So life in Kaya has been pretty normal as of late. I had a PSDN meeting last week and celebrated Carolyn's birthday with her and made sure the newsletter got out. I then returned to Kaya and have been teaching according to schedule pretty much. Then Today happened.
I am awakened by a call from Emma at 8 and she tells me that the kids are graving (aka: skipping school and protesting). I say ok, and try to call some professors to find out what is going on. I get a hold of one and he tells me that his wife had twins. I say; congratulations and I will come to the school in an hour. He then tells me the kids are graving because of the dust.
At first I thought he was kidding. I mean; I live near the Sahel and well; dust happens. It is right now the Hamartan and that means the dust is even worse; but how do you protest that. I arrive at my school and as I look down the road; I see that they have set up tons of little blockades using rocks or logs or other various materials and they have set some of them on fire.
I enter my school and just sit with my professors who are laughing and are just watching things happening. The students are protesting because they want a paved road to the school. I am in agreeance with them on this issue. We have one other main road that everyone uses in Kaya and it is not paved; however on this road is the Regional Hospital. It makes perfect sense to pave this road. However; apparently the way to get this done is to block the road and set it on fire. There were probably 300-500 kids (ages 7-25) protesting today. It was interesting to watch.
I don't know what finally happened; I think it was just the repo hours so it finally stopped. But it was interesting because a lot of the community seemed to be behind the kids. The kids didn't destroy anything (besides some trash) and no one got hurt. They even turned in a form that morning demanding what they wanted. All in all an interesting protest to watch. We have kids blocking a road here and burning things and no one gets pepper sprayed... Maybe a few policeman in the states should have seen this.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Trent talks about death, plagues, and boring conversations.
So I have said that I have been busy and this is an honest statement. I started classes and an english club on Monday. Today I go to teach and I find out that a student has died, so there will be not classes that day. This is an interesting phenomenon here in Burkina. If a student dies or professor or someone, they cancel classes that day. Now, I sadly found out that one of the students that I really liked died during the summer also. He was one of the guys here who danced in the traditional dances and was a good kid. However, I did not know his name. That is actually another strange phenomenon here. No one knows anyones name. They just kinda know them. But while it was sad that a student died, it was kinda a business as usual approach to life. Minus the lack of classes. They do not have the same emotions attached to death that I see in the states alot of times. I asked the students where the student I liked who danced was and they just said, oh he died this summer in and accident. This was one of the kids who I assumed was one of his best friends. I ,very american, was like, oh I am sorry. and the kid just started asking when I was starting teaching again. I think it must be because people die here more frequently, People get sick or in accidents. I guess it is a ca va allez thing.
Also, we are in mini hot season right now and moving into cool season. It is going to start to cool down. It will be nice to be cooled down, however that means that harvesting is almost over and ever since they started we have had more grasshoppers than I can count. I feel like I am at Biblical plague proportions of grasshoppers. A few manage to sneak into my house each day and they love to jump around my house and jump on me while I am sleeping. It is really annoying. I keep a cup of water next to me when I sleep, because I wake up all the time craving water and I have to now check it everytime to make sure I don't have a grasshopper backstroking in my water cup, or worse doing the dead man's float.
Anyway, I recieved some great news this week and that is that my brother got a job!!! I am very excited for him. I know that it is hard to do right now, so I am very very thankful and glad he is so talented.
Tomorrow Diana is going to come and stay with me and going to go the Embassy thing at my school. I am glad to have the company. So Diana, Emma, and I will all be at my school in the morning and helping doing English clubs and stuff. Then in the afternoon we are going to Madame Governer's house. That should be an affair. I will be hob knobbing with all the important people showing off my terrible French.
I got made fun of a little bit today because the professors were having one of thier political/history/whats up in the world talking sessions. I sat in on it for about 40 minutes. If you people in America think that I had trouble paying attention before, you are going to be in for a real treat when I get home. I am very good about just sitting there pretending to listen and just thinking about things. Out of the 40 mins, I probably payed attention to 15.
Also, I have finished watching Mad Men (all four seasons), 2 seasons of Arrested Development, and 3 episodes of new Glee. I also caught up on True Blood. Also for those interested, there is apparently a Zombie movie that was filmed in Burkina Faso it is called..The Dead. I have not watched it yet, I think I am going to wait for Diana to come and watch it with me. I think it will scare the bejesus out of her and that will be fun.
That reminds me of when I used to get together with Krystal and Amber and watch Horror movies. I really do love Horror movies and I am sad that I am missing another Halloween. I am going to have to really go out the year that I get back.
Which for those of you counting, I have only 9 months left. Yes, that is correct. If you are planning on getting knocked up and having a baby before I get back, you better do it soon. For those nice people who are waiting until I get back, I appreciate the thought. I am missing enough weddings and things. I don't need tons of unknown babies being thrown at me when I get back as well. Let me enjoy them while they are in Utero. Because I won't want anything to do with them for about 2 years after that. I like them when they are fun, not when they just sit there. By the way, if the first word your kid says to me is Nasara, I promise I will send it to Burkina.
Ok so I was going to post this before and I forgot my key at my house, so I did not, but guess what; that means that you get more of an update!!! Yay!!
