which only we went. People were so needy though. Myself, Anne and Benoit spent the whole night serving others who were impatiently asking us to serve them food and beverages. That resulted in us not being able to talk to any one of our friends for very long, but our friends seemed to have a good time. People inside talking in one room, dancing in the other. Others outside with the jembe (drum) playing, talking, and sitting around the fire (which people told us reminded them of their time in the village when the village elders would make fires and tell them stories).
My remixes did not fly with the people though. I only started to play one and the locals were changing the music, impatient to put on African songs (that were in my mix, just further in). It was a bit frustrating. The locals like what they like and that’s it. So I didn’t do too much dancing that night (only later, when Anne put on my mix, which had the only non-African music that played all night). But that did allow me to more easily dodge guys constantly asking me to dance. I kept insisting that I like to dance by myself and that dancing with someone else just ruins my flow haha.
I am frustrated with guys here. I miss my Canadian guy friends so much! Being able to give them hugs and them not think anything of it. I can’t even look or talk to a guy here without them thinking it means something more. It’s frustrating because I am always reserved and can’t fully be myself because I’m afraid that they’ll think that I want more then just friendship. And even when I am clear with them that I do not feel any emotion nor will I feel any more emotion other than friendship with someone, they still don’t get it. I was even told that night that ‘I can tell you have more feelings for me the way you look into my eyes’. I tried to convince that particular guy that the way I looked into his eyes was the same way I looked into any of my other friends’ eyes. I don’t think he got the message though, but I don’t know how I could have been any clearer. I have the feeling that guys have all the say here. That they say ‘give me your number’ or imply that you are their girlfriend and that is that, the woman doesn’t really have a say in the matter. I say this because no matter how many times I tell a guy that it’s only friendship or that I will not give them my number, they are super persistent (I always love it when Marie-Helene is with me because she’ll raise her voice and say ‘listen, when a Canadian woman tells you no, it’s no, she’s not going to change her mind’) lol.
By 1h30am, we sent the rest of our guests home, including the random passed out guys on our balcony.

Weekend 19

Tired of not sleeping, so decided I’d pull out the meches from my hair. But I like the look and opted to pull out the extentions and re-braid my hair to keep the look going. So that took 12 hours. Literally. I started at 11am, and ended at 11pm, but managed to rebraid all but the top portion of my head (which I don’t really sleep on, so opted to keep for the look). Pulling apart all the sides and the back allows me to sleep on my head and it not be painful, woot! So I watched a bunch of movies that day to keep my eyes busy while I picked at my head. In total, 4 movies and 2 episodes of House. Horton Hears A Who, good movie by the way!

Woke up and had a very good night sleep! Yay. Wanted to lay in bed all morning because I was so encouraged that I was finally comfortable and able to sleep in my bed. Took it relax today. Did groceries, visited a friend, then headed to a hotel to use their wireless internet for a Skype date with Ange in Ottawa and Anna in Honduras. It was good to gossip with the girls about random life stories and youtube funny videos (oh how hours can be wasted on youtube hihi). I left a couple hours later, not wanting to push my luck stealing the internet. I figured leaving a tip on my orange jus would make the guy not care that I was there at all, but I didn’t want to push my luck.


Randoms:

•Tired of the total lack of exercise I’ve been getting here, I opted to do a workout video. So the lack of exercise has made me…yes….imagine this…gain weight! Well I don’t know if it’s necessarily ‘gained’ weight, but moreso that the muscle I had in my legs from walking so much in Canada has disappeared. The lack of exercise has also decreased my energy levels, so I was hoping doing a little something might up that. But all I have as far as workout videos is pilates, which doesn’t do too much for upping the energy level. But none the less, it’s something.

•Dropping one of my friends off one night, a bunch of guys were sitting around the table playing cards at the bar (the regulars, whom she knows). One of the guys tells me to get closer to him so he can see my face, and eventually approaches me and says “you know that men were made to reproduce eh, show me where you live”. Are you serious? Is that really your best pick up line? I laughed, told him no and left.

•Got cut off by a moto the other day on the road. An idiot decided to cut me off and slow right down to a halt right in front of me. So I had to stop from riding 40km/hour to a halt within 2 meters. I succeeded with only an inch from hitting him to spare!

•The last couple weeks I’ve been having really vivid dreams. And I wake up in the morning and have to really think of where I am. Before I open my eyes, I always picture that I am in my bed at home and visualize my room, so I have to tell myself I’m in Africa otherwise I’d get a surprise every time I open my eyes haha. I’m blaming the Lariam on that one.

•I thought the days of Galloway mice were behind me. But they have found me. Yep, we have mice in our house, (non enthusiastic yay). They are big too, probably 2-3x the size of the ones we had infesting our house in Scarborough in 2nd year. Well at least we have a cat. Next step is to make the cat to realize there’s mice and attack!

So there it is everyone, the last month’s worth of events. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading, until next time…
Love Tiana

Ps. Here are the latest pics, most from my trip to the Sahel…
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2483290&l=d96fe&id=28123092

Picture Links...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2476894&l=c262c&id=28123092

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2476907&l=ea5c0&id=28123092

Elephant chases, temperature changes and holiday wishes

Week 12: Tue Dec 2nd-Fri Dec 5th

This week is Eric’s bday. Oh the big birthday boy is turning a solid 24. Tried calling him 3 times and no go everytime, so I guess internet and answering machine messages will have to do. I did eventually get to talk to him though as he called me late the following night.

Got a package this week. Retrieving it was quite the hassle though (but worth getting a package). Went to the post office building, a guy led me to another building, then another, then a man from there told me to go to another building to see the customs agent first. Went there, got my receipt stamped, went back to the 3rd building, filled out a form where a lady checked my passport and ID. Got the receipt stamped again, brought it to another woman who gave me my package. Had to go back to the customs agent to show them my package. He made me open the box with a machete (the only cutting object they had on hand). Macheted the tape wrapping to reveal a bunch of boxed taped together (which was awesome, woot homemade boxes!) Opened it to reveal 2 ziplocks of puzzles, totally confusing the guy (puzzles aren’t really around over here). Then he made me open the letter to reveal a Halloween card (again confusing the man, as I was trying to explain that it was a North American tradition). In all regards, got my package and went home.

Friday was International Volunteers Day, so the United Nations building was having a volunteer showcasing of a bunch of oranizations, one of which was ours. So myself and a few other volunteers from my organization sat at a booth talking about our projects and our functions. Met a bunch of other volunteers from around the world too which was cool. We were next to a German org, and one of the girls at our booth was explaining to him (he is about my age) that I was an alien and I tried to get into Quebec but they didn’t want me (Im the only non-Quebecer here) and asked if Germany would accept me. It was pretty funny but Im not sure how he took it. He seemed to have a sense of humour though, so I think it went over well enough. In any case, he said that they’d let me into Germany, so if all else fails, I can go live there.
That night there was an invitation for everyone to go to a restaurant so we could get to know the other people. I went and met 3 others from my organization at the specified time, but 1.5hrs later (after we had finished our drinks) no one had yet showed, so we left. On our way back though, Benoit called to tell us to come back since he had just got there and the German gang were there. So we went back and sat with the group, who were really cool. Germany has just started a program based off of the US’s peace corps, where they are taking recently graduated students to do a one year position abroad. So they were the 2nd year volunteers to go out.

Tonight a couple of my organization’s volunteers in Ghana got here to spend the weekend. Elections were going on so they didn’t want to be around and used it as a good excuse to visit Ouaga.

Weekend 12

Made cinnamon buns today. The 2.5hr process turned out decently. Not as good as The Cinabon at the mall….mmm cinabon… but I can’t complain, I managed to find enough ingredients to make them none the less.

Went to the cinépark, an open air theatre with benches. I was tired which didn’t help the fact that I was freezing. It was probably 18* (yep, its starting to get cold at night) and I had my hoodie and jeans on. It was funny because we were about 10 Canadians and our one Burkinabe friend and all the Canadians were wearing sweaters while our Burkinabe friend was in a tshirt. Theoretically, he is the one who should be cold, not us…hmmm

Worked on the ‘Burkina Movie’. A montage of pictures and videos of my time so far in Africa to send to my family for Christmas to show them what I’ve been up to. The stupid program though is super slow (it doesn’t help that I have no memory left on my computer :S even with putting lots of my docs onto my external hard drive)… My 30min video came to the point where I had to separate the audio from video sections, and compress the files separately, to eventually used the compressed files to form one big file and compress that file. I left it running all week (all night) and the compressing was averaging 1hr to compress 1min of video, ridiculous! But alas, it succeeded.

Week 13: Mon Dec 8th-Fri Dec 12th

Monday is Tabaski, the Muslim version of Xmas. So that means day off. It was a good thing because I have been sick with a cold and today it was getting worse, so I slept a lot of the day. Went to Moctar, a local friend who had invited us over for Tabaski dinner. So I took the 2 girls that had come from Ghana and we went over to his house for a couple hours. I pulled out the Rubics cube (that my friend Sean had given me to solve during my trip) and passed it around as his friends amused themselves trying to figure it out.

Today a couple of Sevrine’s (a volunteer staying in Bobo) friends arrived from Canada. They are journalist here covering a dance festival and are staying at our place for 2 weeks. December is going to be crazy with people coming in and out of our house as people are traveling over this period. We charge $17.50/night/person to stay here which includes food. Although you’d think that that would bring us a profit, it is just enough to cover the price of our utilities and food. I have already complained about ‘La Vie Chere’ as we say in Burkina. But to give you an example, our electricity bill last month was $230! I don’t even know how that’s possible. Electricity prices are not fixed, we buy credits and add it to a box attached to our house. But spending $50 on credits could get us half the number of credits it got us the last time. There is no logic to this system. This is without any ACs or fans turned (except the odd time when we’re all in the living room and in need of some air). Our water bill was $75. So ya, utilities and other commodities are in some cases more expensive then in Canada.

I didn’t go to school all week this week as they are on strike. Well not our little ones, but there is a national strike and the government tells all schools to shut down to avoid any problems or violence. The reason behind the strike is that 10 yrs ago a journalist was killed (rumor has there may have been government involvement) because the journalist was doing an inquiry on the president’s brother. So now, years later, there has been a request to re-open the case to ‘seek the truth’, thus the students are striking to both honour the journalist and call attention to the government to open the case for public inquiry.

So this week I’ve been doing a lot of running around in town and office work. Anne and I went to a random Chinese import store (the equivalent of a tiny Biway) to pick up some stuff. We found and bought a mini xmas tree for cheap and…wait for it…the one thing that I thought I would never find in Africa…Snow in a Can! Haha. So I couldn’t pass up the opportunity and bought one. On the way out, the store owner was hitting on us and picked up a santa ornament from the ground and was like ‘here, this is for you’ lol. Woot free ornament!

The 2 Ghana volunteers left today and Steph (one of the engineering students from Bama) and her boyfriend (who just joined her from a placement in Togo) replaced them. They were spending a few days in Ouaga before joining the rest of the gang to head North to visit one of their university friends working in a mine (the owner of which was happy to invite and pay their trip to visit their mind, seeing as though they will all be freshly graduated engineers in a year, no doubt seeking a job).

Went to the school Friday to fix some of the playground toys which were starting to break apart. The teachers were there stringing decorations and informed me that the pastor and director of my partner organization’s guard had been killed that night. It was terrible to hear. So I went by the house and gave them my condolences (there were a lot of people there doing the same). I stood and spoke to the director and the group of men he was serving drinks and they were telling me I don’t eat enough. I assured them I ate plenty, I just have a fast metabolism. (Although, side note, one of my friends said that I had put on weight since the last time he saw me, that is 3 months ago, so who knows. Doubtful, but I do get like 0 exercise and eat oily foods, so I told him I was building up a reserve for if/when I get malaria).

Finally got all the xmas stuff done that I wanted to send out (the movie and some letters for the family) and went to the post to get it expressed delivered to Canada to make sure it got there on time. But ya, that didn’t happen. I went to a private company which supposedly would get there on time, but to send my envelope, it would of cost me $135! Ayayay! So I opted for regular post with lots of prayers for it to get there on time for $30 instead.

Weekend 13

Started the puzzles today, both of them actually as I had started one and Steph and Alex wanted to do the other one. So we invaded our large round table with our hobby.

We also took a ride to Saaba, a small village nearby that supposedly has a nice market. So we took off, 8 of us on 4 motos (we were like a white parade) to find the village. The 20min ride (which is what took us to get back) took us 1.5hrs to get there. We stopped about 5 times for directions, everyone pointing us in different directions. The main direction eventually was to follow a road and turn at the police station. What we later found out (after having asked for directions at that exact corner we were supposed to turn) was that the police station had not been there for years. Umm…you think you could of just mentioned to turn at the huge gas station rather than some tiny abandoned police station…I don’t know, maybe it would have been clearer? But that’s just me.

Got there and it was the ‘resting period’ (between 12-3pm) so the market was pretty much done. There were a few booths still open though and we got to eat donkey meat sandwiches. They tasted like beef pretty much, but were good (but on a fresh crusty baguette, how can you go wrong?)

The rest of the gang arrived tonight (they’re heading North tomorrow morning) and a they all stayed at different houses, with one of them coming to ours (making us 8 in the house).

The next day a friend came over for dinner and I was aching for some home mom-style chicken and roasted potatoes. Trying to cut the chicken into pieces though was tougher then I expected (it didn’t help that we don’t really have a good cutting knife). So after having successfully cut away a few pieces, I stopped and seasoned the whole chicken as is. Later that night we went to a maquis (Le Stade de France) which was celebrating its 3rd anniversary by hosting a dj/freestyling competition (the prize of which was recording time and a moto). So there were 4 teams of 2 (a dj and a freestyler) going at it. It was pretty cool. There were thousands of people there, and I was literally the only white one, but it was cool. People stared at me a lot less there being the only white then people in the streets who see me on a daily basis. There were a series of rounds, the funniest of which (and kind of concerning) was a round where each team had 5 min to sell the most beer possible (the night was sponsored by Guiness). So the dj spinned some tracks while the freestyler walked through the crowd trying to convince people they were thirsty. We only stayed for the first one as by this point it was already past midnight. But within 5 min, the freestyler had managed to convince a table of 5 guys (their table already covered with empty bottles) to buy 3 cases of beers. That’s 72 bottles of beer for 5 already drunk guys at 12h30 at night. Goodbye SmartServe.

Week 14: Mon Dec 15th-Fri Dec 20th

School on Monday before taking a few days off to travel to Nazinga with the engineering gang. Kariyon got here today, a Canadian (Burkinabe by origin) that I had met during a Burkinabe wedding that I attended in Ottawa. He is in Burkina for 3 weeks on vacation to visit family and has decided to join us on our trip to the Sahel. So I met up with him to give him the details and introduce him to some of the other people traveling with us.

Today was also Ronnie’s bday (an American who is here for a year working as security at the American embassy). So I made him a cake that I bought at the store with came with a surprise stencil. I was personally hoping for the ghost stencil, but I guess the dolphin wasn’t so bad. So the cake was made and brought to him. Benoit and I sang him happy bday in the streets then headed back home.

Off to Nazinga early Tuesday morning, about 2.5hrs away. Went to Po, the town nearest to Nazinga and we were meeting Simon and Alex there, who had just finished a 10 day trip to Ghana (at the beaches!) We had lunch in Po with 3 French girls who were here on a 6 month backpacking trip. Then we walked around town to find bananas as we didn’t want to spend money buying breakfast at the hotel the next morning. But as we were walking around, we were looking at the vendors stuff and Issiaka was forcing us along saying ‘On est pas ici pour nous amuser, on est ici pour trouver des bananes’ haha (we’re not here to amuse ourselves, we’re here to find bananas).

