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!