So Diana came to stay with me on Wednesday so we could be up bright and early for the Embassy visit. We arrive at the school at 815 and go over the star spangled banner with the three kids who learned it. They sang it terribly, but they did have all the words and the general rythym so I was happy. The first thing they did in the morning was an english club with the students where they taught them about the food pyramid, only thing is, that they used a plate. This is the new method of teaching people what they should be eating. They create a plate and divide it up with 4 food groups then add a glass that represents dairy. Apparently this is a less complicated food pyramid. The kids seemed to understand and follow very well. They did say that chocolate was dairy, but I kinda told my group that was ok. When the lady saw that they put chocolate on the table, she said that she liked where their head was. So after the english club they talked to the students about ways that they could go to college in the United States. They talked and told them about myths and the real way to get to the United States and how expensive it is. After that, Emma, Diana, and I peaced out to my place and I made some Vache qui rite mac and cheese. So after we ate it was time to go to the governors house. We arrive and we are late, because they are running early!?!?! I was shocked and appalled by this. I was also very impressed. So I arrive and they were just finishing with the pomp and circumstance. We showed up just in time for pictures. After pictures, there was cultural dancing. Which I have seen a hundred times. I sat and watched and then the governor comes and grabs me (literally) and takes me inside. She sits me down at a few tables, (it looked alot like the last supper setup, if so then I am the person three to the left of Jesus) then she brings me food and wine. We are guests of honor with the Embassy people. I was just glad I could sit and talk with some of the Embassy people.
After we are leaving the governors, we go to get on our bicycles. This is funny because, everyone else is in big white SUVs with air conditioning. We wait for the cars to pass and as the people are passing in thier nice cars, we can see there faces. They all said, oh those poor Peace Corps people. Look at them with thier bicycles and thier helmets. They pass us and take the road out of the Governors to the lycee. One thing they did not realize is that the Governors house is on a big hill. So it sucked to bike up there (or in Diana's case walk up there), but the way down was so much fun. It was like a roller coaster and I was almost certain that I was going to fly off my bike at any minute. It is a semi steep hill that is a dirt road. Tons of fun, but semi-dangerous. We are going down the hill and we beat the parade of cars going to the lycee, but one thing we did not think about was that they were still going to pass us right before the lycee. When a car drives down this road, dust flies up and creates a huge dust cloud and they had like 15 cars. When they got out, one lady said she felt so bad because she could see the dust hitting us in the face. lol. We just said that we were used to it. Score one for hardcore Peace Corps.
After some more cultural dancing and a sketch, we were able to leave and it was time to go back to the school for the town hall meeting. Now this meeting was supposed to be about asking questions about America and them being in Burkina. It turned into a session where different groups came and asked for things. This continued for about 40 minutes. It was very annoying. The Embassy was annoyed and it was nice to see other Americans annoyed with Burkinabe. lol. They left afterwards and Emma, Diana, and I went to get something to eat.
I taught this morning (Friday) and we went to the Marche and Diana bought all kinds of stuff and I helped her decrease the price of stuff. I ended up buying a small bag with a symbol on it for Ghana. I enjoyed it and it will be a small bag that I can use to carry some cash, my camera, and phone in. It will come in handy at the beach and places. We had some meat sandwiches for supper that I made and are watching movies. Tomorrow, (aka when I update this) I am going to go swimming at Hotel Pacific. Hopefully Emma will be able to come and it will be fun. I can't wait.
So.. More to come, this was more rambling than I planned it to be. Oh, but one more thing. I have 2 reservations for places in Ghana!!! I am going to be on a Beach this Christmas. Hopefully, sipping cocktails and eating wonderful food with Jade (one of my friends/roommates from college who is visiting me), Shannon, and Diana. I am very excited for this trip and I go to Ghana in about 50 days. The time will fly by. So I am trying to think of things to write about... How about you guys email me some ideas of some things you guys still want to hear about that I have not talked about.
Busy in Burkina,
Trent
Also, we are in mini hot season right now and moving into cool season. It is going to start to cool down. It will be nice to be cooled down, however that means that harvesting is almost over and ever since they started we have had more grasshoppers than I can count. I feel like I am at Biblical plague proportions of grasshoppers. A few manage to sneak into my house each day and they love to jump around my house and jump on me while I am sleeping. It is really annoying. I keep a cup of water next to me when I sleep, because I wake up all the time craving water and I have to now check it everytime to make sure I don't have a grasshopper backstroking in my water cup, or worse doing the dead man's float.
Anyway, I recieved some great news this week and that is that my brother got a job!!! I am very excited for him. I know that it is hard to do right now, so I am very very thankful and glad he is so talented.
Tomorrow Diana is going to come and stay with me and going to go the Embassy thing at my school. I am glad to have the company. So Diana, Emma, and I will all be at my school in the morning and helping doing English clubs and stuff. Then in the afternoon we are going to Madame Governer's house. That should be an affair. I will be hob knobbing with all the important people showing off my terrible French.
I got made fun of a little bit today because the professors were having one of thier political/history/whats up in the world talking sessions. I sat in on it for about 40 minutes. If you people in America think that I had trouble paying attention before, you are going to be in for a real treat when I get home. I am very good about just sitting there pretending to listen and just thinking about things. Out of the 40 mins, I probably payed attention to 15.
Also, I have finished watching Mad Men (all four seasons), 2 seasons of Arrested Development, and 3 episodes of new Glee. I also caught up on True Blood. Also for those interested, there is apparently a Zombie movie that was filmed in Burkina Faso it is called..The Dead. I have not watched it yet, I think I am going to wait for Diana to come and watch it with me. I think it will scare the bejesus out of her and that will be fun.