Off to Nazinga after our banana hunt. As we entered the ranch, we got on the roof of the truck and rode on top for the 45min ride into the reserve. On our way we saw an elephant far back, so we stopped and a few people got down to walk closer. Then we noticed it was a small troop of elephants, who were starting to walk closer towards us. Then they started making noises and flapping their ears, enough to scare Issiaka (our driver/tour guide/friend) to honk to tell Alex to get back into the car so we could drive away before they charged us. Alex luckily got back into the truck and we kept edging away every time the elephants came at us. Around the park we saw a bunch of wildlife (warthogs, baboons, birds, antelopes, water bucks, etc.)

Getting to the hotel, we took a ride through the ranch with a tour guide before dark then headed back to shower and eat. After dinner, I went back to our hut to go take a shower (taking it before dinner would of resulted in me going to dinner in my pjs, so I opted to wait). So I walked back in the dark by myself and it was pretty scary. There have been cases of elephants roaming around between the huts, so I was on the watch for any wildlife with the light of my cell phone. At night, we just chilled in our hut. We slept in the big dormitory which was a few big rooms with single beds along the edges.

The next day we wanted to check out a nearby touristy village with cool architecture, but we wanted to try to convince Issiaka to drive us directly to Bobo (rather than our original plan to drive back to Ouaga then take the bus to Bobo, then a taxi to Bama, where the gang live). He was up for it, but his boss was going to charge us $100 more as he’d want him to sleep at Bama and therefore we’d ‘have’ the truck an extra day. But doing it that way would of came out a lot more expensive then going back and taking the bus. So I called his boss and after some negotiating I managed to convince him not to charge us the extra day (but that we’d house and feed Issiaka overnight if he didn’t want the truck to be on the road for so long). So off we were for the 7hr drive to Bobo.

The ride was super dusty (by the end of it, my white shirt had turned orange and there was so much dust in our hair that we looked like redheads). The sunset was amazing though and I took lots of pictures as we rode along. Got back to Bama at night and Issiaka had opted to take the 5hour drive back to Ouaga that night.

Thursday was the gang’s project inauguration. After 3 months of construction, they managed to build a rice processing center, amazing given the amount of time they had. The inauguration was to signify the end of their efforts and present the center and its future use to the community and potential buyers. The original ceremony planned for 9am was moved to mid afternoon as the minister who had been invited could not make the original time (so we hoped not too many people would show up at the 9am starting time written in the invitations).

So the gang were busy running around assisting with the setup and packing up their stuff as they were leaving for good tomorrow morning. Alex (Steph’s bf) and I were trying to keep busy by going on a cucumber hunt (to make lunch). But asking some street vendors where we could find some, which led to us becoming the laughing stock of the vendor ladies (no idea what was so funny, but eventually they told a little girl to lead us the way so we were off).

By mid afternoon, we headed to the ceremony, were we were welcomed to our seats by a band of drummers. I was charged with video taping the ceremony and speeches. After all the talks, there was a tour of the buildings and then a dinner, where the engineers were sat at a big table, with a bunch of other designated ‘VIPs’ behind. Myself and Alex were in the mix behind them and they served us drinks and food. But can Africans eat! We asked for a little portion of what they were serving and shared it, and even then we could not finish half of it. While the Africans besides us were served double the portion, and finished their plate…alone! As dinner was ending, the crowd outside was starting to force their way in, no doubt trying to get some food. To the point where the guards locked all the doors accessing the room! It was crazy that it came to that. We went outside after finishing and watched people trying to go in and getting chased out by police. Its sad though that they were hungry and trying to get food, but it was pretty aggressive at times.

That night was the last night in Bama. So we set up some speakers outside and the gang had a few friends come over and we had a mini dance party. But after hours of African music (because the only loud thing we could play were cassettes), we opted to switch to our mp3 hooked up to little speakers. By this point there were only a few locals left with the bunch of us, so we danced to western music. But because we couldn’t hear the music really loudly, we started to play songs with which we could sing along to amplify the loudness. And at one point the video camera came out and we did a particularly good artistic rendition of Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’. Oh the memories!

Friday was departure day. A bunch of their workers came by to wish them off, and the goodbyes got teary. I was even a bit emotional seeing them say goodbye knowing that I would be that person in 2 days. We were soon off to Ouaga and headed to our regional coordinator’s house who was hosting a holiday dinner. So we went there and a bunch of volunteers were there, it was good to see everyone again.

Bed early that night, been on the road lots this week so it has gotten us all really tired. Tonight was pretty emotional as we sat thinking about the goodbye tomorrow.


Weekend 14

Went to the Artistic Village today with a few of the gang as they wanted to buy a few last minute souvenirs before heading home. Took it easy for the rest of the day, ran some errands and headed to the Verdoyant (a good pizza restaurant) where we were having a dinner for the gang before they headed off. After dinner, headed to the restaurant next door where they sell a bunch of artisan stuff. The boys picked up a few things and Simon got me a necklace before we headed back home.

Waiting for the take off, we watched videos we had taken of our elephant chases and music videos and it made us laugh. Then off to the airport with the gang to wish them off. The goodbye was not surprisingly teary, but our regional director summed it up nicely saying “pour pouvoir ce revoir, il faut en premier dire aurevoir” (to be able to see each other again, we first have to say goodbye…although the wording in French sounds much better).

Sunday I made cookies to give as small Xmas gifts to my coworkers. So I did that and then called my folks as I hadn’t spoken to them in a while. My mom answered the phone and I told her about my week’s adventures. And although I had called her in a happy mood, I broke down on the phone as my emotions were still fresh from the previous night. I felt bad though as I didn’t want to upset her or make her think I was sad, but I couldn’t help it. I could tell she was being strong over the phone for me though.

Finished up the cookies as Anne and Benoit got back from buying a pig which we were going to roast for Xmas. Benoit had bought a sheep a couple months back from a friend who was fattening it up at his farm, but going to see it he realized that it was too big for the number of people we’d be for Xmas, so they decided to buy a small pig instead.

Week 15: Dec 22nd-Dec 27th

Xmas week is here and it totally doesn’t feel like it. To be honest, since there is hardly any temperature change, my mind is fooled into thinking that time is not going by. So even though I miss my family, I am sure they miss me more since my mind doesn’t think that I am gone for so long. My 12 months here will be like 1 month in my mind. And so getting back will be like getting back just before it starts cooling down and like I never even missed a holiday or anything else for that matter. It’s like time has frozen still and 1 month here is like 1 day of being in Canada.

Monday was the kids last day at school so I brought my laptop and some speakers and played ‘Polar Express’ for them. Tonight our house is free. It is the one day in between people leaving and people coming and although we like having the company, it’s good to get one night off so we can chill in our pjs and watch Heroes haha.

Went to do our Xmas groceries, which came out to a whopping $150. It was weird as a bunch of Xmas stock was taken out (including a section of Ferrero Rocher and Lindor chocolates at a solid $75/box). Coming out of the store, I was getting really tired and frustrated by vendors. On a daily basis, you will get harassed by people on the streets trying to sell you things. If you even ask for something once then say you changed your mind and don’t want it, they will remember you and bug you every time they see you to ask if you want it. You have to be in a really good mood not to be annoyed by it all and be patient, but today was just not my day and it was really getting on my nerves. But a stop at a newly discovered ice cream store altered my spirits.

Its Christmas Eve and I’m still not feeling it. Ran some errands, got some gifts for our cook and our guard. The traffic was crazy! Best way to compare it was a North American shopping mall on Xmas eve (but on the roads). I have never seen so many cars and motos. There were also mega cops at (literally) every street corner. In some areas they were directing traffic as it was too dense to flow with the street lights. I really wished I had my video camera to capture the ridiculousness of it all.

Prepared the pig for roasting tomorrow. Benoit had a couple guys come over and prepare it, then he stuffed it and held it closed as I sewed it shut (don’t hate me Ange).

Tonight Melanie, one of Anne and Benoit’s friend from Quebec got here. She is spending a couple of weeks with us on vacation. After she got here we headed to midnight mass (my first time in a church in years). It was pretty good. It even beat Sacre Coeur’s midnight mass at a whopping 2.5hours! haha. It wasn’t so bad though, there was drumming and singing which kept it lively. Not to mention the hackling sounds people make with their mouths and screams every time they raised a statue of the baby Jesus.

Got home and called the Rodrigue family at grandma’s. Mom was pretty happy to hear from me as she said she had tried to reach me for hours unsuccessfully. So I did the rounds over the phone with a bunch of the fam. It was good to hear their voices and the holiday spirit in the background.

Getting off the phone, I watched the Burkina Movie that I had sent the family as I knew they were going to watch it shortly. And I realized that half way in the movie there was a time delay! Ay. So many headaches for this video (but of course worth it). So it was kind of confusing to follow that portion of the video.

Christmas Day. Made crepes for breakfast then our friend Ronnie stopped by to give us gifts. I got a really soft flower pillow from him and a bottle of non-alcoholic wine (so thoughtful) and chocolates from Anne and Benoit. I got them some mugs (because they always have to fill up their tea mugs 5 times before they’re satisfied), muffin tins (they’re rare here) and a tie (since Benoit mentioned one day that maybe since he was turning 30 he’d start getting ties for xmas). They seemed to enjoy it.

Then we watched Charlie Browns’ Xmas and that kind of got us in the mood. So we took advantage of our spirits and started decorating our house (paper snowflake and snow mound cut outs on our windows) and even a centerpiece for our table made from plants in our garden.

That night, we were 11 for dinner with another 9 friends who came in and out to say hello and wish us merry Xmas. I learned a new beat on the jembe (one that I really liked and made my goal for the year to learn, but alas, it was not so complicated and I know it ). Called the Godbout side at matante Diane’s and spoke to all the aunts. It was good to hear from each of them.

Friday we took Melanie to the zoo (the president’s personal zoo, which houses the only giraffes in Burkina). Boy, I never knew hyenas were so big. It was like a cross between a dog and a bear, I swear it was weird. As soon as we came up to the cage, it elongated its neck on the fence and waited for us to scratch it haha. It wasn’t too soft though, more like scratching steel wool. We saw a bunch of animals, even some that tried to head butt me through the fence.

Next we went to a park where a bunch of artist from around the world go to sculp statues in the granite. There was even a Canadian statue!

That night, Melanie went back to the airport to try to recuperate her lost baggage (with all her clothes). And her credit card doesn’t work. Good thing she has friends here, otherwise she’d be with no luggage or money in Africa! She came back empty handed as her bag was still in France, so they were ready for a beer as we headed to the Rolls Royce (our fav maquis) where Didier (a friend of the former IDS student who was in Burkina) joined us for a drinks and fries.

Weekend 15

We were invited to the kings birthday. Well not directly. But one of the volunteers is friends with a high chief who has the power to invite people to this traditional celebration, so she had emailed us all to offer to bring us as an opportunity to experience something cultural. So we all got dressed up (me in my new traditional outfit) and went to the front of the king’s residence. They didn’t let us in though. But we met some really nice guys who brought us to a local chief’s house, to get his son, to accompany us back to the place, to talk to his dad (the chief) who could talk to the higher ranking chief, who could okay our entry. Ayayay haha. But by the time we got back, the ceremony was done and they said to come back at 11 where we could watch. So we did, and finally at 12pm, our friend Irene (the volunteer with the hook ups) reached her friend and told us to wait at the gate (as they were not letting whites in without the okay). The thing is this celebration is his birthday anniversary. So the people there are all the chiefs of the different regions in Burkina as well as 3 higher ranking chiefs (above them) and then there’s the king of all Burkina (above them all) who was the one being honoured.

Eventually her friend got us in, we were brought into the building where groups of people were taking turns bowing down to the king. So we went in and did the same, bowing down before him and offering him wine and a chicken we had bought (but we were the only ones to bring a brown chicken, everyone elses’ was white….hmmm). He told us to take a seat in the entrance and they’d serve us drinks, so we sat and drank. When we were done, we headed out and were called back by one of the king’s assistant who brought us into a small adjacent room with a row of chairs facing his royalty’s chair. We sat and the served us more drinks and food. Then the king came by and sat with us and chatted…(so odd). He was actually really down to earth. Really smily and nice. He was joking around and said (in the local language, which Irene was translating for us) ‘so which one of you was sacrificed’ and Irene taped me on the knee, and he held up his glass to cheers at me, so I got up and cheered my drink to his (all the time, not knowing what he is saying…i.e. that I am his new wife). Lol. He went in and out of the room as groups saluted him outside and he came back to sit with us and talk. He asked us all what we were doing in Burkina and what we did in life. When Melanie said that she was a psychologist he said he’d better not talk too much then (a king with a sense of humour!)

The king then invited us to partake in the next ceremony and we were escorted by the king’s brother. After the ceremony the brother wished us off and said ‘make sure to visit some time’ (lol…the king’s brother telling me to drop in and visit the king once in a while) which I responded jokingly ‘well ya, ill have to come by and see my husband’ haha.

Came home mid afternoon and discussed plans for our trip to the Sahel which we are departing on Monday for 5 days in the desert. Changed out of my outfit (African clothes are super tight haha) and watched Heroes).

We also welcomed Fanni, a French woman who Benoit and Anne had met during their trip to Mali who wanted to come back to Burkina for her Xmas holidays and travel with us to the Sahel. So she is staying with us until Jan 7th.

Worked on fixing the time delay in the Burkina Movie as I want to create a good copy (knowing if I don’t do it now, I never will). I told my mom I could send her the good copy as some of the family wanted to see it again to be able to read it all, but she seemed to think it was precious with the little mishap haha.

Sunday, ran around doing errands. Trying to find a debit machine around town that Mel’s master card would work at, but no success there. Was out stopping at random stores for a couple hours and was stopped by over a dozen vendors everywhere I went. But I was in a good mood and had a lot of patience, so it went much better today. Some guy tried selling me magazines but I said I didn’t like to read, then he showed me ‘The Economist’ but I said that you’d really have to like reading to want to read that and that it didn’t have enough pictures for me haha. Then he showed me National Geographics, but I said ‘I’m in Africa, I’m living National Geographics’ which he didn’t know what to answer haha.

Tonight I must pack my bags for our New Years trip to the Sahel. There are 10 of us going, in 2 trucks. Going to go to the desert, ride a camel, visit a famous market, sleep under the stars, and hopefully party a bit for the new years (I even bought sparklers!) So I’ll make sure to tell you all about it when I get back.

Randoms:

-So as you all know, we have a chicken, which in theory should lay 1 egg/day. However the past week there has been 0 eggs. Now we didn’t know if our chicken was stressed or not eating well enough to be laying eggs, or if someone was taking them. So we asked our guard if he was seeing them and he said that the rat that is living in a hole under our house was taking the egg every morning! The rat! Adama has since taken charge of our rat problem and the other night he caught and killed one with his machete.

-Did you know that if a chicken doesn’t eat enough calcium, it will lay an egg with a soft shell? It’s true. We had to up the calcium in our chickens diet (done by feeding it its on eggshells) for it to produce a solid shell.

-During the tying of our pig to the roasting apparatus, our chicken was flying up on the table and picking at the pigs insides…our chicken is a carnivore!

(Okay that’s all the chicken stories I’ll give you now…onto other things)

-Made a cheesecake. Well an African cheesecake. But that was my xmas gift to myself, planned since the day I found out you could buy cream cheese (at $10 a block…ie. why it was an Xmas expense). It turned out pretty good, but not at all comparable to a true creamy Canadian cheesecake.

-Going to Nazinga, we passed a truck of armed guards. When asked, Issiaka told us that they were going to ‘bring order to the students at a school’. Yikes!

Halloween, Tourist Sights and Sickness

Okay, so I’m going to stop apologizing at every blog entry of my lateness in keeping you all updated because it doesn’t seem to be improving the situation. Let’s just say I’m on African time. So here they are, updates since the last time…

Week 7 Weekend
Halloween Weekend in Bobo Oct 31st-Nov 2nd

Heading to Bobo early morning to be able to make it to Bama (5hr bus ride to Bobo, then 45min ride out of town to Bama, where our engineering student friends are). Went to the tailors before leaving (as he had not finished my Halloween costume the night before) and it still wasn’t done. Luckily Anne was leaving tomorrow, so she could stop by and grab it before heading to Bobo.

