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