That reminds me of when I used to get together with Krystal and Amber and watch Horror movies. I really do love Horror movies and I am sad that I am missing another Halloween. I am going to have to really go out the year that I get back.
Which for those of you counting, I have only 9 months left. Yes, that is correct. If you are planning on getting knocked up and having a baby before I get back, you better do it soon. For those nice people who are waiting until I get back, I appreciate the thought. I am missing enough weddings and things. I don't need tons of unknown babies being thrown at me when I get back as well. Let me enjoy them while they are in Utero. Because I won't want anything to do with them for about 2 years after that. I like them when they are fun, not when they just sit there. By the way, if the first word your kid says to me is Nasara, I promise I will send it to Burkina.
Ok so I was going to post this before and I forgot my key at my house, so I did not, but guess what; that means that you get more of an update!!! Yay!!
So Diana came to stay with me on Wednesday so we could be up bright and early for the Embassy visit. We arrive at the school at 815 and go over the star spangled banner with the three kids who learned it. They sang it terribly, but they did have all the words and the general rythym so I was happy. The first thing they did in the morning was an english club with the students where they taught them about the food pyramid, only thing is, that they used a plate. This is the new method of teaching people what they should be eating. They create a plate and divide it up with 4 food groups then add a glass that represents dairy. Apparently this is a less complicated food pyramid. The kids seemed to understand and follow very well. They did say that chocolate was dairy, but I kinda told my group that was ok. When the lady saw that they put chocolate on the table, she said that she liked where their head was. So after the english club they talked to the students about ways that they could go to college in the United States. They talked and told them about myths and the real way to get to the United States and how expensive it is. After that, Emma, Diana, and I peaced out to my place and I made some Vache qui rite mac and cheese. So after we ate it was time to go to the governors house. We arrive and we are late, because they are running early!?!?! I was shocked and appalled by this. I was also very impressed. So I arrive and they were just finishing with the pomp and circumstance. We showed up just in time for pictures. After pictures, there was cultural dancing. Which I have seen a hundred times. I sat and watched and then the governor comes and grabs me (literally) and takes me inside. She sits me down at a few tables, (it looked alot like the last supper setup, if so then I am the person three to the left of Jesus) then she brings me food and wine. We are guests of honor with the Embassy people. I was just glad I could sit and talk with some of the Embassy people.
After we are leaving the governors, we go to get on our bicycles. This is funny because, everyone else is in big white SUVs with air conditioning. We wait for the cars to pass and as the people are passing in thier nice cars, we can see there faces. They all said, oh those poor Peace Corps people. Look at them with thier bicycles and thier helmets. They pass us and take the road out of the Governors to the lycee. One thing they did not realize is that the Governors house is on a big hill. So it sucked to bike up there (or in Diana's case walk up there), but the way down was so much fun. It was like a roller coaster and I was almost certain that I was going to fly off my bike at any minute. It is a semi steep hill that is a dirt road. Tons of fun, but semi-dangerous. We are going down the hill and we beat the parade of cars going to the lycee, but one thing we did not think about was that they were still going to pass us right before the lycee. When a car drives down this road, dust flies up and creates a huge dust cloud and they had like 15 cars. When they got out, one lady said she felt so bad because she could see the dust hitting us in the face. lol. We just said that we were used to it. Score one for hardcore Peace Corps.
After some more cultural dancing and a sketch, we were able to leave and it was time to go back to the school for the town hall meeting. Now this meeting was supposed to be about asking questions about America and them being in Burkina. It turned into a session where different groups came and asked for things. This continued for about 40 minutes. It was very annoying. The Embassy was annoyed and it was nice to see other Americans annoyed with Burkinabe. lol. They left afterwards and Emma, Diana, and I went to get something to eat.
I taught this morning (Friday) and we went to the Marche and Diana bought all kinds of stuff and I helped her decrease the price of stuff. I ended up buying a small bag with a symbol on it for Ghana. I enjoyed it and it will be a small bag that I can use to carry some cash, my camera, and phone in. It will come in handy at the beach and places. We had some meat sandwiches for supper that I made and are watching movies. Tomorrow, (aka when I update this) I am going to go swimming at Hotel Pacific. Hopefully Emma will be able to come and it will be fun. I can't wait.
So.. More to come, this was more rambling than I planned it to be. Oh, but one more thing. I have 2 reservations for places in Ghana!!! I am going to be on a Beach this Christmas. Hopefully, sipping cocktails and eating wonderful food with Jade (one of my friends/roommates from college who is visiting me), Shannon, and Diana. I am very excited for this trip and I go to Ghana in about 50 days. The time will fly by. So I am trying to think of things to write about... How about you guys email me some ideas of some things you guys still want to hear about that I have not talked about.
Busy in Burkina,
Trent
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Trent dreams... in between his preparations.