After a bribe to keep my moto on the bus (even after I had paid to put it on), we were off to Bobo. Got there early afternoon, went to Sevrine’s to drop off our stuff and off to Bama with myself and Charlotte on one moto and Benoit on the other. Half way down the country road, his moto breaks down and we only realize after some guys on the roof of a passing truck signal us to look behind. Stopped over at some village where the inhabitants were quick to help Benoit fix the problem. Benoit told all the guys around us that we were his daughters (we always say that he is part Chinese so ages well haha). Benoit and Charlotte checked out our friends construction project then headed back to Bobo before dark. I was staying there the night as we had made plans for the next day. Super tired from the long day, so headed to bed early.

Saturday
Up at 6am (been waking up at 5-6am all week unable to sleep). Off to la ‘Ginguette’, a natural swimming pool amidst a forest which is 18km out of Bobo. So Simon and I headed off on my moped for the trip. It was quite the adventure! After driving 45min out of Bama and back out of town in the opposing direction we decided to stop to ask directions to ensure we were on the right path. The locals thought it was a good idea to suggest the ‘short cut’, through some back country roads, through villages, etc. Seeing as though they were the locals (the ‘experts’) we decided to take their word for it and headed in the pointed direction.

All along, we searched for ‘Belleville’ where the locals told us we could get further directions to La Ginguette. Finding it though was more complicated then they had claimed. We crossed several intersecting dirt roads (guessing each time the appropriate direction), lost control of the moto several times through the quick sand paths, drove through vegetable fields, through villages (where we stopped to ask people for directions, but no one spoke French) until finally we found our way out of the maze and into Belleville (miraculously). From there, we followed another road to the end where there was a big factory building. The guard was kind enough to give us directions and offer to keep our moto there while we walked the rest of the way since we may have troubles crossing the river with it. But the concept of ‘its near’ isn’t one we wanted to test at that point since we were both super tired, hot and dehydrated. So we continued off a path and came to an embankment I was hoping was not the river he was describing. But sure enough it was, so we carefully dragged the moto down the 2m embankment, across the river (luckily it wasn’t too deep) and back up the other side before continuing off along the forest. 1h45min later (as opposed to the 30min which it’s supposed to take you to get there from Bobo) we arrived at La Ginguette. Good, we were super tired and hot and were looking forward to a swim, but luck was not on our side as the swimming pool area was closed! Bah! So we walked around the forest, trying to find this ‘forbidden swim pool’ hoping it was still swimable, but ya, it was not. Well I’m sure you could have swam in it, but we didn’t want to risk catching some virus from the still muddy waters. So we opted to sit down, drink the only bottle of water we had (the canteen that was supposed to be there was closed) and head back into town to the pool.

Back at Sevrines after a swim, Anne had brought my costume. Ayayay. The skirt was cool (I was a mermaid) but the top was like a way too small madona pointy top. Not ideal. Luckily she had also brought the leftover bit of fabric, so I was able to wrap it around myself and make it work.

Tonight was our Halloween Party. A cooperant from Bobo was hosting it, so we all headed there at night. As my headlight was broken on my moped, I used my headlight (an actual headlight, like miners use) and strapped it on the front of my moto. It worked surprisingly well. On the way, swallowed way more bugs then I wanted while hundreds hit my face like needles as I rode.

Arrived at our friends Melanie, Charline and Isabelle who had decorated their house for the festivities. I was really impressed. They even managed to find a pumpkin and carved it. Everyone there was also dressed up, locals included, which got everyone into the mood of the holiday. The night was awesome. We stayed up till the morning singing and dancing.

Sunday
Got the best sleep I have had in 2 weeks! Even though I slept on a mattress in the living room with a tiny blanket, my body was fooled into thinking it was the best haha. The morning was spent cleaning up from last night and eating leftover cookies for breakfast.

At 12 oclock, the engineering gang headed back while myself, Charlotte and Melanie headed to Banfora to check out the tourist sites as it would be their last chance to go before they headed back to Canada. We got to the bus station just on time before it left, and even though there were no more seats, we were able to convince the driver to let us on and that we didn’t mind standing during the 1.5hr ride (since the next bus was not until 3pm). We got in the bus and hooked up a spot on the stairs beside the driver. I have never been so hot in my life! I was like an ant under the magnification of the large front bus window. After 20 min, I switched spots with Charlotte who was slightly shaded and my legs were so wet it looked like I had just stepped out of a pool.

Getting to Banfora, we hired a taxi for the day to bring us around. First stop, the Domes, a series of naturally eroded rocks. We climbed up to the top (holly man it was a hot day, and there didn’t seem to be any shade anywhere). But the view was worth it. Next we headed to the taximan’s friends hotel to kill time before checking out a Hippo lake (seeing as though the rainy season has just ended and it is the off season for spotting hippos, so the best time is at night when they surface). At the hippo lake, we took a boat ride and sat with a Swiss couple (who I’m sure thought we were on crack since we were making hippo calling sounds…which were ‘hiiiii-poooooo’. Melanie tried to explain to them that we were up late last night, so to pardon our humour). 45min later (already 15min over the time they usually give people rides), we started heading back, hippo-less; when a fisherman out in the lake called us back as he had spotted a hippo. So our tour guide was nice enough to turn the boat and we got to see the hippo’s head swim around for a while before heading back to shore.

Driving back, we got a flat tire in the middle of nowhere and by then it was dark. Perfect opportunity to pull out the video camera and night vision a little ‘Blair Witch’ style video. I’ve used my video camera lots this week to capture the good times haha.

Got back to the bus, and headed back to Bobo. I was so tired, so put ear plugs in and tried to rest my eyes a little, but they were blarring the music so loud that I could still hear each word clearly through the plugs, it was ridiculous. Back in Bobo where a taximan drove us back to Mel’s house for the night. Luckily Charlotte was in the passenger seat and was able to bare his persistence that he was looking for a Canadian wife (which is a common ‘desire’ among Burkinabe men). What do they think we’re going to say: “oh how random, I’m also searching for a Burkinabe husband”…let’s go live happily ever after? Like really.

Week 8

Off to the bus station Monday morning to head back to reality. Bought some really delicious omelet sandwiches off a street vendor and bought one for a bunch of kids who were following us around. You’ll often see kids with red tomato tin cans on the streets or around stations asking for money. The street youth are often sold by their parents for money and given to a caretaker who takes them to the city to earn money. So as you wait at the street light, you’ll often find a bunch of kids begging for money and not far away you can sometimes spot the ‘caretaker’ who the kids run to to drop off their money as soon as they are given something (money and food included). So the ‘caretaker’ gets all the goods, and the kids are used as a front to make his money.

My housemate Anne decided to cut her hair as she is getting annoyed by the heat. She really wanted to shave it (people seem to try all the things they’ve always wondered about here because it’s not something they’d do in Canada, but they’ll be back to normal by the time they get back…i.e. shaving their heads, growing a mustache haha). But we convinced her to just cut it short instead, and so she did.

I met with the teachers this week after realizing that none of them (the director of the school included) had seen my mandate. So they had no idea what my role was. I just assumed that she was the one who wrote the school’s needs on a job description, and thus I was the answer to those needs, but apparently it was my partner association who did it, so the teachers had no idea. So that was a good step forward to let them know my role and understand where I was coming from. I asked them what they wanted from me and the general consensus was that they lacked resources and they seemed to think that I just had a gold mine of them. I told them I was there to help them find solutions to the lack of resources they had by finding things that didn’t require many resources (i.e. they were amazed when I told them they could make homemade playdough).

Week 8 Weekend

This weekend was the SIAO, an international art festival; and everyone was coming down for the occasion. Friday night, all the girls arrived, Charlotte from the north, Melanie from Bobo, and Karine and Stephanie from Bama. So we had a girls night, wore our pjs, watched a chick flick and ate popcorn before heading to bed to wake up early to check out the festival.

The SIAO was separated into various buildings. 2 large ones that held a lot of merchandise while there were 4 other smaller buildings that were air conditioned and had more artistic-and expensive stuff (those you had to pay an extra entrance fee to get in). We spent 6 hours at the SIAO and only managed to check out the 2 largest buildings! Haha 6 hours! And boy did we shop. This was the time to get all of our souvenirs as there were products from surrounding countries and lots of choice. It reminded me of the Exhibition in Toronto or like a giant flea market with little stalls lined up in rows in the building.

As you got into the SIAO, there were a bunch of life sized painted cement statues of random wildlife and people hanging from trees. This was a big thing for the locals who were lining up to pay the $2.50 cover charge to get up close to the statues and take pictures with them.

Got home and we all went for a nap as tonight we were celebrating Mel’s last night in Burkina and were planning on going out a bit late. Got up from my nap and ate some food before heading to the restaurant ‘Le Gondwana’ (which we knew was expensive, but supposedly you couldn’t leave Burkina without trying it because of the ambiance). Luckily I did eat because I got there and had desert, a small bowl of fruit with chocolate fondue which cost me $7.50!) The Bama guys (Simon and Alex) arrived as we sat down (the engineers had split the days they were coming so that someone could always be at the construction site of their project in order to keep things moving).

After dinner, we headed to the night club where the music I was surprised was pretty gangster haha. RnB tracks mixed in with some random oldies mixes and stuff like Mambo #5. The music selection played at places here is always intriguing. By 3am, we were all getting tired and headed home to bed.

The next morning, the girls left with only Mel and the boys here. The 4 of us were heading back to the SIAO today to take the boys shopping. As we got there our friend Alassane (our taxi driver) got in a little cuffuffle with a man after he started to reverse out of the parking lot and nudged a woman. The woman’s son came up and told him to watch out, which Alassane answered ‘what’s the problem, she’s not God’. So that lasted a good 10min as we watched to make sure nothing got out of hand; it didn’t and soon we were all on our way.

As it was the last day of the SIAO, generally the vendors want to get rid of their stock, so the prices are lowered, but not so much. It doesn’t help that we’re white (prices here quadruple when you’re white because they assume you have money). So that’s annoying. Tried negotiating pretty hard though for some stuff that I wanted and that the girls had regretted not buying the previous day.

For lunch we went to a restaurant where Simon order sheep meat with sauce. What he got was a bowl of broth with a few unrecognizable pieces floating in it. In the end we figured out that the dish included the sheep’s liver and its head (which we determined by the teeth imprints).

After lunch, back home with our purchases. Overall bought a bunch of stuff, pretty much most of my souvenirs for the year. And so did the others. We have a closet full of their purchases in storage in our house. Came home, took a nap, and got up to see Melanie off before eating dinner watching a movie, then head back to bed tired from the previous night.

Week 9

The boys were off this morning, and I headed to the office to get to work. Felt pretty down today as the last couple weekends I’ve got to hang out with everyone and have had lots of fun that I wish they could stay longer. That afternoon Eric told me that he may come to visit me and even considered staying a couple months in the summer. Karen even said she’d want to come which surprised me. It will depend on his school and stuff, but still it was enough good news to cheer me up.

Next day I was off to school and was not feeling so hot. Came home and slept most of the afternoon. Went to the office to check my email and found out that the other IDS coopers who are in the Zambia area (south-eastern Africa) are heading to Zanzibar for Xmas (a tropical island off the coast of Zambia). They had marked it an open invitation but I couldn’t really justify spending the same amount of money to head south when the same amount would get me home.

Wednesday I was off to the University of Ouagadougou to animate a stand of the local WUSC (World University Services of Canada) club. (I’m a part of my university’s WUSC club in Canada, and there are 2 WUSC clubs in developing countries, both of which just happen to be in Burkina, and one at the university 10min from my house. So I joined the club and will participate in their activities throughout the year. I like being in the university environment and so hanging out with other students will be good).

The club took part in a university-wide survey asking students their opinions and knowledge on HIV/AIDS. Today was a conference to present the results of that survey, so the campus clubs that were involved were showcasing stalls of their clubs and their activities. And the club’s president had asked me to animate the WUSC stand with another member.

I sat through some of the conference to hear the results. The people’s reactions took me by surprised. First I have to mention that the dynamic of the room was varied, from students to profs, to health ministry representatives. For example, stating the percentage of students that had not yet had sexual relations or the misconceptions of students on how AIDS is transferred (like sharing a toilet seat with an infected person) conjured up laughter amongst the crowd. These statistics didn’t really seem to be funny at all, but I guess people have a strange sense of humour here (my boss even told me that sometimes people will laugh at the announcement of a death in a room; maybe it’s a reaction to the hardships of life and laughter is a way of dealing with the day to day tragedies).

The rest of the week I was sick. Bad moral I think just made a simple cold way worse. After 4 days of symptoms, I went to the clinic to make sure it wasn’t anything else and the doc couldn’t explain half of my symptoms but said that it would likely pass.

This week I’ve been thinking about my Xmas plans. I will super miss my family as I have never spent a Christmas away from them and it will suck not to participate in all of the Xmas traditions (like singing French songs and forcing people to drink all of the punch before we can eat dinner, ah the good times!) But luckily we are lodging a few people over the month of December, so hopefully I’ll be kept busy and won’t miss my family as much. We even planned a trip to the Sahel (to ride camels and sleep under the stars) for New Years, which should be interesting.

Week 9 Weekend

This weekend was a bit lazy as I was still recovering from sickness. I stayed in my pjs most of the morning and watched Heroes and a movie with Anne. Then I met up with Simon and Alex who had come up from Bama to welcome a group of 13 high school students who were here on a 2 week trip (the engineering gang were the ones hosting and planning their stay). So I went with the boys to check out the hotel and make sure everything was set up then came back home to take a nap before heading to the maquis for a quick bite to eat and heading to bed.

Today was another pj day. I did do some work though. Wrote some letters and did some activities for the school. I didn’t get dressed until 6pm when I was heading out to meet the student gang at a ‘welcome dinner’ at Gigot a la Ficelle. They have a bunch of entertainers there, including some Congolese drummers who are awesome and were inviting the students to come up and play the drums with them. Then it was time to say goodbye to the boys again as they were heading off to Bobo with the gang early morning.

Week 10

Went back to work this morning and spent most of the time emailing and facebooking. Met with a friend that afternoon which brought up my moral and I felt much better that afternoon. He had asked to borrow $500 (he buys and re-sells motor pieces) but I told him I really couldn’t loan him the money (even though I know he is good for it). I don’t want people to get into the habit of coming to me for money considering I am already paying out of my pocket to be here.

At the school Tuesday, I met an English woman who was there for a 2 week vacation and is affiliated with a church group that partners with the association. Today was also dad’s birthday, so I called him at work, which he was surprised to hear me (as much as I was surprised I actually caught him at his office haha). That night I went to the cyber café to attempt a webcam conversation, and finally managed. It’s always good to see a familiar face starring back at you.

Overall I’m happy because work is actually moving along this week which has kept me busy. But it seems as though no one is happy with the number of days I am at each organization. I spend 2 days at the school, 1 day at my partner organization and 2 full days including all afternoons at my organization. And each one of them this week said that I wasn’t there enough. Ayayay! I’m trying to be at all of them in order to maintain a good relationship with each, but it may be playing against me by appearing as though I am not doing any work.

I went on a webcam hunt this week. Trying to see if it is cheaper for my parents to send me the one from home or if it is cheaper to buy one here (turns out it’s cheaper to ship from home). So I checked out a few stores, the first of which the Algerian owner told me he had been trying to get into Quebec for a long time and was wondering if I could help him and if we could get to know each other. I got out of it by saying that I’m from Ontario and Quebec functions with their own laws so there is nothing a non-Quebecer can do lol. Next store I checked out, 3 guys came into the store to make conversation. They asked if I was married, I said no but had a boyfriend. And when they asked if he was Burkinabe and I said ‘no Canadian’ they were like ‘oh’, then left the store. So there it is folks. The trick to get guys to leave you alone is to say that you have a boyfriend and that he is Canadian (I guess saying that he is African would imply that you fancy Africans, and therefore they’d have a chance with you). So voila, new life strategy.

Stores around here are starting to put up Christmas decorations (xmas tress, lights and all). It’s weird to see since it’s so sunny and nice outside.