So I am back in Kaya and I am trying to at least one bit of work a day. This can sometimes be challenging. Especially when I have slept in until almost noon the past two mornings. It was accidental this morning. I set my alarm the past two days, but have refused to get up. I also have refused to sleep the past two nights. One night I dreamed I was doing things in America, but then I freaked out because I needed to get back to Burkina because I hadn't asked permission to leave. I actually dream this quite frequently. I will be in the middle of a dream and for some reason I will remember that I am supposed to be in Burkina Faso and there is no way that the nice things in my dream are Burkina, so then I freak out about how I am going to get back in Burkina without getting into trouble. I usually contemplate how I am going to do this, then I wake up and realize... JUST KIDDING!!! You are in Burkina. I sometimes have to look around the room a couple of times and verify that I am actually in Africa and the Burkina stuff was not a dream. It plays with my head sometimes.
Last night though, I just had trouble getting to sleep. I was tossing and turning for probably 2 hours before I got to sleep. I was thinking about friends in America and thinking about what I am doing here. It is craziness sometimes. I think I looked at facebook too much. It made me long for the crazy people at home. I think it was because of how I have seen everyone's lives move forward at home and I feel like my life is stuck on Pause. I will feel better about things after I start teaching again.
So as many of you know, I have site mates. There are three of us here in Kaya. We had a meeting about what we are planning on doing over the next year. I have decided that at site, Emma is the motivation, Grace is the communication, and I am the execution. Emma motivates us to do a project and is great about finding projects at site that need to be done, Grace knows everyone and all of the officials and makes sure things are kosher government wise, then if there are problems or if people don't do what they are supposed to do, I come in and find at why and get the ball rolling. If I am visiting people it is not usually a fun visit, that or I am following up and making sure stuff is getting done. I can also do the leg work.
Now don't get me wrong, we all do a little bit of all these jobs, but those are the three parts of the Kaya Corporation.
In the future the Kaya Corporation will be putting on a fair for NGO's (Non-Governmental Organizations... think of like aid services), we will be doing tree planting (bleh... but I am promised that I will not be digging holes, so I am ok with it), and we have one other project discussed in the works. So YAY!! I am in charge of the Fair and doing the grant work with that project, Emma is in charge of the tree Planting, and Grace is in charge of the third project. Also, we are getting ready for the Embassy to come up to Kaya and visit our site at the end of the month.
The funniest thing is that all of us are going to be out of site for the month of December. I am going be here a little bit of time with Jade who is visiting me, but that is going to be about it. Grace and Emma are both going home to spend time with the families. I am not to jealous, because I have already seen Americaland and all its splendor.
We are also going to be continuing with our own site projects including English Clubs, Commerce clubs, Health activities, working with our schools/workplaces, and I think I am going to be doing a world map project after January.
So we have alot on our plates. We are going to change Kaya. They will feel our impact throughout the city.
Also in Exciting news, we have all three noticed a new restuarant opening up in Kaya. It is called Pierinis? or something like that. I have noticed an older white lady who has been ordering Burkinabe around. Emma and I are hoping for an Italian restaurant. We will have to see what happens.
Tomorrow I have to get up and go to my lab and install some programs on my computers. I have some mouse games, some geography games (seterra), and a language learning game (selingua). I would suggest seterra for everyone. It is really easy to download and is a fun way to learn your countries. I just got tired of being lost. lol. Not that I think I have ever been truly found. If you have directions, send them my way.
Missing your faces,
Trent
P.S. I also have to really get on emailing my stuff for my vacation to Ghana in December. That is rapidly approaching as well.
Last night though, I just had trouble getting to sleep. I was tossing and turning for probably 2 hours before I got to sleep. I was thinking about friends in America and thinking about what I am doing here. It is craziness sometimes. I think I looked at facebook too much. It made me long for the crazy people at home. I think it was because of how I have seen everyone's lives move forward at home and I feel like my life is stuck on Pause. I will feel better about things after I start teaching again.
So as many of you know, I have site mates. There are three of us here in Kaya. We had a meeting about what we are planning on doing over the next year. I have decided that at site, Emma is the motivation, Grace is the communication, and I am the execution. Emma motivates us to do a project and is great about finding projects at site that need to be done, Grace knows everyone and all of the officials and makes sure things are kosher government wise, then if there are problems or if people don't do what they are supposed to do, I come in and find at why and get the ball rolling. If I am visiting people it is not usually a fun visit, that or I am following up and making sure stuff is getting done. I can also do the leg work.
Now don't get me wrong, we all do a little bit of all these jobs, but those are the three parts of the Kaya Corporation.
In the future the Kaya Corporation will be putting on a fair for NGO's (Non-Governmental Organizations... think of like aid services), we will be doing tree planting (bleh... but I am promised that I will not be digging holes, so I am ok with it), and we have one other project discussed in the works. So YAY!! I am in charge of the Fair and doing the grant work with that project, Emma is in charge of the tree Planting, and Grace is in charge of the third project. Also, we are getting ready for the Embassy to come up to Kaya and visit our site at the end of the month.
The funniest thing is that all of us are going to be out of site for the month of December. I am going be here a little bit of time with Jade who is visiting me, but that is going to be about it. Grace and Emma are both going home to spend time with the families. I am not to jealous, because I have already seen Americaland and all its splendor.
We are also going to be continuing with our own site projects including English Clubs, Commerce clubs, Health activities, working with our schools/workplaces, and I think I am going to be doing a world map project after January.
So we have alot on our plates. We are going to change Kaya. They will feel our impact throughout the city.
Also in Exciting news, we have all three noticed a new restuarant opening up in Kaya. It is called Pierinis? or something like that. I have noticed an older white lady who has been ordering Burkinabe around. Emma and I are hoping for an Italian restaurant. We will have to see what happens.
Tomorrow I have to get up and go to my lab and install some programs on my computers. I have some mouse games, some geography games (seterra), and a language learning game (selingua). I would suggest seterra for everyone. It is really easy to download and is a fun way to learn your countries. I just got tired of being lost. lol. Not that I think I have ever been truly found. If you have directions, send them my way.
Missing your faces,
Trent
P.S. I also have to really get on emailing my stuff for my vacation to Ghana in December. That is rapidly approaching as well.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Trent starts school... kinda.
So it is that time of year. It is time for school to start again. It is always met with mixed reactions. So far most of the volunteers I know seem to be on the same page... I DON'T WANT TO GO BACK!!! NO PLEASE!!!
This might be a little exaggerated; but close to true. I look at it this way. School is a return to a "normal" life for me here in Africa; so I welcome it. Everyone is glad to be returning to normalcy. I am not teaching yet; but will hopefully be teaching in 2 weeks. That is my goal. Other "normal" teachers have started teaching. I will be bugging my censeur(sp?) next week and making a schedule.
One semi bit of bad news is that I have been without power for about 5 days. This is not that big of a deal; it is just annoying. I forgot to pay my bill so they cut off my power. It was not even a money issue, I just flat out forgot. So I have been dealing with Sonabel to get my power turned back on. I paid monday morning and monday afternoon they came and took my power box away. My neighbor tried to explain they were supposed to be connecting the power back; but they didn't believe him. So I went in this morning and explained what happened and they said I will have power tonight. I am not really hopeful about this; but it could happen. If not I got a phone number I can call now. Go me!!
I have the Embassy coming for a visit to Kaya soon and I need to get stuff prepared for that. It will be interesting. I will update more next time. I amsorry I have been kinda ad with replying to people. I was very busy and did not get around to it. I am working on planning a trip to Ghana in Dec and am using internet time for that as well.
I love all of my faithful followers. (even the not so faithful :)
Trent
This might be a little exaggerated; but close to true. I look at it this way. School is a return to a "normal" life for me here in Africa; so I welcome it. Everyone is glad to be returning to normalcy. I am not teaching yet; but will hopefully be teaching in 2 weeks. That is my goal. Other "normal" teachers have started teaching. I will be bugging my censeur(sp?) next week and making a schedule.
One semi bit of bad news is that I have been without power for about 5 days. This is not that big of a deal; it is just annoying. I forgot to pay my bill so they cut off my power. It was not even a money issue, I just flat out forgot. So I have been dealing with Sonabel to get my power turned back on. I paid monday morning and monday afternoon they came and took my power box away. My neighbor tried to explain they were supposed to be connecting the power back; but they didn't believe him. So I went in this morning and explained what happened and they said I will have power tonight. I am not really hopeful about this; but it could happen. If not I got a phone number I can call now. Go me!!
I have the Embassy coming for a visit to Kaya soon and I need to get stuff prepared for that. It will be interesting. I will update more next time. I amsorry I have been kinda ad with replying to people. I was very busy and did not get around to it. I am working on planning a trip to Ghana in Dec and am using internet time for that as well.
I love all of my faithful followers. (even the not so faithful :)
Trent
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Trent goes to the fair...
So when we last left Trent, he was in Kaya getting ready to go into Ouaga for a VAC (Volunteer Action Commitee) meeting, warden training, and the 50th Anniversery Fair in Ouaga... Let us continue our adventure..
So I arrive in Ouaga and I get put to work. Everyone has stuff to be doing, because the Fair is coming to Ouaga. A fair that Peace Corps is putting on. We have a VAC meeting where I get to sit in and listen to the people who make the country run, then work with other people to get stuff ready for the fair. On wednesday, I go to the CD's (Country Director) house and go through Warden Training. I am the back up warden to Kaya. If stuff blows up this year, I will be ready to fulfill my duties again.
So now it is the day of the fair. We load up our stuff at 6 in the morning and we go to the Maison du peuple. As we are driving... the wind starts to pick up... the sky gets dark... and it starts to rain.
The bus pulls up to the maison du peuple and there are a bunch of fallen tents. There were already some people there and apparently when the wind picked up, it started to send the Tents flying through the air and volunteers were literally holding and being dragged by these huge tents. Eventually people were being dragged to much, so people ran for cover and away from the flying metal and tarp death traps.
By the time we arrived, the wind had died down a bit. (I forgot to mention that all of us are in our best dress because we are going to a swear in ceremony. The press and everything.) I take off my shirt and use a wife beater and my dress pants and all of us go out and try to fix tents... in the rain. Everyone is pitching in and doing something. We have to move tents that are broken and put other tents back together and try to avoid spots where the rain has gathered. At one point, I was moving a tent tarp and a metal bar swung past me and almost took out another volunteer. We all decided that it was the closest thing to Hurricane relief that we were going to get to in Burkina Faso.
After we get alot of that stuff done, most of the volunteers are filthy and wet, but we might be on Burkina television... so we have a grab box at the Transit house and the New swearing in volunteers brought some of thier own personal clothes and everyone just threw on the best that they could. We actually got some pretty amazing results. Everyone looked nice and the sun came out and the rain stopped. So everyone after swear in, got to put thier booths up and everything went along pretty much as planned.