Thursday was pretty low key. Went to the school and discussed my work plan ideas with the school’s director. Came home and that night finished season 2 of Heroes and went to start the 3rd season but the folder was empty! Ay! Haha. So we thought we could start on Prison Break, but I only have the show starting half way through the second season! So we figured that was a sign to give it up.

Week 10 Weekend

Friday night was low key. Sickness has continued to go around in our house. While I was getting over a cold, Benoit starting sleeping constantly, then eventually Anne got sick, so we were a bunch of sickos. By 7h15pm we were struggling to stay awake and all wanted to go to bed, but we told each other we had to at least tough it out until 9pm. Woot Friday nights in Ouaga! Haha.

Saturday the fever had transferred to me and I slept all day while my temperature changed by 2-3* every 5min (no exaggeration, I was checking). It was quite bizarre. I got up partway through the afternoon for 3 hours as I figured getting out of bed would do me some good. So I took my pillow to the couch and watched Pretty Woman with Anne.

Sunday woke up and felt 100% better. It was weird, just a 24hour fever and then bye bye. Meh, works for me! Went over to a friends to get the missing Heroes season and hang out. That night met up with another friend who wanted to get together. I was super tired so just wanted to go say hi (which lasted 1.5hrs) but he said (as many locals) that I should have said I was sick because he would of visited me. That’s the thing, when people are sick here, everyone wants to visit them. I tried to explain that Canadians just want to be left alone when they’re sick, to crawl into their bed and not be bothered.

Week 11

As we had been cooped up in the house the past 3 weeks with random sickness spells, we were all aching to get out of the house. So we went out for supper to Le Verdoyant, a restaurant which makes delicious pizzas (perfect as I had been craving a good pizza just the other night). We went out with Angele, the big boss and another cooperant.

As we dinned, Angele got a call from Alex who was explaining to her over the phone that he had appendicitis and had to get it removed. Ayayay, poor gang. 2 of them had just gotten back from funerals in Canada and now another needs surgery.

Tuesday was back at the school, where I was supposed to stay the afternoon to work with the teachers to do some work (since the school is only in the mornings). But I was feeling pretty shitty, so I ended up going home early and slept most of the afternoon.

The next day, was probably the best mood I have been so far here in Burkina. I don’t know what it was, but I was super happy and feeling great. If only everyday was like that, man my stay here would be incredible. While I was at the office, I got a call from Simon who had traveled to Ouaga with Alex for the surgery. I was going to meet up with them to see how he was doing after lunch, but met up with Simon and later headed to the clinic that night with Anne and Benoit to bring Alex food and company. But unfortunately we got there 30min after visiting hours had ended, so they didn’t let us in. So after some convincing, they agreed to let Simon in to get some of his belongings and drop off some movies and stuff for Alex to keep him busy. 5min later, Alex came strolling out with his IV pole to say hi and chat with us in the entrance haha. He looked good and was in high spirits considering he had surgery the night before. Luckily they had caught it really early and he was able to have his appendix removed before it caused any problem.

The next day was back at work and finally my PMO meeting! The meeting you have with all the representatives and those responsible to discuss your goals of the year and the intended results. Finally, what 3 months into my placement! At least it was done. Everyone seemed happy with my intended results (although in Burkina there is never ‘any problems’. Even if there is, no one will ever tell you, so who knows I may be pissing someone off but never know it). At that point, I decided I’d switch up the days I’d go to the school every week as the director said I wasn’t able to fully analyze their activities if I only went certain days. I was a bit frustrated by that comment, but I think it’ll go over well and hopefully it’ll make them happy that I’m going on different days, which will show them that I am making an effort.

By Thursday Alex was out of the clinic (2 days later) and was staying at our place (with Simon, after it had costed him $95 to stay at the clinic with Alex after his surgery). We all headed to Angele’s since it was her birthday and we wanted to wish her well. Alex was even up to going and described to us the various details of his experience haha.

Week 11 Weekend

The high school students’ stay was over, and so they were all coming back to Ouaga from Bobo before taking their flight back to Canada Saturday night. And since Simon and Alex were already in Ouaga, they were the ones to accompany them in their departure. That weekend was also Charlotte’s last weekend in Burkina ending her 3 month placement here. She arrived Friday night and we met up with her, the boys and their high school students at a concert after supper. The concert was really good and featured a young artist who had beaten the record for most CDs sold in Burkina as well as a veteran who had twice been named the country’s best artist.

After the concert, the group went back to the hotel and the rest of us headed to an outdoor bar for a drink (a few of the chaperons and the guys met us there after the students were safely in bed haha). The place was pretty cool. A nice place to sit and have a drink with friends with some great music. There were some interesting characters though, especially women who were dressed pretty revealingly and randoms who’d come up and chat with us about random topics.

The next day, Charlotte and I hung out. Went to a forest for a walk which supposedly led to a lake with crocodiles, but 30min into our walk we were boiling and so opted to turn back and head home. Went to the Artisans Village that afternoon as she wanted to buy her last souvenir and met up with the student gang as they had made a stop over to allow them to pick up any last minute gifts they wanted.

That night a bunch of volunteers got together to wish Charlotte bon voyage and went to Zaka, a local restaurant which has live music. Wasn’t really impressed by it. The live music was the only thing good about the place, and a good thing, otherwise we’d have done a lot of complaining. We were the only ones there over the 3 hours we were sitting and our food took over 2hours!

Next was to head to a club to finish off the night. So at 11h30pm we met up with a friend and followed him to the club where we had told a bunch of friends to meet us. The place was pretty cool. A nice outdoor bar with a section inside to dance. About a dozen people came out to hang out. After dropping off the students at the airport, the boys met up with us too. A couple of their friends from Quebec happened to be in town too (they are doing a placement in Northern Burkina) and joined us also.

The 4 guys and I were the last ones there as the bar closed and we headed off to check out another club which the 2 guys had wanted to go to while in Ouaga. So the 5 of us headed there and weren’t allowed in since the guys were wearing shorts and that wasn’t up to dress code. They did let us into the terrace to sit and have a drink, but not in the club. Luckily though (well not really, but for us anyways) a small argument had broken out at the entrance and so the guards were distracted and we were able to sneak in unnoticed haha. Inside we sat on some couches and watched a couple of moonwalk dancers busting out some crazy moves on the dance floor. One guy was totally giving us a show, he even did a bunch of tricks with a lit cigarette including shoving it in his mouth, drinking water, then pulling it out (still lit) all while dancing. The guys were amazed haha. By the time the sun was ready to rise, we decided to call it a night and headed home to bed.

The next day we all lazed in our beds until 1pm. At 2h30pm we were picked up by Alex’s 2 friends (who had rented a truck for the weekend) as we were going to go check out sacred crocodiles, about 45min out of town.

Getting there we first visited the sacred turtles, 2 of which were matting and apparently the guys had never seen that before, so were very intrigued by the phenomenon. Next we walked over to the crocodile beach, where there were about a dozen just hanging around. We had bought 3 chickens at the entrance which our guides were going to feed to them. But first it was photo opt time. A few of us took turns taking pictures with the croc (on my turn, the locals were freaking out on my positioning…apparently standing beside the croc is not such a bright idea). But no worries all of you out there reading, there were some guides with us with sticks ‘taming’ the crocs, so we were safe. And besides they are so domesticated, there had never been an attack on a human before. It was a great day- outing though. I love hanging out with those guys, it’s always a good time.

Got back into town and headed to Angeles to wish Charlotte a great trip back as she was leaving that night. She had been sick all day, otherwise would have come with us to see the crocs. Then off to le Verdoyant again, since the 2 guys wanted to go there before heading back north. So I shared another pizza with Anne before consuming…yes…a BANANA SPLIT! And it actually tasted like a Canadian banana split! This restaurant supposedly makes homemade ice cream and they have ice cream cones! Score. Totally coming back for ice cream when the craving hits. I have tried making ice cream at home with some powdered ice cream I found at the store which you add milk to, but it has thus far disappointed.

Week 12

Today, Monday, Dec 1st was the International Day for the Elimination of AIDS. So as one of the university’s WUSC clubs main focus is on HIV/AIDS, they were doing an event at the university and had invited me to join. So I wished the boys off to Bama who were leaving that morning and headed for the university.

The club was setting up an information table on AIDS as well as established 4 topics of debate revolved around AIDS, leadership and current prevention strategies which they were hoping people would sit and participate in. I was amazed at the turn out. All day there were no less then a dozen people at any given time at our information table interested in information about what we were doing! Amazing. We can’t even get people at our uni to come out to our information tables, even when we lure them in with candy or food! And the debates, which I didn’t know if they would get much participation was ridiculous. We had 2 groups set up to discuss the predetermined topics, with about a dozen people in each group. They sat there discussing the topics, for no joke, 5 hours! Holly man. It was amazing. Kind of gives hope to the fact that where the crisis is happening, people are much more engaged in wanting to be informed and act to change the situation. Shows that change can actually happen in developing areas since people are highly motivated to see it happen.

Spent the day at the information table, handing out pamphlets and talking about the day and the club’s activities as well as sitting with the students debating various topics. I even got some pretty intense questions on whether or not we were promoting relations by promoting and educating people on the use of protection. We had some interesting discussions. By the end of the day, we were all pretty tired. I was even interviewed by the countries 2nd largest tv station lol. I guess they seen a white person there and were intrigued at my participation. Overall, great day. Liked being around other students and I think I will become really good friends with some of them.

Randoms

Ok not many randoms this time around, just a few, but no where better to put them.

-We have a chicken! As a pet. Anne had always wanted to have a chicken when coming to Africa, so her dream came true. Her name is Beatrice and she is an egg-layer, perfect, so we figured in 33 days (considering she lays 1 egg per day and eggs cost about 25c each in the market) she will have paid for herself haha. She’s really nice too. A brown chicken, and really soft, so I always want to pet her. It’s taken a bit for her to let us get close to her, but she’s coming around and I can get close enough to get a couple strokes in there before she tries to peck me haha.

-Oh got a package this week too from the parents . They sent it to me mid October, woot 1.5months later, it arrives. But it was awesome. They sent me some puzzles and a Halloween card (which will be proudly displayed on our hutch) alongside a xmas card I got from matante Marianne and mononcle Gaston (thanks by the way). And thanks to everyone who has written me letters thus far. It’s great to still stay connected and hear what you’ve all been up to. Was really tempted to start the puzzle the night I got it, but had to have self control and realize that I have to get this blog entry done and a few other things to send along before I can do it!

-So the nights have been getting colder around here. Like 20*C by 9pm about. So when you’re riding your moto, the air is pretty chilly. Well one morning it was probably at least 25*C and I got into the taxi and Alassane had the heat on! Ayayay! What was he thinking, its over 20* outside!

-Matante Doris, this one’s for you. So my aunt always likes to bring up the story of when I was young and went to her house and apparently swept my finger along her window seal and told her that it was dusty (thank my mom’s cleaning inspections for that one everyone). So she said from that day on that when I get my own house that she’d come and swipe her finger along all the surfaces to see if there was dust. Well matante, now is your chance. You’ll be happy to stroke your finger along any surfaces in my house and discover a nice thick layer of orange dust at any given time of the day. And after wiping a surface, you can expect that lovely little orange layer to be back within the hour. So come on over matante, you’d have a hay day!

Getting into the flow of things...

First, I must apologize for the lack of correspondence. I realized it had been 3 weeks since my last entry, and I’m definitely due for another, so here it is. You may want to print this one out and keep it on your night table as a week’s worth of bedtime reading!

Week 4

Fri, Oct 3^rd

Off to Bobo (Burkina’s second largest town, about 5 hours away) for the weekend today! Super pumped because I get to visit some friends I made during my travels here and see the progress on their rice processing plant construction.

Took the bus down which was a very comfortable ride. Comfy seats, TV movies, AC and all. We got to the station at 1h55 and although they could fit the two of us (Charlotte and I) on the bus, they couldn’t fit my moto, which I was bringing down with us for easy travel when we arrived. So we waited for the 3pm bus. At 2h40 a man came up to us and began talking to our friend who was waiting with us till we got on the bus and told him (in the local language) that they couldn’t fit our moto on the 3pm bus and that it would have to be sent on a bus 2 hours later. We got up and started discussing with the bus guys that they had told us to wait for the 3pm bus to fit our moto, otherwise we would of left it with our friend and taken the earlier bus and scrapped having it for the weekend. After 20 min of discussing, one guy managed to put it on the bus (there was totally room for it!) so we gave him a small compensation for his efforts and were off to Bobo.

If sleeping was your initial goal for the bus ride, you were mistaken. They blare not only the AC but the volume on the movies they play, which are always a confusing humour. They always involve some kind of romance, but an awkward high school type romance. I could seldom determine what is going on with all the subplots happening, but it’s as entertaining to watch the locals watching the movie because they get really into it.

By the end of the 5 hour ride both Charlotte and I were getting cold under the AC. Charlotte: “Do you want a sweater, I’ve got one if you’re cold”. Me: “Ya, I’ve got a scarf in my bag, but we’re the only non-Africans on this bus, we can’t be the only ones to pull out a sweater; we’re Canadian, we’ve got to tough it out”. She agreed, so we sat, a little chilled for the last hour until we escaped into the heat wave of the outside world.

Sevrine and her family were kind enough to let us stay over their place that night. We got there a bit late and by 9pm we were in bed. We didn’t get much sleep though as a nation wide wind storm nearly toppled everything around us. Well not literally, but windows smashed closed, branches fell outside and the noise was ridiculous even through my earplugs!

Weekend

Today we were off to Banfora, a town about 1.5hrs from Bobo where there are some scenic must-see falls. Sevrine has her version of Alassane, a taxi man that she uses daily and so we negotiated with him to take us for the day. Negotiating a price with him though was one of the most frustrating things in the world. He would tell us a price, we’d suggest another, hoping to find some sort of happy medium, and he would just sit there and not talk. Then would say “lets just go”. But we insisted on negotiating before we left (so that there weren’t any unwanted surprises). After a solid 20min of a lack of negotiating, we told him a price and were off.

The ride there was beautiful. Bobo gets a lot more rain then Ouaga, so there is a lot more greenery to enjoy. Once arrived in Banfora, I called ‘Mohammed le Magnifique’, a guide that I had contacted earlier to take us around and show us the falls (which was very worthwhile since the falls are in the boonies and through unmarked territory). Pretty sure the only way you’d be able to find it on your own would be by flying a plane overhead.

The guide was really good, knew the area and although didn’t speak much, could answer any questions we had about the random plants or bugs we found on the ground. He was very young though, I’d pin him at 17yrs old.

The walk to the falls (from the ‘parking lot’) was even more beautiful. I felt like I was in Lord of the Rings, tall luscious trees growing on either side of a dirt path shading us from the burning sun. All along too were termite houses which were tall sand-castle looking structures that stood over 5 feet tall. The falls were just as amazing. We climbed up a rock side and went to the top of the falls and continued to follow the river upstream to a series of other falls further up. We stopped at one of them for a ‘African Message’ as our guide put it. After our swim, we continued upstream and through a path to the Domes, a series of naturally carved ‘bumps’ rising hundreds of metres in the air. Unfortunately though it was getting late and we wanted to be back before dark, so we didn’t have a chance to walk down to them and check out the view from above. We merely saw them from a distance, but the landscape below was incredible. I’m definitely planning on going back and hopefully spending a full day at the falls and checking out the area.

Coming back to Bobo, we were heading to Bama, another 30min away where the gang of engineering students I traveled here with are staying. It was so great to see them. They live in a small villa, 3 houses with 2 bedrooms, a living space and a shower room in each (they are 6 in all). They set it up so that each ‘living space’ serves as a different purpose (a living room, another a kitchen and the last an office). Outside in the court is a water pump (where they get their water to do laundry, dishes, and bathe) and a series of hole toilets. It was actually my first experience of hole toilets in Africa (by that I mean a cement floor with a hole in it, so you better hope your aim is good). I had already had the pleasure of using those style bathrooms in Italy (of all places), but I must say that my attempts here were pretty good and using them wasn’t bad at all. The only thing is at night, when you’ve got your headlight on, and open the door to the toilette to spray the area before you pee, just in case any roaches or other crawling things decide to interrupt the process.

A few of us stayed up late that night talking. But sleeping that night was another story. By 6am I was getting bored of trying to fall back asleep, so I got up and grabbed a book and my mp3 and sat outside reading. As I sat, numerous people kept trying to unlock their gate door. Some once they saw me would run away, but a few others succeeded and came in and grabbed some materials (they keep all their construction materials in their court to avoid theft). I was really hoping they weren’t robbers stealing their equipment, but didn’t really know what to say. The guy came and said hi to me though, so I figured a thief wouldn’t really allow someone to get a closer look of their face…or would they, so that you wouldn’t think they were a thief…reverse psychology? Turns out they are workers on the project and were getting a start on the day.

After breakfast, Simon took myself and Charlotte to the market, which is a 1min walk from their house. It was a nice change from the big city market. Instead of harassing us to buy things, people would say hi. It was a very pleasant change. And I’m sure if I were to buy something that I wouldn’t pay the ‘nasara (white) price’ for it either. The more remote you get, the more honest people seem to be. They live in a small village and are the only white people there, so they are well known.

We decided to head into town to go out to a restaurant that had a pool, so we boarded a ‘bush taxi’ to head to town. That was quite an experience. The taxi has 8 seats, but how many Africans do you think we could fit in a small car? Seventeen! Yep, there were 17 people inside the car, plus at least 2 on the roof of the car (I only saw the 2 people who kept hoping off the roof to push start the car every time we stopped), but who knows how many more people were up there. Plus not to mention the I don’t know how many hundreds of kilos of bagged rice that were on the roof of the car (which at least doubled the height of the vehicle). The 30min ride out of town ended up being over 1.5hrs long. With the initial rice loading delay, the random taxi break down/push starts, the getting pulled over by the police, and the general weight of the load didn’t exactly help the speed. I was really not bothered by it though. I was finding it quite funny and I was happy that we were all together in the car (otherwise I’m sure I would have been frustrated if I was on my way to meet someone).

Unfortunately by the time we got into town, Charlotte and I had to get to the bus station to reserve our seats, so we didn’t get to chill with the crew at the pool. We were both beat for the ride home, but the extremely loud movie/African music playing kind of hindered our napping. Not to mention the relentless honking of the horn. People honk a lot here to tell people to push over to the side of the road when they’re passing, but this driver was honking, no joke, every 1min20sec. He would honk when we were approaching any moving object (car, bike, livestock) when he could see it from far away and continue to honk incessantly until we passed it. But since there are no stretches of road that are free of those three things, the honking was like 5 hours of unnecessary noise.

Approaching the last hour of our ride back to Ouaga, they began playing some classic American/Canadian romance songs. It is so funny what you hear around here in random places. Stuff like Brian Adams, Phil Collins, Mariah Carrey, All for One, the classics. We found it so funny that I wanted to capture the moment with my video camera. But as I didn’t want to pull it out and make a scene, I tried to be subtle and hide it under my scarf and point it up to us, where we could sing along. It wasn’t very successful, but none the less, the videos (although not much visually) nicely captured the audio, which was the inspiration to start filming in the first place.

We made it back safely, but the sun was going down, and as we want to avoid night travel (due to random road blocks by thieves) we were pretty antsy when the bus pulled over and the driver got out (and we couldn’t see anything outside that was going on). Luckily though, there was a lady with her baby 2 seats ahead of us who had a large shot gun under her seat. So although that would make most people feel uncomfortable, it kind of made us feel more secure haha.

Randoms of the Week

-Budgets have been a large topic of conversation amongst the cooperatives lately. The just of it is that living costs have rose so much in recent years (and even months) that the living allocations have not seemed to suffice for living here. This has not only been a problem for Burkina, but many African countries, where food prices are soaring and wages are not. There has been a lot of discussion and the volunteers have even put in an official claim to try to get our salaries raised as our allocations are based on a price analysis done in 2005. To give you an example, the price of a bag of rice 3 months ago was 11,000f ($27.50). Today it’s 20,000f ($50). And with the economic situation in the world today, the Canadian dollar has continued to fall against the franc (the franc is pinned to the Euro, so when the Euro gains so does the franc, and thus the Canadian dollar falls in comparison). When I got here, I could get 460f for $1, today I can get 398f. Therefore my purchasing power in the past 1.5 months has decreased by 15%.

-Some of you may be interested in seeing what my day consists of, so here is a typical day in my life:

6:00am – wake up, eat breakfast, get ready for work

6:45am – picked up by Alassane (taximan) to head to work

7:30-11:30am – work at the kindergarten

11:30am – picked up by Alassane to head home

12:15 – eat lunch

1-3pm – relax time (everything shuts down during these hours), boil and bottle

water, do stuff around the house

3-6pm – take my moto to the main organization’s office to do some work (in the

morning I’m with the partner organization in a different town)

6:30pm – eat dinner

7pm – do one of: chill at home, go out with friends, go check out a local event,

watch a movie…

10pm – shower and bed

I go out at night (for a drink at the maquis or out for dinner with friends) I’d say about 2 times a week.

During weekends my mornings and afternoons consist of running errands, going to the market, catching up on last week’s unfinished work, going to the pool, and visiting friends

And voila, my day!

-Now, some of you I’m sure are worried about whether or not I am eating well, and you don’t have to worry at all, because I am eating super and just as much (if not more) then I eat when I’m in Canada. In fact I eat way more desert here as my sweet tooth seems to have evolved since my arrival. We have a super good cook who is here 4 days a week who makes us European/Canadian food and the other 3 days either (usually) myself or Benoit cooks. Here is an idea of what I usually eat:

Breakfast: toast, cereal, fruits, crepes, omelets, oatmeal

Lunch: rice/couscous with sauce, ragout, meat and potatoes, salad, tabulah,bread

Dinner: pasta, meat (usually beef), soup, bread, leftover lunch

Desert: there is always a cake or fruit loaf on the table to finish off your meal

Drink: litres of H2O

Week 5:

Mon-Tue, Oct 6-7^th

The excitement of the weekend was over and it was back to work. I was super tired, so didn’t do too much except try to function at work and later recover from my lack of sleep.

Wed-Fri, Oct 8-10^th

Wednesday to Friday was our organization’s annual sectoral meetings. Essentially all the partners of the organization with all the volunteers were invited to share their projects and results with the rest. It was a long week but none the less interesting to hear about their work as well as get a better understanding of how each volunteer is contributing.

The biggest highlight of these days was that nearly everyone was down from their towns for the 3 day conference, including Charlotte and 2 (Simon and Karine) of the engineers from Bama that I had just hung out with a few days earlier.

Thursday night we took a bunch of them to the local maquis (outdoor bar) that we really like, which has cheap food and classic tunes (a random mix of music from Akon to the Village People). All together we had sheep, beef kabobs, bread, beer and fanta for 1,000f each (about $2.50). I love cheap meals!

Saturday everyone was leaving, so we took the group out Friday night to the restaurant ‘Gigot a la ficelle’ (which I had not yet tried myself). The restaurant’s servers glide around on roller blades while you eat your meal and enjoy random acrobatic and musical performances. The name of the restaurant is that of their signature dish, ‘gigot’ which is the thigh. And ‘a la ficelle’ represents the cooking method; the thigh is hung on a string and cooked over an open flame. At 11pm, we had eaten well and were off to a club, ‘la casa’, which Nathalie had told me was one of her favourite dance spots (as they play more American songs). There were maybe 3 other people there when we arrived, and not many more when we left at around 1:30am. But since there were 14 of us, we got the party started and had a great time. It was like our own mini dance party, as the dj would play our requests right after we had asked for them. It reminded me (except for the speed of the requests) of a much smaller version of a Toronto club. Definitely a good place to go when I need a little dose of a T.O. club.

Weekend

By 6:30am, the crew was gone (3 of them were staying at our place), and I was kind of bummed to see them go. The quiet weekend did give me a good chance to relax and catch up on some much needed sleep though. When they left I went back to bed and didn’t get up until 11am, the latest I’ve slept in since I’ve been here.

After lunch Anne and I went to the large market to check out some pagnes (the traditional colourful African fabric that people get clothing made out of). I saw a beautiful pagne and tried to bargain the price, unsuccessfully, so I left empty handed. But I will eventually get one and get myself an outfit made (everyone here buys fabrics and gets tailors to make them clothing).

That afternoon we all played Settlers of Catane, a German game where you try to gain points by building up villages and trading resources (such as wood, clay and sheep).

That night I was looking forward to calling the family as everyone would be over matante Celines and mononcle Daniel’s house for Thanksigivng dinner. Chantal answered the phone and was super surprised to hear me. It was funny. My parents knew I was going to try to call, but hadn’t told them, which was a good way to surprise them. It was nice to talk to all of them and hear the random voices in the background. It’s unfortunate that I can’t call more often, and individually to each of my relatives, but the cost of calling from here is ridiculous. Just to give you an idea, calling locally costs me 62c per minute, so imagine long distance! Even with an international calling card, it’s not much cheaper. So I apologize in advance to all of you who I’d love to call and talk to, and find out what you’ve all been up to, but the costs is just too much, so emailing is the best way to get a hold of me and keep me posted on life. This blog is I think a great way to keep you all informed on what I’ve been up to. And although these entries are really long, I’ve decided to keep them as such as I know some of you appreciate the detail.

Sunday I spent most of the day in my pjs which was nice. That night we had our makeshift thanksgiving dinner. A small chicken (which came with the head and feet still attached), attempted stuffing (which was more like soggy, seasoned bread, but tasted just the same) and mashed potatoes. It was really good. After dinner, I tried calling the other side of the family at matante Marianne’s cottage for the Rodrigue Thanksgiving dinner, but numerous failed attempts made it unsuccessful.

The rest of the night was pretty low key. Anne and I watched a Quebec tv series called ‘Fortier’, which is about a clumsy psychologist cop working with some special task force.

Randoms of the Week

-learned the other day that the guard across the street (who Benoit often goes to chill and have a drink with) wants to marry me. I’ve been considering more lately whether I should start wearing a ring on my wedding finger to get people off my back (more so just to prevent guys who only come and talk to me because they want a relationship with a foreigner) from doing so if that’s their intention. We had a good laugh about it that night and Benoit concluded that I need a tall boyfriend because he says that I’m a giant. Pretty sure he’s 5’7 (I’m 5’8), but it was funny that he associates me with being a giant haha.

-had a super delicious salad this week at the conference. Best salad I think I have ever eaten, or maybe had in a while, so it was that much more amazing. It had lettuce, papaya, avocado, grapefruit and a cream dressing, yum!

Week 6

Mon, Oct 13^th

Back to school today. I have to say that the kids are pretty violent here. They are constantly hitting each other, and my attempts to hold them to calm them down and make it clear that it is not acceptable goes in vain as they pitch a fit and flail their arms relentlessly for 10min until I let them go. I could always resort to smacking them in the head, which I have seen some of the teachers do, but I can’t bring my hand to make that motion, so for now I’ll stick to my method and hope it’ll result in some positive change.

Tue, Oct 14^th

Today I decided to start some serious thesis research. I’ve been toying with a lot of ideas lately so took today to find some articles online and save them onto my computer so that I can solidify a topic.

The last of my organization’s volunteers for the year arrived today. It is a family from Quebec (I’m the only non-Quebec volunteer here, woot represent!). We took them out to a local restaurant that we found the other day. Since they are staying at the hotel, they only know of few nearby restaurants which are pretty expensive, so we invited them out. ‘Nun Dunia’ I think it’s called is a restaurant that supports and is run by an organization that helps street kids get off the streets and learning new skills to make a living. The servers, cooks, etc. are all participants in the program. The food is European (they even have lasagna) and not that expensive. We will definitely go there more often to support the good cause.

Tonight was the start of ‘Waga HipHop’, Burkina’s hip hop festival, which I had been looking forward to checking out. But none of my Burkinabe friends wanted to go, and they all laughed at me when I said I wanted to check it out. I guess my only gangsta friends will always remain in Scarborough. Anne, Benoit, Marie-Helene and I ended up going though, and I was able to convince our friend Issiaka to meet us there to check out a beatboxing concert titled ‘Doctor Swing’. The concert had a bunch of components. It opened with a fashion show (which was bizarre to watch). There was some pretty gangster looks and poses I must say. And then there was this one white guy in the mix, which was pretty funny. After that there were a bit of beatboxing, slow breakdancing and spoken word performances. The second last performance was the contemporary breakdancing, which was good, but 1 hour long was a bit much. We almost left, but we were totally glad we didn’t because the closing act was the second place world beatboxing champion. He was Belgium (all the beatboxing acts were white lol) and it was amazing! I’ve tried to upload some clips of the concert, but have been unsuccessful, so you’ll just all have to wait to see them.

Overall I was loving the concert. It was 4 hours long, but I felt totally in my element. People in the audience were really into it too and some were even brraaaappping (for my family who might not get that, its when you raise your hand in the air like a gun and say ‘brappp’), something done in gangster places like Scarborough.

Wed, Oct 15^th

Today I wanted to call Grandma and Grandpa Rodrigue as I hadn’t been able to reach the Rodrigue family for thanksgiving. And although I couldn’t call everyone from that side (it was a bummer I couldn’t reach them when they were all together), I at least wanted to say hi to the grandparents and see how they were doing. So I decided to test out Skype and bought $14 of credit, which I think is going to last me quite a while. I called my grandma and after a second attempt (grandpa couldn’t hear me the first time, so I had to call back), my grandma was surprised to hear my voice. It was surprisingly very clear and a lot cheaper then calling cards.

I was so excited with the success and cheapness of my call that I wanted to call someone else, so I called my mom at work. She was obviously very surprised to hear me on the other end of the line and it was nice to talk to her. But unfortunately as my dad is never in one place for long, I didn’t reach him in his office, so I spoke to my mom for a while and continued with my day.

Although Skype made my day, it is only convenient during a few hours of the day as it is the only time the office is open and I have access to the net. Otherwise I could use it at the internet café at a more convenient time, but they always have a ‘hush hush’ policy so I’m not sure I want to tread those waters just yet and try my luck being the only one speaking out loud over my computer. A lot of people at cyber cafes use web cams, but merely for the visual. They look through the camera and type at the same time.

That night I also called Ange. But it took me 4 attempts until she figured out that the delay was not a telemarketer but a legitimate delay from calling from another continent haha. It was great to talk to her. She’s my best friend and we used to talk and email each other about 20 times a day at school, so it was good to hear her voice over the phone. She has been back in Ottawa from her placement in Guatemala because of medical reasons, but she is hoping they will soon figure out what’s wrong and she can get back and finish her placement soon.

Today was full of communication. Lastly I got to talk to Eric a bunch on msn who was in Banff for a conference. He seemed to be enjoying his time there, but I was asking him what he was waiting for to go check out the hot tub. I hope you eventually did Eric!

Thur, Oct 16^th

Today was full of good news too. Why you ask. Because a Halloween party in Bobo was confirmed and as it is my favourite holiday and I am super stoked for it!!! We would of made one here in Ouaga, but I’m very happy it’s in Bobo since the engineering gang works 6 days a week and wouldn’t be able to make the trip to Ouaga to join the party. But seeing as though it is in their hood, they will definitely be able to come out.

That night, it was Anne and Benoit’s anniversary. They have been together 10 years, so they went out for dinner together. I went to another Waga HipHop event and saw the movie ‘Steppin’ which is actually a movie I wanted to see in Canada but hadn’t gotten the chance.

Fri, Oct 17^th

Tonight was the last night of Waga HipHop. So Anne, Benoit and myself went to check out the last of the movie showcase which turned out to be ‘You Got Served’ in French. I nearly died laughing. This is a movie I have seen a bunch of times at university with my friends merely to mock the ridiculousness of it, especially the classic quotes we have extracted from it such as ‘fo sho fo sho’ and ‘no matter what happens in this battle, what’s important is that in the end we all be friends’. Classic! Although the French version wasn’t as funny, I was reminiscing the good times of watching and mocking the English version with friends and it made me happy.