The fair was alot of fun. I worked the PSDN relaxation station and carnival. I worked the Dunk Tank and the Burkinabe loved it. It was the first time that they had ever seen a dunk tank and they loved to dunk the person. It helped that people could taunt them in Moore, French, or English. It was alot of fun. We had tons of good food, good music, and good Artisanal stuff for sale. Watch some of the video that I will be linking for more info...
So day three rolls around and everything starts happening. Christy Ross teaches a dance group who was dancing all three days. They were really good and reminded me of an amateur showchoir group. There was 2 girls and one boy. Well one of the girls did a solo and it was Single Ladies by Beyonce... Well I know a little bit of the dance. Another guy here knows the whole dance and is a dancer. They said that we should do it with her. I agree, but the other guy's back hurts. So the Christy (who choregraphed the dances) said that she would do it. I instantly hated my decision to do this. I am trying to practice and learn the version of the dance that they know and literally get about an hour and a half to get this whole dance down. We (Thank God) did not do the whole song, but it was still alot to learn fairly quickly.
It becomes time to perform and I did ok. It wasn't great, but the audience loved it and even the CD said that it was awesome. So I win.
After that it was time to get ready for the wife of the president. She was coming to our closing ceremony for the fair. We had Floby (One of the biggest pop stars in Burkina) write a song for us about Peace Corps that was awesome and he sung it at the closing ceremony.
We went through the speeches and the ceremony ended. Afterwards there was a reception and I got to talk to the wife of the president. We mostly talked about food in Kaya. I have now talked to the wife of the president and shaken her hand 2. I am very important in Burkina Faso. lol.
We had an all volunteer meeting today that I stayed for, but I am looking forward to going back to Kaya tomorrow. I have to start getting things ready for school... oh and I found out the Embassy is coming to Kaya on the 5th of October and wants to see a project that I have done... I haven't really done any tangible products. This should be interesting.
Wish me luck,
Trent
Sorry this is a later update... you can go to www.pcburkina.org and people will be putting up more videos. Also you can find out more info about Burkina Peace corps. Videos on the front page. Thanks!!!!
So I arrive in Ouaga and I get put to work. Everyone has stuff to be doing, because the Fair is coming to Ouaga. A fair that Peace Corps is putting on. We have a VAC meeting where I get to sit in and listen to the people who make the country run, then work with other people to get stuff ready for the fair. On wednesday, I go to the CD's (Country Director) house and go through Warden Training. I am the back up warden to Kaya. If stuff blows up this year, I will be ready to fulfill my duties again.
So now it is the day of the fair. We load up our stuff at 6 in the morning and we go to the Maison du peuple. As we are driving... the wind starts to pick up... the sky gets dark... and it starts to rain.
The bus pulls up to the maison du peuple and there are a bunch of fallen tents. There were already some people there and apparently when the wind picked up, it started to send the Tents flying through the air and volunteers were literally holding and being dragged by these huge tents. Eventually people were being dragged to much, so people ran for cover and away from the flying metal and tarp death traps.
By the time we arrived, the wind had died down a bit. (I forgot to mention that all of us are in our best dress because we are going to a swear in ceremony. The press and everything.) I take off my shirt and use a wife beater and my dress pants and all of us go out and try to fix tents... in the rain. Everyone is pitching in and doing something. We have to move tents that are broken and put other tents back together and try to avoid spots where the rain has gathered. At one point, I was moving a tent tarp and a metal bar swung past me and almost took out another volunteer. We all decided that it was the closest thing to Hurricane relief that we were going to get to in Burkina Faso.
After we get alot of that stuff done, most of the volunteers are filthy and wet, but we might be on Burkina television... so we have a grab box at the Transit house and the New swearing in volunteers brought some of thier own personal clothes and everyone just threw on the best that they could. We actually got some pretty amazing results. Everyone looked nice and the sun came out and the rain stopped. So everyone after swear in, got to put thier booths up and everything went along pretty much as planned.
The fair was alot of fun. I worked the PSDN relaxation station and carnival. I worked the Dunk Tank and the Burkinabe loved it. It was the first time that they had ever seen a dunk tank and they loved to dunk the person. It helped that people could taunt them in Moore, French, or English. It was alot of fun. We had tons of good food, good music, and good Artisanal stuff for sale. Watch some of the video that I will be linking for more info...
So day three rolls around and everything starts happening. Christy Ross teaches a dance group who was dancing all three days. They were really good and reminded me of an amateur showchoir group. There was 2 girls and one boy. Well one of the girls did a solo and it was Single Ladies by Beyonce... Well I know a little bit of the dance. Another guy here knows the whole dance and is a dancer. They said that we should do it with her. I agree, but the other guy's back hurts. So the Christy (who choregraphed the dances) said that she would do it. I instantly hated my decision to do this. I am trying to practice and learn the version of the dance that they know and literally get about an hour and a half to get this whole dance down. We (Thank God) did not do the whole song, but it was still alot to learn fairly quickly.
It becomes time to perform and I did ok. It wasn't great, but the audience loved it and even the CD said that it was awesome. So I win.
After that it was time to get ready for the wife of the president. She was coming to our closing ceremony for the fair. We had Floby (One of the biggest pop stars in Burkina) write a song for us about Peace Corps that was awesome and he sung it at the closing ceremony.