After the movie, we were off to the restaurant ‘Chez Simon’ for the new volunteer family’s ‘welcome dinner’. During the dinner, Angele (the regional coordinator for my organization) was finding it quite funny of my life advice, which we later coined ‘Tiana’s guide, tips and tricks on how to survive’. We figured that these survival mechanisms had developed through my years on residence and it was suggested that I should give workshops on ‘how to survive Burkina’. The following were the reasons for this discussion:

Tip #1: Drink fast to avoid infected ice cubes from melting. This came about as

Charlotte (who came down for the weekend) got a fanta with a glass of ice on the side. She asked the waiter if the ice was safe to drink (as you should avoid restaurant ice cubes because they are often made from tap water which is the best way to inhale a virus). Angele said that it was ‘Chez Simon’ and that they have good standards. But I suggested that as long as you drank fast enough, the ice wouldn’t have time to melt and it would be safe, a comment for which Angele nearly died lauhing.

Tip #2: To prolong the life and freshness of your foods, put them in the freezer.

This has been a habbit of mine that has faced much ridicule and commenting from my friends even in university, but it works! To give one solid example, I had brought corn nuts from Canada and after a few weeks they had gone stale, so I put them in the freezer to slow the process. And after 2 more weeks in the freezer I ate some and they were like new! Like the freezer had reversed the staling process. My housemates here have even found it weird on how many things I freeze, including Kracks (fake Pringles). Freezing them not only kept them crispier, but it actually faded the bad after taste they had previously. See, the marvels of the freezer never cease.

Tip #3: Combine foods to create new things. I didn’t think that this was rocket science, but my friends here were just as amazed as Ange was in Toronto when I combined flour and water to make pizza dough. Yes, you are pretty much making dough out of the same stuff you used to make glue with as a kid, but I’m telling you it works! You just got to get creative.

Stay tuned for more survival tips as they come up!

Weekend

This weekend was fabric shopping for our Halloween costumes. So Charlotte, Anne and myself checked out the local market, downtown shops and even the ‘pagne cemetary’ which a guy led us to through a dark alley (Charlotte was like ‘Tiana, don’t follow him in there, where is he taking u?) haha. But don’t worry, I could see the other side, so I knew it was safe. In the end, Anne found some fabrics for her and Benoit’s costumes (they are going to get Kimonos made), but I was less lucky in my search.

As it was super hot and we were all feeling a little out of it (3 of us weren’t feeling so hot, so we thought maybe it was last night’s restaurant, but we all ate different things, so couldn’t pin point why we were all feeling crappy).

After a quick lunch, we headed to the American Embassy where we spent the afternoon swimming to relieve our bodies from the heat and drank delicious lemonade.

That night Charlotte left to go back to Gourcy and we had planned to go check out a football game at the local stadium (our friend had even ‘soccer mom’ made us peanutbutter and jam sandwhiches for the game) but the game was cancelled. So we took the night pretty easy. Anne had Lorena McKennit on her computer (awww dad J) so we listened to that and I did some water painting (for the first time in 4 years!).

Randoms of the Week

-I have adapted fairly well to the things I see on a daily basis. Things such as the town crazy. Well I don’t know if he really is a town crazy, but more like a town nude. There’s this one guy who is always walking around naked through the busy streets. Seeing him and others do the same doesn’t phase me. The lack of hygiene at the school (which is also common in the streets) has also become ‘just another thing’. For example, although we have hole toilets in the yard, kids who need to urinate just pull out their willies or squat wherever they are standing (even if it is inches from us or another kid) and pee in place. Then since the kids are mostly walking around barefoot, they are stepping in the wet puddles and wouldn’t know the difference. Not to mention that there is no hand washing going on (except for before they eat their snack). I must say though that we have been getting the kids to use the designated toilets more often to do their business, so things are getting better. But it is something done by all kids. It is not unusual to come out of my house and see kids squatting across the street doing their business.

Week 7

Mon, Oct 20^th

Courses finally started today at the school. They had been waiting for the minister of education to give them some workbooks and the okay to start classes (I don’t really know why they have to really wait), but up to now, the kids were just playing and such for the period of the school day.

So for the next 3 days, I spent one day in each of the 3 classes just observing how the day generally works and the types of lessons and presentations used. Over the three days the classes discussed politeness, the sun’s position in the sky and the concept of ‘on/under’. It wasn’t too intensive to say the least, but it is the first week of classes and some of our kids are as young as 2, so you can’t really expect them to be learning physics just yet.

That afternoon, I rode with Anne to the office as she had just bought herself a used P50, a moped like mine, and since the roads are a bit hectic was a bit afraid to go on her own, so I offered to follow ahead of her. It was funny because she was having a hard time starting her moped and sometimes she’d start it and it would shut off, so she’d have to peddle again to get it going. And at one point we were on the street and our neighbour (a young woman with her baby on her back) ran behind her to help her push start it. It was too funny and I wish I had my camera on me to capture the moment.

Tue, Oct 21^st

Today I was pumped to go check out another fabric store (a store that had more than just pagnes, they’re nice and all, but not the look I’m really going for for my Halloween costume). On the way there, I made to take a left turn (as the store was at the left corner) in order to park my moto, but it turns out that that’s a one way street (things are marked here very poorly, so who knew). So of course there was a police standing there and they took my moto and I had to go to the side with them. They were very nice though, I gave them my proof of purchase and passport picture and he said that he’d decrease the 12,000f fine to 6,000f (which is the actual price, I found out later). I didn’t argue with them and paid them out. I didn’t negotiate a decrease in fine either, although I could of. I figured they knew I was going into the fabric store, so I couldn’t really say that I only had 4,000f or something then walk out of the store with a purchase. He even explained to me the best way to slip him the money (put it into my proof of purchase, which he would slide into his pocket to let the money fall in). It’s so obvious, I don’t know why they even bother. A simple handshake transfer would be more subtle. They were nice enough though to offer to watch my bike while I went into the store so that I didn’t have to pay for parking there lol.

The store was like a small version of Fabric Land and I found the perfect material for my costume, which I am pumped about! The sales people kept following me around which was funny and the Lebanese owners kept calling them over to the other end of the store to stop the conversations. What was funnier was that when the guy was cutting out my fabric, one of the Lebanese guys was standing right in front of him, no doubt making sure he didn’t give me a little bonus fabric.

That night we went back to the local maquis with some friends to eat sheep. As we were leaving they began to play the Eagles CD. It made me think of my parents J. Oh classic tunes.

After the maquis, Anne and I went to the tailor to put in our Halloween costume orders. Just picture this with me for a second. Halloween is a very North American thing, however some parts of the world appreciate and partake in costume parties of various sorts. Not Africa. The very notion of wanting to dress up in a costume of anything that resembles something out of the norm is unheard of, and they think it’s very strange. Now imagine going to the tailor and explaining to him why you want a mermaid costume made. They don’t even know what a mermaid is. If they can’t understand why people would want to dress up in another decade (say for example an 80s party, which is at least somewhat normal clothes), imagine his thoughts when I showed him a picture of a half human, half fish and requested a duplicate. Lol. He handled it pretty well, but I think I prepared him well saying ‘now you can’t laugh at me when I show you this, you’re going to think I’m crazy, but this is a Canadian tradition’. He couldn’t wipe the grin off his face, but besides that he didn’t burst out laughing or anything. I’m sure he reacted a little more when we left. Needless to say, I am going to be a mermaid, and I can’t wait to see how the costume turns out. If it looks anything like the picture I showed him as an example, it’s going to be awesome!

Wed, Oct 22^nd

Today was not that eventful. Went back to the tailor to confirm what we wanted and give him coloured copies of our costumes (the black and white really wasn’t helping in explaining what we wanted).

That night we started watching the series ‘Heroes’, and watched 4 episodes. I had never gotten into it, but had many people (including my parents) who said it was really good. I had gotten 3 seasons off of our friend Ronnie, so we’re set for a while.

Thur, Oct 23^rd

Last night had a terrible sleep. I slept not more than 1-2 hours tops, so I was pretty tired at work. Today I started working on my plan of action, which describes how I plan on implementing the things that are in my mandate.

At the office that afternoon, I met a professor from the university of Sherbrook that had come to visit the Bama gang and their project. It was good to hear him talk about how they were all doing well and tell us of the amazing progress they had made in the construction phase.

That night I realized that I hadn’t updated my blog in 3 weeks and so I began working on it when I got home.

Fri, Oct 24^th

Woot it’s Friday. This week has been particularly long. I think it’s because I cannot wait until next weekend to go to Bobo and for the Halloween celebrations. All of the students my age (8 of them) are leaving in a few months time, so I always like to get together with them when I can, and I’ll be bummed when they leave.

I bought a papaya tree today. Haha. Growing (or attempting to grow) fruit trees in our yard would be sweet if it succeeded. I gave the tree to our gardener (who comes twice a week to make sure our trees don’t die) made me discover many trees I didn’t know we had. I knew we had a mango tree (but when I arrived the season was done, so I’ll have to wait a while before I can enjoy some). We’ll also have a papaya tree and he had planted a banana tree, which he says should produce in 3 months! Things grow super fast here since it’s always sunny. So as long as we water it lots, we’ll be able to start our own fruit market in a few months, or just eat tons more fresh fruits. Yum!

7 days till Halloween!!!

And here is a link to my pictures, loading them on here hasn't been too successful, so this link should work. I post all my pictures on here, so if you check them out, you won't be missing a thing :)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2438058&l=88600&id=28123092

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2448038&l=1273c&id=28123092

Hugs to all***

Tiana

Moving, Working, Sweating...

It’s been a while, I know, so let me recap some of the things that have happened over the last couple of weeks…it seems so long ago that I’ve done all these things, and so much has happened, yet it hasn’t even been 2 weeks.

Week 2:

Wed, Sept 17th
I moved out today. Everything worked out with Benoit and Anne, so I moved in with them, which makes me very happy. I am completely satisfied with my decision to move in here, and although it is a bit of a bubble to live in such a nice house, I think that for my mental and physical health, it will be much better as it will put me in a better state to be productive and useful at work and around the community. Not to mention the fact that we are in town and fairly close to lots of things like theatres and community centers, which I am hoping to take full advantage of.

That night they introduced me to a Korean television series called ‘Jewel in the Palace’. It is the story of a young cook who works in the king’s palace. It’s all in Korean, but we watch it with very badly translated English subtitles, which makes it that much funnier. The facial expressions are also always exaggerated, so all in all, it is good entertainment.

I set up my mosquito net tonight for the first time. It’s great. There are lots of mosquitoes, but besides that, it is a nice mental relief to know that there is a barrier between you and any critters that may want to crawl into your bed while you’re trying to sleep.

Thur, Sept 18th
Took my moto to the office today for the first time, which also meant the need to fill up my tank. Apparently not all gas stations have the mix needed for motos, so after stopping to ask 4 random people along my way I eventually tanked up and was on my way.

I don’t quite understand the rules of the road here (mom, don’t freak out). If my parents ever came, I’d want to give them (especially my mom) a ride on my moto because I know she’d freak out haha. Id describe the traffic here as ‘organized chaos’, I’m still learning how the streets work, especially because there are 3 street lights geared towards 3 different classifications of vehicles (cars, large motos and small motos- which get their own lane). My strategy at this point is just to stay behind other motos and follow traffic. So far it has worked out nicely.

Going home, I got lost. The lack of street names and unique buildings along the way make is so that I have no idea where I am. Describing the route to my house is to remember that we are so many streets (called ‘6 metres’, bc in theory they are 6m wide) from the main road, but that doesn’t always work out… I just circled around until I found my way (good thing I was on a motorized bike and not pedaling bc I’d die of heat exhaustion).

Later that night, we were madly craving hamburgers and tried to find ‘Happy Ronalds Hamburger Place’, which we found in a tourist book, but that didn’t work out because the taxi drivers don’t really know where anything is. It was really funny hearing Benoit, with a strong French accent repeating the name of the restaurant to the taxi driver. In the end, we settled for another restaurant called ‘Chez Simon’ where we had hamburgers and crepes. They were delish! Benoit also order a 1L mug of beer, which cost him a whopping $3.75.

Fri, Sept 19th
Today I met up with Djeneba, Nathalie’s old cook to give her some stuff that Nathalie had left with me. It took a while to find her, even though I met her in her own neighbourhood), I knew more street names and main buildings then she did (after having been here for only 2 weeks, and she’s lived here for years! The sense of direction is pretty much the same for the large majority of the Burkinabe population.

That night, I kept getting calls from a private number and didn’t want to pick it up. The girl that I had met at the picture store has been excessively calling me (at one point 8 times within a 15min period!) so I haven’t been answering. And because I deleted her number, I didn’t want to pick up in case it was her. She could be completely innocent, and I understand that here, people will often call you just to say hi or wish you a good night, but I thought that she was being a little excessive. At 10pm, I decided to pick up the phone with an English accent and it turns out it was my parents (which is what I was afraid of, not that it was them, but that I hadn’t been picking up while they’ve been trying to reach me). But I explained the whole story on how I haven’t been answering calls from private numbers and they seemed to be catching my drift.

Sleeping these nights hasn’t been so bad. I have luckily 3 cooling methods available to me, a ground fan (which I have been opting for), a ceiling fan, which is super great and refreshing, but sounds like an airplane, and an air conditioner, which leaks. I’ve only slept with the AC once as I’m trying to avoid it (trying to acclimatize myself). But when I did, I had to sleep with earplugs to muffle the sound of the Chinese drip water torture from the leak, which was also splashing off the wall and onto my bed. But as I have done in the past, I tried to come up with some random contraption, complete with a towel, plastic container, bucket and sewing pins to catch most of the drip and prevent the splashing.

Weekend
Finally checked out the internet café across the street and managed to talk to the parents on msn. I got the recipes for tarte a sucre and sucre a crème, but the only ‘brown sugar’ they have here is like coarse yellow sugar, so not sure if I’ll get the same results. Nonetheless, I’ll try it out and keep you posted.

The organization I am here with has network groups in a lot of universities across Canada as well as 2 clubs in universities in developing countries. It just so happens that one of those is at the University of Ouagadougou, so I have gotten a hold of the president of the club and am hoping to partake in their meetings and events. It would be very interesting to see what the same kind of club we have in Canada does within a developing country context.

Went to the National Museum and the Museum of Masks, which was opened for us as we arrived (I guess it’s not that big of a hot spot). So we got a personal tour of the museum (and the one exhibition they had, that depicted the artifacts found in a site in the northern part of Burkina). The masks were really cool though as they each had an important role and significance.

Next we went to the Centre D’Artisanat (we were taking our friend’s girlfriend out for the day as he was at work and she is just visiting). The village had a bunch of vendors who make and sell their artwork. There were some really beautiful pieces. All I kept thinking of was ‘how many of these things can I fit in my luggage’. I’m holding off though until the end of October when there is a national artisan fair, so that I can hopefully get some better deals and pick up a few souvenirs. I did buy one thing though, a lizard key chain as a reminder of my first night in Burkina.

Randoms of the Week:
-People on the streets sell pirated DVDs (which seldom work). But what gets me is the fact that each dvd has 30-70 ‘videos’ on them. By videos they mean halves or quarters of movies, but still, I can’t even manage to get 2 movies on a burnt DVD, how are they managing to put 30-70 on one single disc! Mysterious indeed!

-it is so hot here. Just today, it was 43* with humidity. Yurk! But if 45* is the hottest norm for the hot season, I’m pretty sure I can handle it. I’ve already gotten over the discomfort of having sweat dripping down my legs while sitting in place in the shade, yes it is that hot! Don’t let that scare you dad, there is a cold season ;)

Week 3

Mon, Sept 22nd
I started work today. Spent the whole day reading an annual report which gave me a little look into the other projects this organization has. Overall, I didn’t do too much. The concept of time and efficiency is very different in Africa then it is in Canada. People take a big importance in saying hi to everyone as they come into the office, even if it means interrupting a meeting to announce that you have arrived. Saluting people generally entails saying good morning/afternoon, shaking hands, asking how they are, how their family is, how their health is, how their activities are, etc. etc. As it was the first day at work, I opted to wear a short sleeve blazer, an idea I soon regretted as temperatures raised up to 40* by the afternoon.

The people I work with are super cool though. Everyone is really friendly and I have already taken to calling one of them, Oswald, ‘papa’ (as Nathalie did when she was here and this is how he was introduced to me) and another, Dimanche, insists (and continues to introduce me to people) as his second wife. Here, Muslims (which make up about half of the population) can have more than one wife.

Tue, Sept 23rd
Today my ride didn’t show up, so I stayed home. Spent the day working from home and that was as interesting as it got.

At night, we went to the Centre Culturel Francais (CCF) (it’s ‘Western Week’) where we watched ‘Rio Bravo’, an old American western film.

Wed, Sept 24th
Today I spoke to the director of the organization to try to figure out the hours I’ll be working, if I’ll be based out of the school, if they want me at the office so many times per week in the afternoons, etc. I also offered to give seminars on computer programs if people in the office were interested (to pass the time, since I’d have one more week there until I started at the school). So I sent around a letter to the 10 staff members, introducing myself and offering to provide these workshops. Learning how to use Excel seems to be a popular program, so I guess I’ll have to spiffy up my Excel skills in order to give them useful tips.

I also visited the schools today that are funded by the association. As I entered, all the kids would stand up and speak in unison ‘bonjour madame’. There were 3 schools in 2 separate areas that we checked out, one of which had a huge puddle of water in the court (or rather a breeding ground for mosquitoes).

That night, we went to the ‘Soiree des contes’. Its like a neighbourhood ‘story telling’ night, where local theatre group members prepare dialogues and perform them outdoor. It was pretty good, but they lost me on half of the stories. The thing I remember the most from them is the morals which were often ‘and that’s why we have oceans’, ‘and that’s why we have mice in our homes’. I wouldn’t try to understand that, just take it as it is, and keep reading on, there’s not much to get.

Thur, Sept 25th
Today the secretary asked me to make her an image that she could use for the title page of a report they were submitting. She wanted a picture of a father blessing a child (keep in mind this association is religious), so all day I spent photoshoping a picture of that. Sorry Ange, paint wasn’t going to cut it this time.

Tonight we went back to the CCF to check out a Burkinabe Western film. It was very entertaining. It was 30 minutes of stereotypical western shooting/fighting, donkey riding (they ran out of horses), sheep stealing, cowboy hat wearing, all around goodness.

Weekend
This weekend we were going to go to the store ‘Kastouprit’ which is like a random store with all kinds of stuff. On my way there, since Benoit and Anne ride on a more powerful motorbike, we are in different lanes and of course I got lost. I stopped a few times to call them, but we kept missing each other. As I was waiting on a street corner, some random guy came up to me and turned out to be pretty cool. He brought me to the store and waited with me until they got there.
Saturday night was 2 cooperants’ going away party (Antoine and Geraldine). So we went over to their place for a potluck dinner, where I met a lot of random and really nice people, including some of Sara’s old friends (another girl from our program who did her coop in Burkina). One of the guys was making a traditional Burkinabe tea, which a lot of people drink as a social thing. It consists of brewing extremely strong and sweet tea in 3 consecutive brews (which get continuously weaker) and sharing a shot-sized glass with friends. As I was poured a glass, I asked Didier, the guy beside me if I was supposed to drink it in one shot (it was, after all in a shot glass) and he said yes, so I drank it like a shot. But as soon as I did, Didier was like ‘no, don’t drink it too fast, you’re going to burn yourself’. Turns out you are supposed to sip it. Well I got that information a little too late haha. Needless to say all the people around me found it amusing, as did I.

Later that night, we headed to a club, where I was surprised to see more guys dancing then girls, and by themselves! It was a nice change of scenery from the creepy groping guys in some Canadian clubs. It was also curious to see that there were mirrors all around the dance floor, which people stood in front of to watch themselves dance. In total, they played 5 non African songs, which they played back to back. Starting with none other than Aqua’s Barbie Girl. Oh ya, you can surely picture me getting really into it on the dance floor haha. That was followed by Numa Numa, Boom Boom by the Venga Boys and some 50 cent song.

Last night I opted to sleep with the air conditioner. I set it at a nice 28*C, which you may think is hot, but actually kept me quite cool (I even got up in the middle of the night to put a sweater on, imagine that!). The only downfall to the AC is that it leaks, so it was dripping all night into a bucket that I had placed under the unit. I also got up and built a contraption that included a towel, a plastic object and some sewing pins to stop the dripping from bouncing off the wall and splashing me on the bed. Overall, the coolness was worth the hassle, the earplugs even muffled most of the Chinese torture sounds of dripping water.

Sunday, a friend that I met when I first arrived (Charlotte, who is here on a 3 month placement through the University of Ottawa) came down from Gourci, about 2 hours north from where I am, to visit for the day. We didn’t do too much except attempt bringing her to buy some fruits that are not easily found in her area. But as we got to the one street (where the store we wanted had closed) we opted to try to get some stuff from the street vendors. But as we stopped our motos, we were surrounded by a swarm of vendors (which supposedly is in the Burkina guide book as the most hassling place in Ouagadougou to go). In any case, they were very persistent and annoying and after 20min we had had enough and tried to escape with a pineapple and bag of cashews.

We also found a Boulangerie (where the bagettes are made) that is owned by French people and that sells chocolate croissants! I love Ouagadougou! Haha. Chocolate croissants, can I ask for anything more?

Randoms of the Week
-Ange, you’ll be disgusted to hear that people eat dog here, mostly in the villages, but if one is killed by a car or something, people will surely take it home for dinner. I’ve been thinking if I’d ever taste it, since it is a specialty in some villages how Ange would kill me (she doesn’t eat pig because they have the same intelligence as dogs, imagine if she learned I ate dog!)

-random story, since we are on the animal topic. One cooperant was packing up to go on a trip and told her guard to prepare the cat while she went out to get some last minute things at the store. When she returned, she couldn’t find her cat, so she asked her guard where he was and he brought out a skewer with…well he prepared the cat alright :S

-the other day at work, in a period of boredom waiting for my ride, I picked up a phone book, where I tried to see how many people had the last name Ouédraogo, and more specifically which name was the most popular. After some browsing I found that Abama Ouédraogo is the most popular name in this city, with a total of 110 people holding the same first and last name.

Week 4

Mon, Sept 29th
Today I got to visit the clinic which is run by the Evangelist organization. It was in the poorest area of the region, which was definitely an eye opener, but something that I had been looking ‘forward’ to experiencing. Since I live in the capital, poverty is masked and a lot more hidden, so I definitely want to get out into the villages more and get a real feel of why this country is ranked 2nd last in the world on the Human Development Index.

Inside, I went into a room, where there were about 8 beds and 2 dozen people standing around. On the beds were children, the oldest of which was maybe 7yrs old, all on IVs. The director told me that this was the ‘malaria room’, where the cases were so severe that it surpassed the ability to treat the disease through oral medication. No one spoke, but just stood in silence and watched me. Driving back I was just thinking on how ‘this is the time to do something’ and I was looking forward to being able to come back and spend more time at the clinic in order to better understand how it functions and the difficulties faced in the region.

Tues Sept 30th
Today is Ramadan, which means the day off. This country is mostly populated by Christians and Muslims and you can find both religions within the same family, which is really great. Muslims celebrate Christian holidays as do Christians with Muslim traditions. We were invited to have a Ramadan meal with a friend, Moctar. So as we got there, it ended up being just Benoit and I with Moctar (with his wife and kid and his sister in law and her kid who were preparing the meal). We stayed inside to talk, but after a while I felt bad and went outside to offer my help. I ended up peeling potatoes…with my hands lol. All that kept flashing through my mind was the ‘Willy Waller 2006’ from ‘Tete a Claque’ and how I could have been a part of that demonstration where the nail peeling was put up against the willy waller peeler in a potato peeling challenge. Luckily I had nails, or else that bucket would have taken a lot more time!

Moctar’s wife kept giving Moctar’s sisters’ kid (who is just shy of one) chunks of onion to eat lol, which he seemed to like. Once he was satisfied with eating onion, he moved on to placing an entire clove of garlic in his mouth and chewing it like gum. Yumm…

When the meal was finished, we ate. It was a traditional Senagalian chicken (he’s from Senegal) with sauce and vegetables. It was all placed in a large bowl with a basket of bread to the side. The 3 of us sat around on the floor, washed our hands and dug in (eating with our hands, the traditional African way). Omg, it was soo good haha! It was really funny because Moctar was peeling chunks of chicken from the bone and putting it in front of me. I told him that I was okay and could pick it off myself, but he insisted on replenishing my supply every few minutes and telling me that I need to be well fed. At one point, I grabbed a carrot from the other side of the plate and he noticed and followed by grabbing all the other chunks of carrot in the plate and putting it in front of me (and asking his wife to bring me some more). It was pretty funny.

Wed Oct 1st
Today the office had planned a trip to Gourcy (a rural town in the northern portion of Burkina) where the association has other projects. So we went and visited the schools there. Supposedly because the kids come from pretty far to go to school, they are provided with a lunch. And although each kid is obligated to bring 3kilos of green beans at the beginning of the year to help provide for these lunches, they still spend a lot of money on rice (about $50/day) to provide for the 125 students or so that frequent the school. And this is over a 9 month period! Food prices are ridiculous here, especially relative to wages.

After the school, we visited a few villages in the boonies, and by that I mean, we drove through peanut and sesame fields to come across wheat fields with 1m wide spaces which was like a maze trying to navigate. I have no idea how we managed to find the 2 villages where we were paying our respects to a family with a recently deceased father and one of the workers’ old village. It was my first time in the village and I’m pretty sure it was their first time seeing a white foreigner lol. The kids especially were just staring at me like I was something from outer space. I got to test out a lot of my Moré though (the local language). I know about 6 words, but it was enough to get them to all think that I spoke fluently, which they found very impressive.

Thur Oct 2nd
Today was my first day at the school. The kids are so cute! Haha. School hasn’t officially started yet, it is pretty much just watching kids play in the court all day, giving them some bread, pouring them water, etc. On Monday they will start their courses. I think for now it is just to get them used to coming to school and getting into that routine, since these kids are as young as 3 years old and it is their first time away from their moms. But at times I am left alone to supervise over 40 kids outside between the ages of 3-5!
This afternoon I went to the WUSC office to use the internet, and I am here now trying to recap the last 2 weeks of being here so that I can finally give you all an update.

Overall, I have to say that I am really happy with my situation. I love living where I’m living, Anne and Benoit are great to live with, I have met and made a bunch of local friends, I have checked out a bunch of local street vendors, theatres and events. I am feeling really comfortable and at home here. At some points, as weird as this may sound, I feel less of a minority here then when I’m in Canada (even though I am stared at and called ‘nasara’- white foreigner- by all the children).

Tomorrow I am off to Bobo for the weekend with Charlotte. It is about 5hrs by bus and is the second largest town in Burkina. We are hoping for good weather to be able to check out some falls and to hang out with friends that we made during our travel from Canada.

Until next time…take care everyone.
Tiana

Oh and my address here is...

01 PO Box 3440
Ouagadougou 01
Burkina Faso

I’m Alive! Time for all the updates!

I’m going to take this day by day, and despite my best efforts, it’s a long one, so you might want to take a few days to digest it all.

September 7th, 2008

Departure time! Ahhh!

Last night my parents made me a little going away bbq, which was really nice. Got to see most of my family there, which was great because we hadn’t had the chance to do so all summer (or we did and I couldn’t go because of work). Regardless, I took the chance to finally be on the giving end of the drink making (Grandmaman Rodrigue is always making us drinks, so I was looking forward to finally making her one!). Even though I did not expect anything, they came full of cards and pleasant wishes to send me off the next day. I even got a harmonica from Pat and Trish, which is supposed to ‘keep me busy on all my spare time’ hihi. I’ll try to learn something by xmas to show the family.

Plan was to leave at 12 noon, but as I weighed my final luggage just at that point, it was 42 kilos! Ayayay! I was planning for it to be overweight and only have 2 bags, but they won’t take anything over 32 kilos, so I rushed to shove half of the load into a third bag. Within 10 minutes it was good to go, and off we went to Toronto. On the way I desperately tried to finish the last chapters of Harry Potter (the last book) as I had just realized days earlier that I had not yet finished the entire book! How could I forget that! By the time we got to the airport, I still had the last chapter to go, but got the just of who lived and who died.

Drop off at the airport was brisk, which in retrospect was better I think. I got a little choked up saying bye to the folks and the brother. My mom started crying, which made me shed some tears.

Flight to Montreal to meet up with a group of 6 engineering students who I will be traveling with to Burkina (Simon, Alexandre, William, Kristell, Stephanie, Karine). They are going to be living in another city building a rice processing plant in 3.5 months. When I got to the airport, it wasn’t too hard to find one of them, Simon who was waiting for me and introduced me to the rest of the bunch. We also met up with a family who will be living near the engineers (in Bobo); Sevrine, Francois and their two sons, Raphael (2.5yrs) and Lucas (4.5yrs).

Flight was pretty decent. I managed to get the 3 middle seats to myself, which made for a nice stretching space. And although I didn’t manage to sleep the whole 8 hours, it was good to rest my eyes since the re-runs of friends with terrible un-audible sound would have made for a very long flight!

Sept 8th
Arrival at Cassablanca, Morocco, where we had a 12 hour lay over. The airline was nice and provided us with hotel rooms and meals. We had a swim (most of them in their underwear since we only had our carry ons with us…luckily I figured a bathing suit in my carry was a good idea).

Since we had a long stop over, we wanted to take advantage of it and decided to try to get into town. From the hotel, taxis gave ‘tours’ where they’d bring you to 3 ‘hot spots’ with 30min stops at each. So Alexandre, one of the engineers negotiated with the taxi drivers (since we needed 2) and bargained us 2 taxis for $115 US for 3 hours as long as there was 1 beautiful girl in each of the taxis (which is what Alex used as a bargaining chip to decrease the price). The tour took us to the Moroccan market, the world’s second largest mosque and the beach. It was very enjoyable. The ride was a little scary though, the roads are chaos and there were no seat belts. All I could think about was my mom who would have had a heart attack riding in that kind of traffic. Each intersection is like a yield point, but yielding there means everyone goes at once and tries to maneuver between the cars and not get hit!

Late departure from Morocco and arrival in Ouagadougou at 2:30am. That night was such a rush, everything was happening so fast. People all around us were trying to help (for money of course) and hung around us like hawks. The guy who pushed my bags onto a trolley and started helping me ended up getting a Toonie since that’s all I had. As I was pulling out with my luggage, the guy decided he wanted to check mine and continued to ask if we could meet some time since Im staying in Ouaga (I had to tell him where I was going because he was wearing a military uniform, I figured it was like customs or whatnot, you can’t go around being mysterious trying to avoid giving out details, or they could not let you pass into the country! Little did I know…) I just kept saying ‘ok, so we’re done here’ lol.

At that point, we were all separated into 3 vehicles going to 3 different places. 3 of us were staying at Angele’s house, the regional Canadian coordinator, while others went to stay at another cooperants house and still others at a hotel. The ride home is when the whole thing hit me. I had been avoiding thinking about it because then Id start to get nervous and realize that I was here for an entire year alone! But the ride home was like ‘wow, I am actually doing this’. It was 3am by this time and the streets were empty and very scary looking. And although Burkina is a very safe country, the surroundings looked dangerous and sketchy.

Arriving at Angele’s, I was given the room which is detached from the house. Angele’s got a nice place. It is equipped with 2 full bedrooms with separate bathrooms for each as well as her own quarters. So she houses a lot of volunteers on their way in and out of the country.