We went through the speeches and the ceremony ended. Afterwards there was a reception and I got to talk to the wife of the president. We mostly talked about food in Kaya. I have now talked to the wife of the president and shaken her hand 2. I am very important in Burkina Faso. lol.
We had an all volunteer meeting today that I stayed for, but I am looking forward to going back to Kaya tomorrow. I have to start getting things ready for school... oh and I found out the Embassy is coming to Kaya on the 5th of October and wants to see a project that I have done... I haven't really done any tangible products. This should be interesting.
Wish me luck,
Trent
Sorry this is a later update... you can go to www.pcburkina.org and people will be putting up more videos. Also you can find out more info about Burkina Peace corps. Videos on the front page. Thanks!!!!
Monday, September 12, 2011
Trent goes to meetings... then a few more.
So after I posted my last blog, I was supposed to be at my site until Friday of that week. That did not happen. I got dragged into Ouaga early. There are worse things that can happen to you, but it was a slight inconvience. So I get a call and am told that we need to come in on Tuesday because we are filming a tv spot for the fair and they need volunteers. I do not really want to come in; but they have also moved my PSDN meeting so that all of us can be on the show. So I go into Ouaga. some people choose to come in Weds morning; but I had a few things that I wanted to get done at the bureau, so I went in on Tuesday. Weds morning arrives and they tell us that they might not need all of us; but to stay pretty just in case. So we wait around for 3 hours only to be told that they dont need us. They only used 7 people. So I had another day free in ouaga to spend money that I need not to spend.
So Thursday was our PSDN meeting and I would talk about what happened but it is confidential. Sorry! But we are starting some cool new iniatives and trying to get them bureau approved. It was a really good meeting. Afterwards we had a ¨family dinner¨ PSDN seems to eat together after all our meetings. So we call them family dinners. where we had chili and cornbread. It was like americaland. It was delicious and had tons of veggies even.
After that I go to the bureau on friday morning to get some information about something and I get stopped by one of the secretaries and asked if I will fold some papers for her for the fair.I tell her of course and spend the next hour doing tri folds. It reminded me of when I was at the bank folding loan paperwork to be mailed. After that I hopped a bus back to kaya. I arrived in the afternoon and Emma asked me to go shopping with her. I like to haggle and she likes to have a shopping buddy; so it works out well. I got done and went home and relaxed. The next day was a mixture of me cleaning my house and watching movies. Bridesmaids is really funny for those of you who haven't seen it.
The bike tour came to Kaya yesterday. They arrived around noonish and we took them to eat at trois luit. It was nice. Afterwrds, I took half the group back to my house and relaxed. I made them American mac and cheese and Taco meat. They were ecstatic. We started to watch bridesmaids but they all wanted to sleep. we went to sleep at 9pm. That is very early for me; but they got me up at 4:30. So it evened out. I will probably take a nap today. I still have tons of work to do. I have to get ready for school!! It starts in October! Also I will be in Ouaga from 18th to the 25th for a VAC meeting, warden training, and the fair. I have to organize a booth for PSDN. I did not think I would ever be this busy in country, I kinda like this unexpected surprise.
Love and Peace
Trent
P.s; I really need to work on my coke habit here. Stupid liquid crack...
So Thursday was our PSDN meeting and I would talk about what happened but it is confidential. Sorry! But we are starting some cool new iniatives and trying to get them bureau approved. It was a really good meeting. Afterwards we had a ¨family dinner¨ PSDN seems to eat together after all our meetings. So we call them family dinners. where we had chili and cornbread. It was like americaland. It was delicious and had tons of veggies even.
After that I go to the bureau on friday morning to get some information about something and I get stopped by one of the secretaries and asked if I will fold some papers for her for the fair.I tell her of course and spend the next hour doing tri folds. It reminded me of when I was at the bank folding loan paperwork to be mailed. After that I hopped a bus back to kaya. I arrived in the afternoon and Emma asked me to go shopping with her. I like to haggle and she likes to have a shopping buddy; so it works out well. I got done and went home and relaxed. The next day was a mixture of me cleaning my house and watching movies. Bridesmaids is really funny for those of you who haven't seen it.
The bike tour came to Kaya yesterday. They arrived around noonish and we took them to eat at trois luit. It was nice. Afterwrds, I took half the group back to my house and relaxed. I made them American mac and cheese and Taco meat. They were ecstatic. We started to watch bridesmaids but they all wanted to sleep. we went to sleep at 9pm. That is very early for me; but they got me up at 4:30. So it evened out. I will probably take a nap today. I still have tons of work to do. I have to get ready for school!! It starts in October! Also I will be in Ouaga from 18th to the 25th for a VAC meeting, warden training, and the fair. I have to organize a booth for PSDN. I did not think I would ever be this busy in country, I kinda like this unexpected surprise.
Love and Peace
Trent
P.s; I really need to work on my coke habit here. Stupid liquid crack...
Friday, September 2, 2011
Trent masters the existential crisis … and is also back in Burkina.
Who am I? Why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing with my life? Why do I ask so many questions? The existential crisis is not for everyone. When even thinking about having an existential crisis, you need to make sure you are ready to deal with it. You can’t ask the big questions and expect everything to stay the same. You have to realize you may ask the questions and find your life to be quite pathetic or lacking something. The opposite could also happen as well and you could find that not only are you living a happy and fulfilled life, but you are on the right track for your future. To those people, I would like to say, “Screw you.”