I went to bed right away but had so many thoughts through my head, I wanted to write them down in my journal (which I was going to give a try…the writing thing). As I sat down on my bed though, I saw a lizard jump up the wall! AHHH. Frick! There was a lizard in my room! Well that totally screwed me up. Stupid Galloway mice has permanently scared my brain and caused me to freak out with every small moving object or thing. Not knowing what to do, I went to the other room inside the house, where William and Kristell were staying (bf/gf) and asked him what I should do. He was kind of lost and failed to comfort me by saying that they couldn’t hurt me. I think I totally caught him off guard haha. So that night, I put the fan on (to muffle the sound of moving footsteps), put earplugs in, put a hoodie on (with the hood tight against my head) and tucked myself into the covers really good. It wasn’t until 8am that I managed to fall asleep though, and I slept less than 4 hours before deciding to get up and go into the house to wait for the others to wake up.

Sept 9th
Today in the afternoon, we were all getting picked up by 2 drivers and brought into town to buy cell phones. We also met Charlotte and Melanie who are 2 University of Ottawa students here for a 3 month placement.

Buying cell phones, Simon (our driver) brought us to his sisters cell phone hut (although whether or not it’s his real sister is questionable, its hard to judge the boundaries of relatives here as everyone is brothers and sisters). It was quite the process to buy them, I think it took 1 hour for us to all get one, during which time walking vendors tried to convince us to buy their goods. Luckily, they were more so bugging the guys to buy things haha, which was good for us girls.

Whoever said that Burkina Faso was hot but NOT humid, was a LIAR! I woke today and it is 30*C according to a thermometer sitting on the desk in the cool house, but it is definitely hotter than that outside! Morning rains does cool down the air, but by the afternoon, all that moisture raises and makes the place humid as heck! The cook (yes, there is a cook, and a guard)…assures me that it is ‘cold’ today and that 2 days ago it was 39*! If it gets any hotter than this, I’m going to die! Luckily the fact that my shower does not have hot water is an inviting feature.

Sept 10th
I finally managed to sleep last night, but I feel more tired than I have felt since I left home. I think my body finally realized what it was missing. Today I got a cell phone number! Woot. So here it is. I don’t know how successful, if at all successful anyone will be in calling or texting me since I have tried texting people back home and abroad and it has failed. If you manage to get through though, it doesn’t cost me any minutes! Which is awesome because otherwise it’s 50c per minute to make local calls, so you can imagine the long distance charges! Yikes! My number is…

226-71-26-02-68
So if you are calling from Canada, you’d dial:
011+ my number. (226 is the country code)

Although my appetite has decreased slightly, I’m actually surprised on how well I’ve been able to eat. As previously explained, Angele (and most people here who have a bit of money) have a cook and/or maid to clean and do laundry etc. Abdula, who is Angele’s cook makes Canadian and oriental dishes more so then African, which has definitely helped in the transition. Each meal at Angele’s includes 3 courses, an appetizer, entrée, and fruits for desert. I think the 3-course thing is just something Abdula does. I think he just really likes cooking, so that gives him the opportunity to make more than one food item for each meal. Other than that, appetizers are usually cucumbers and tomatoes, or eggplant, or salad or soup and entrees are usually some meat (I’ve had chicken, beef, sheep, rabbit) and potatoes and carrots. Needless to say, he’s a really good cook and so I’ve been eating well.

Today as well as tomorrow, we are having orientation sessions. Stuff like info about the organization, a session with the local doctor to talk about health, etc. For dinner tonight, we went to a restaurant, which was very expensive. $20 for a fixed menu, which meant we had the choice between 2 salads and either chicken or fish. I ate most of the tuna on the salad but not so much the leafs because restaurants usually wash their veggies with tap water, which means there is a high likelihood that it has bacteria or something else unpleasant that I really don’t want to digest. I had chicken, but again my appetite wasn’t really there, so I ate the fries (which were good) and a bit of the chicken. The chickens here are really tiny and there isn’t a lot of meat on the bone, and the meat that does exist is like chewing gum. It’s so tough! They definitely don’t keep their chickens in a cage. But definitely not worth $20! And that’s for a foreigner, imagine what a fortune that is for a local! Most of the population here lives on less than $1-2/day.

Angele says you never really know what you’re eating. She was mentioning this as she was telling us what would happen to her cat if it ran away. I guess eating cats and dogs isn’t just an Asian thing.

Sept 11th
Last day together with all the other volunteers before they leave to their respective areas *tear. It’s been so great hanging out with them and I’m already starting to think of when I’ll be able to go visit them.

Today we went to visit the Canadian embassy and chatted with a regional coordinator of foreign aid into the country. After that, half of us went home and the other half to do some running around town.

Dinner that night was at Angele’s where all the UNITERRA workers as well as volunteers got together and met. Although it was good to meet the other volunteers, I was starting to feel really sad that everyone would leave me in the morning.

To make matters worse, I left my camera outside overnight (keep in mind it is the rainy season, and yes…if you are wondering, it did rain that night). I couldn’t find it in the morning and I was afraid I had left it outside after taking a picture. I asked Abdula the next day and he had brought it in and was drying out the case. I don’t know how long it was left outside but thank god for the hard case, I’m sure it kept a lot more water out then would have a material one. And unlike my luck with electronics, it actually works! Thank god! Budgeting for the purchase of another camera would have sucked royally.

Sept 12th
Last night my mind wandered to the fact that everyone was leaving which made me feel sick to my stomach. Luckily, somehow, I was able to block the thought from my mind within 10 minutes. I woke that morning and just after having finished breakfast, got a call from Benoit (one of the volunteers who lives in Ouaga and is here with his wife, Anne) inviting me over for steak for lunch. I kind of felt bad leaving Abdula because he was making a carrot cake for lunch and I’m sure he had prepared something, but I didn’t want to pass up any opportunities to get to know the other Ouaga volunteers better since these are the people I will likely be hanging out with during my stay here.

Although he lives just 4 roads down, he came and picked me up on his moto since I have no sense of direction here and there are no street names anywhere. Benoit and Anne have been here for 3 months already and are here for another year still. Not even 1 month into their stay, Benoit got into an accident on his moto and was flown to France to have his elbow stitched up. I guess they don’t deal with big wounds here, or anywhere in West Africa for that matter? Hmm. Well it’s good to know that we are near the airport if ever I need to leave the country for medical purposes *knock on wood.

Sept 13th
It’s Williams birthday today, so I sent the gang a txt, to wish him a happy bday and to see how they were making out in Bama (the city near Bobo, where they are constructing their rice processing building).

That morning, Angele needed to go to the market (to the import store) to pick up a few things, so I asked to tag along so I can see what it’s all about. It is busy busy busy, those streets! Everyone wants to help you park (bc they get something out of it, you have to give them money), and people were fast to swarm us as soon as we stepped out of the car to try to sell us things. Angele made like a Torontonian and bee-lined it to the store which I hurried behind her to keep up. I picked up 2 boxes of cookies and a jar of jam (for when I move out, so I have something to snack on and sustain myself) and it cost me $7.50. Stuff here, especially food prices have increased significantly in the last couple years. I’m on a Canadian budget so I’m finding it expensive to buy stuff, but imagine once again these food prices when you’re making $50/month (in a good job…ie. a cook or guard gets that). That kind of money doesn’t go very far when food costs as much as is does in the western world.

The Marina Market, is a very popular chain of imported goods stores. As we waited in line to check out, I got a phone call and the person on the other line kept asking if ‘this was Tiana Rodrigue’. I could barely hear, but after 5 min of confirmation, I realized it was my parents! :D
I was so happy to hear from them finally as we had been trying to reach each other for days unsuccessfully. It was 6am there (we’re 4 hours ahead) and by some luck, the call finally went through. My mom was going to work though, and because I was in the market, I couldn’t hear anything beyond the sounds of cars and crowds. I asked them to call me back when she got home from work since I’d be back at Angele’s and would be able to hear a lot better. Plus I hadn’t talked to them in a week so I was looking forward to chatting for a bit.

Next we went to a photo place so that Angele could get some passport pics taken. As I waited for her, this young girl (my age) started talking to me and asked if we could be friends. And so we exchanged numbers, and I heard from her a few days later (she called to make sure I hadn’t forgotten about her and to make sure I still wanted to hang out later in the week). Her forwardness took me by surprise, but hopefully it works out for the better, it would be good to hang out with some locals.

After the market, we dropped off our stuff at Angele’s house and drove to the office. I wanted to get on the internet to check my emails and such. I managed to talk to my dad on msn, which was nice as well as a few other people.

That night, I was looking forward to my parents calling. At 3:30 Canadian time, I called to see if they were calling back and ended up calling 2 more times later that night to find out why it wasn’t working. I can call home and it goes through but they could not for some reason reach me. I was getting really frustrating because each 30sec call I was making home was costing me $1 and I ran out of minutes fast. Angele wanted to watch a movie, so we put on 10,000 BC and luckily it eventually took my mind off the unsuccessful phone call.

As I went to bed, I got a msg, which I quickly grabbed the phone thinking my parents may have finally managed to get through, but it was a msg from the engineers, which made me happy none the less. They said they had a great welcoming in Bama and that they looked forward to me coming to visit.

Sept 14th
Sunday, relax and laundry day. Luckily Angele has a washing machine (she is really living it up here!). So we washed and hung clothes, read, swam (she’s got a small pool too haha) and played cards with Anne and Benoit who came for a swim. I have been getting more and more nervous about my living situation. The organization pays for us to stay somewhere for 2 weeks when we arrive, which means that I am on my own by next week. The school and the partner organization I’ll be working with is about 30min away from the city and I’m told in the middle of nowhere, oh great! This was making me more worried, the unforgiving culture shock would hit me within the next few months and I would be depressed and alone 30 min from anyone I knew or anything to do). I was at this point considering getting a place in town if I can find someone to live with (hopefully another volunteer or foreigner, which are hard to come by) and commuting to work everyday either by moto (I bought the former volunteer’s moped off her) and by making a deal with a taxi driver to come and pick me up and drop me off twice a day to work (on time, which would be hard to negotiate, we are on African time here).

That night, a bunch of the volunteers got together and went out for a drink at the Marquis down the street. One of the volunteers, Marie-Helene just got a place to herself with an empty unfurnished room which I was questioning the chances of renting. Her boyfriend is moving in though next month, so I don’t know how much they’d want a third person there. She would consider it though, which was good enough for me. At this point, I was considering sending off emails to all of the main organizations who have foreign volunteers in Ouaga to see if they had someone who was looking for another person to live with, but most other organizations provide and pay for the housing, so again, an obstacle.

I left the Marquis with Benoit and Anne who were walking in my direction and 5 minutes after having got back, they came knocking at my door and offered that I live with them. They had always said ‘worse comes to worse’ I could live with them, but wanted to tell me that it didn’t have to be worse case scenario, that I could stay there. Sooo much weight had been lifted from my shoulders at that moment. Although I said I didn’t want to impose, bc at the marquis, they had talked about how they were happy to finally have the house to themselves and not have people always coming and going. They assured me that it’s different because I’d have my own key and they wouldn’t have to worry about feeding me or being there when people arrived/left/etc.

That night, I got a phone call at 12:30am, it was my parents!!! Finally they were able to reach me and we talked for a while. They caught me at the perfect time because I was in a good mood and my visit to the partner organization the next day (and to see the house they had found for me) was less looming through my head.

It’s not finalized that I am living with them, but I’m really hoping too, but told them to think about it more and let me know for sure if they want someone there. If so, this would be amazing! Id live just streets down from Angele, and accessible to all the things downtown as well as the UNITERRA office. But most importantly living with 2 people who are really nice, which would surely save me from the eminent depression curve. Not to mention they are here the rest of the year and have a cat that likes to chase lizards, which would mean a lizard free room! (No, they have not vacated my room, they are still crawling around in there while I’m there. Luckily it hasn’t prevented me from getting sleep as I have put many measures in place to prevent my fears from overcoming my mind including a loud fan, ear plugs, pulling my bed into the center of the room to avoid close proximity to any walls they might be climbing on and shaking my bed every 30seconds when I’m awake to scare them from getting any closer).

Sept 15th
Today, I was going to meet up with the partner organization and be accompanied by Simon (our driver) and Fatimata (the sector specialist of HIV/AIDS…which is the sector under which I am working, even though I’m working in education). Our initial plan of leaving at 10am, changed at 11am as I received a phone call telling me that they rescheduled for 3pm that afternoon. So I just hung around the house that day.

Practiced the harmonica! I copied down a tab for a song when I was at the office while I had the internet to see if I could manage to learn something, and as soon as I saw it, I knew it should be my first song attempt. Hey Jude by the Beatles, and I must say, I’ve tried it out and it sounds pretty good (except for a few parts, but I’m blaming that on the harmonica which doesn’t seem to let me play the lower keys). Oh well, maybe with a little oiling, it’ll be good to go. I’ll have that song played for you by Christmas Pat, don’t you worry!

That afternoon, we traveled about 25 minutes out of town to visit the partner organization. Everyone there seemed really nice and cool, so my year should function nicely. There we met Fatimata’s brother (biologically, who knows) who was jockingly saying that we should have babies in order to ‘expand the family’. Fatie shook her head saying that although she supports expanding the family, she does not do so half hazardly. The drive was shorter then I expected which meant that I would have to travel less to work (if I decided to live in town). They couldn’t reach the owner of the house they wanted to show me as a possibility, so we planned to come back the following day to check it out.

By the time we got back from the office, the temperature had dropped to 21*C, a bit chilly but I was comfortable in my tank and skirt. I spent the rest of the day in the office on the web and waited for Angele to finish. Got home, ate Vietnamese rolls (mmm) and watched Across the Universe.

Sept 16th
Once again, we departed to the office of AEAD. We had planned to be there at 10am, but as time flows here, we did a bunch of running around (Simon and I) beforehand and didn’t get to the office until 1.5hrs later. Our search for an adapter finally ended at an electronics store, where we bought 10 adapters (as Angele wanted some on hand to give to upcoming volunteers). I was surprised to see 2 white guys behind the counter of the sales desk. As we sat, we got an order for the plugs and the guy gave us a deal (each plug went from 250FCAs to 200FCAs), and we didn’t even ask for a deal. A vendor, offering a decrease in price at a fixed-price store, without us even asking, unheard of! The guy helping us was young, so who knows, maybe he wants me to come back and continues my business there, although I don’t know how many tools or electronics I’ll be needing in the next year.

As we drove around, I saw some guy trying to sell a Britney Spears poster of her early career (she looked about 16 in the pic) and Simon listens to an English radio station which plays American songs, so I heard Rihanna and the song ‘I kissed a girl’ which made me think of home J.

Getting to the office in Pecy, we picked up Souleymane, one of AEAD’s cooperatives and drove to the school (which was a solid 5min drive, a lot further then I thought). So walking from the office to the school, where I’ll mostly be working would take me at least 20-30minutes walking, and I’m not sure I want to do that in the scorching heat.

Just across the street, we checked out the house they had found for me. It was fairly nice, clean at least, and freshly painted. The only downfall was that it was empty. It’s a 3 room house, one of which I would have to turn into a kitchen/living room and by ‘turn into’ I mean I’d have to buy a fridge, stove, table, etc. anything that I’d want to have in my kitchen. Each room has 4 white walls and a ceiling, and that’s about it. So Benoit and Anne’s house was feeling much more welcoming already. Not to mention the amount that I’d have to pay to buy furniture, I could totally use to pay for a taxi to and from work everyday.

After a visit to the school, we dropped by Souleymane’s place, where Nathalie used to live just down the street. We sat for 10min with him in his living room and watched French news. People here take quite an interest in Baraque Obama, it’ll be interesting to see how the results are taken on this end of the world.

Later that night, we ate and watched ‘The Kingdom’ before hitting the sack.

Okay, sorry for the length of this one, I don’t presume I’ll be detailing my life in as much detail in upcoming posts, I just wanted to do so here mostly for the sake of my family, to see what I’ve been up to.

Stay tuned for much more random (and hopefully shorter) updates…