So I, again, am having to ask myself the big questions in life. What do I want to do after Peace Corps? Where do I want to go after Peace Corps? What should I do in my last year of Peace Corps? Who are my real friends in country and who do I just put up with because they are here. After my trip to America, these questions seemed even more blurry. I did realize that grad school is not in my future. I do not have the drive (or the cash) to make myself go through more years of school. I am young though and maybe in a few years I will decide that I can really choose something and stick with it. I won’t hold my breath.
So let me talk about what I have been doing since I have been back in country, because that is why you actually read this blog, not to here me blather on about existential crisis’s.
So first off I want to say that I had a wonderful time in Americaland. I got to eat tons of food, I gained 10lbs, I went to a family reunion, I helped move my brother in with his girlfriend, I helped one of my best friends move in with her boyfriend (who happens to be my brother also), I went to a water park, I got to spend time with my friends and family and see some people who had already left Burkina. It was great and it was much needed. I will say that I was ready to go back to Burkina, though. I have a year left and I have a lot of stuff to do in this year. I am at my halfway mark!!! Although, really, I am hoping to be mostly finished with the really important stuff by the end of May. I have another school year, a vacation to Ghana, and a visitor from America to look forward to. It is going to be great and I have already started. Let me just start from when I get back to Burkina.
I get back from Burkina at about 430pm and hail a taxi to take me to the transit house. I arrive and find out my neighbor in Barsalgo is at the Transit house and I get to say goodbye to him. So that was great. I also got to see a couple of other volunteers who I really liked and was able to say goodbye to them. It is weird to think that in another 2 weeks, I will have been in country longer than anyone (minus crazy third years and even crazier fourth years). So that night, I went out to Verdoyant and ate great food with Evan, Leslie, Shannon, and Evan. It was Evan's last night in country and the first time that he had ever eaten at Verdoyant. We went back to the transit house and afterwards we had some goodbye drinks with Ouaga Rob, Duckworth, Shannon, and Evan. It was a good time.
So the next morning I get up and get my stuff ready and I go to Kaya. I take a bus back and get back at 3 and drop my stuff off at my house and go straight to the training location for Camp G2low.
Camp G2low is a Girls and Guys leading our world. It is a training camp in everything (Sexual Health, Nutrition, Drugs and Alcohol, Family Planning, Equality for Women). It covers lots of subjects in 1 week. The first week in our camp is a boy’s week and the second week is a girl’s week. There is another camp happening in the southwest of the country that covers the same information.
So I arrive and training is already going on and everyone is getting their stuff prepared. The training went pretty well, but the highlight was the session with Shannon (Country Director) and Alexis (Bureau worker) who gave a session on sexual violence. It covers the spectrum of what sexual violence is and describes what violence feels like.
It is a great session. I have seen Shannon do the session 3 times and each time something new is brought up, especially with working with host Country nationals. After two days of training is time to get ready for the campers to arrive. They arrived on Sunday morning/afternoon and we had a grand welcome ceremony for them. Madame Governour, the APE, my Provisieur, and many others were in attendance. It was a great ceremony with music, speeches, and cokes. I took tons of pictures (yes, I have camera number 3 and yes it is already broken, but I will get into that later.)
I am not going to go deeply into the two weeks of camp. The wrap up of the camp was that we trained over 50 boys and over 50 girls on tons of subjects that they would have never been able to receive information on before. The kids were really excited and were excited to be learning about all the subjects. Most of the kids here had no idea how their sexual organs actually worked or even knew what puberty was. The camp was amazing with guest speakers and was very inspirational. I feel like when I leave this country, I know that I have touched the lives of these kids and made their lives better… but I will not be doing the camp next year.
I am not going into why I am not going to do the camp if it happens next year, if you absolutely have to know. Send me an email. I believe if you don’t have anything nice to say… come talk to me. Just kidding! I just don’t want to broadcast my feelings about it on the internet.
So after the camp I go to MSC. I was so happy to see my friends in Secondary Education. It was great to see what everyone was up to and how people were doing. We, unfortunately, had to sit through a bunch of boring sessions, but that was only one days worth. We had a feedback session about how things were going and Secondary Education felt that things were mostly positive. We had an IT only meeting on the morning of Ramadan and it was amazing how many ideas and things that we came up with. We are all going to try to get our program sharing down to a system and exchanged some software that will make all of our lives easier. I am hoping to try some out this year.
I had some medical sessions and went and saw the dentist. It was a better dentist than I have ever been to in the states. I got my teeth cleaned with this hook thing that shot water and then right before they were done they gave my teeth a salt scrub thing. It was wicked weird. I got x-rays afterwards with the dentist and I have no cavities. Yay for me.
I got up for the physical exam the morning after the dentist and everything went well there. It turns out I have low blood pressure though. He asked me if I was feeling dizzy or anything and I told him I wasn’t. My blood pressure was 100/50. I don’t really know how good or bad that is, but he seemed to think it was fine. It must be my wonderful diet and exercise… yeah.
So right now I am back at site and am writing this lovely article from the comfort of my own bed. But I am going to wrap it up, because I have a laundry lady coming at 7 in the morning to do my laundry. “le sigh”
Tomorrow’s mission is to clean house, update blog post, and buy meat for dinner. I think I should be able to get all this done easily. We shall see.
Thanks if you’re still reading, you’re the best.
Trent
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