Hello everyone!!! I hope all of you had a very Merry Christmas and that you will have a Happy New Year. I know that I am having a great December. How about I tell you all about it. Sound good?
So everyone knows that my friend/old college roommate Jade was coming to visit me. I am going to start there. Nothing really much happened before that.
So I have to get a taxi out to airport at 10:30 at night to meet Jade at the airport. I call one of the taxis and he agrees to take me and even says he will sleep at the airport until she arrives. This works out to my advantage. So I go the airport and wait for her plane to come in. She arrives about midnight, and we leave the airport about 1. We go straight to the hotel and talk about her flight and stuff and we finally get to sleep about 3. We get up at 6:30 and we head over to the Transit house and then I head to the Peace Corps bureau because I had an appointment. I get back and then I realize Jade needs to exchange her money out as well. So we wait again. A series of events continue to happen that doesn't allow us to leave Ouagadougou until 3. At this point, Jade gets to experience her first of many buses in Africa.
We arrive in Kaya and I have to argue to get Emma's bike from the guy at the gare and then we take a taxi to my house and we get to see the town of Kaya. Jade just pretty much thinks its cool, but dirty. We arrive at my house and I give her the grand tour, it lasted all but 30 seconds. That night I brought some brochettes and had a brochette sandwich for supper and Jade at some of the pizza that she had for lunch in Ouaga. Also about this time, Jade takes a shower and rinses off and makes a comment about if I knew that I had a few big spiders in my shower. I told her yes. I then told her about my leasing agreement where spiders can stay as long as they stay above my head. Later that night, one was on the floor and it had to be killed. After that, We watched some movies and sleep.
The next day is Jades adventure in Kaya day. We started out at my school for a small tour of where I work and what I do. She did not get to see my classroom because I gave the key to another professor. She did get to meet some of my professor friends who were very nice and only a few asked if she was my wife and if not if they could have her. This was to be expected. After that I took her out to lunch and we ate with Grace. We ate at the Orphan restaurant. It was delicious as always and I even saw some other people eating there for once besides just us. I am hoping they can continue to be open, because their food is amazing; even if I can't afford to eat there everyday. After that we went to Jade's favortie part of going to a foreign country... Shopping. I showed her around my marche (market) and had her see all the things that I buy and a couple of my friends in the marche. She saw where I buy meat at and her only comment was, I can't believe you eat that. After that I took her to my leather marche and let her go crazy. I am not going to ruin the surprises of the things that she bought, but it was alot. I came to the marche with an empty messenger bag and I left carrying it full and another big bag of stuff. After that we went back to my house and ate and watched some Modern Family. We went to sleep, because we knew we were going back to Ouaga tomorrow.
The next day we get up and make our way back to Ouaga. Jade gets to experience her second bus ride, but this time on a big comfortable bus that comes to Kaya I believe once a day. We arrive in Ouaga and drop our stuff off at the hotel and head to the transit house so that Jade and I can get our last hot showers for the next 12 days. After that we (Jade, Shannon, Diana, and I) go out to eat at La Vita where Jade and I get some Chicken Fingers and fries. That day was the day that the new group of volunteers swore in, so after that we went to De Niros (a bar in Ouaga with pool and cheap drinks) and partied with the new volunteers and other volunteers who had come in to see the swear in. Shannon and I drank and Jade and Diana watched. It was a lot of fun, but we left about midnight to get a taxi home because we had to get up at 6 to catch a taxi to the Gare Routier to get on our bus to go to Ghana.
The next morning we get up to go to Ghana and wait for the taxi to take us to the gare. He is a half and hour late, but this was to be expected. TIA (This is Africa; I am telling you this now, because I will be using it a lot in this article I think). We arrive at the Gare and the bus is supposed to leave at 8, but ends up leaving about 9:30 TIA. We are on the bus for about 2.5 hours until we reach the border. That is when all the craziness happens. When you get off the bus you give your passport to a guy who hands it to the Burkina guard, after this you have guys running at you with piles of money trying to get your money. They want you to exchange your CFA(Burkina Money) for CEDE(Ghanaian Money). They are yelling and crowding you and one guy accidently stepped on my flip flop and almost knocked me over. I get into my bag and get my money out and finally get it exchanged with one of the guys. I did not like this process. After wards you wait until they give you your passport back and your walk across the border. Then you get to the Ghana side where they scan your passports in and take a picture of your face and things. It is really high tech versus a guy who just kinda looks at your passport.
After that it was on a bus for the next 15 hours. We made some stops along the way and I got to eat some delicious chicken and fried rice, but it was still a long bus ride. We arrived at Kumasi at 1 in the morning and waited for the next bus to come at 4 in the morning. We got on that bus and it took us about 6 hours to get to Cape Coast. By the time we arrived, we were happy to go to our hotel and just relax for a while. Our hotel here was Hans Cottage Botel. This was a wonderful hotel. It had one of the most bizzare and awesome pools that I had ever seen. The pool was rectangular and once you stepped in there was another rectangle inside that was about 3 foot wide and about 1 foot deep. Then you stepped into that rectangle and there was an L shaped area that was 6 foot deep or two small squares that were about 3 foot deep and 5 foot deep. It had a slide also. Not only this but they had a gift shop and a restaurant that was on a lake. Inside of the lake were fish and crocodiles. The crocodiles were fun to watch while you ate. Also they would feed the fish and you could see the crocodiles come and eat the fish. It was nice and the beds were the best that I have slept in while in Africa. While we were in Cape Coast we went to a slave castle that was used when the British were exporting slaves to America and other places and we also went to Kakum National Park and did a tree top walk. Now, this tree top walk was a literally made of rope, metal ladders, and wooden boards. I felt pretty safe on it, but it shook alot and at some spots the ropes on the side of the bridge were not as high as my chest, so I could have fallen if I was in my klutzy Trent mode. The good news is that I was only about 120 feet off the ground at its tallest, so only enough to kill me. It was beautiful though. After that we stopped by a place that said it was a monkey sanctuary called Monkey Forest Resort. It was not a resort, but it had all kinds of monkeys and was run by the nicest and most fun people ever. They showed us all kinds of monkeys, turtles, civets, a couple of birds, and a couple of snakes. After the tour we sat down and just talked with them. They were telling us about living in Ghana and thier lives. It was my favorite part of Cape Coast. After three days in Cape Coast we left and went to our next city. Busua.
Busua was only about 2 hours away from Cape Coast. We took a tro tro (the ghana equivelent of a Bush Taxi) to Takoradi and then a taxi to the Alaskan. This was the most relaxing part of the trip. We stayed at the Alaskan which is a hotel right on the beach. We had a little hut with 4 beds in it and there were trees lined up with hammocks in them. The restaurant at the Alaskan was amazing and I ate BBQ Chicken and Hamburgers. For lunch, we would go to the Black Star restaurant and eat Burritos or pasta. We went swimming everyday and I did my favorite activity, talk to people. Each days I would go out in Busua and talk to people and I made friends. I am too much like my mother. it was cool though because 2 nights while I was there I went over to a guys house and played some Playstation soccer with him and his friends.
I did have one little mishap while on Busua beach. I was swimming and talking to a Canadian girl. She was watching her friend swim and we started talking because we were both staying at the Alaskan. We kept talking and jumping into the waves and it was a lot of fun. We started talking about how it was weird because the water kept getting cold then hot, then cold then hot. It was strange. So as we are talking we feel a current pulls us really hard and we say go lets go to the beach. So we start swimming and she is a much better swimmer than me and the current just goes crazy and starts pulling us. She gets out of it and heads for the beach. I am not so fortunate. I start getting pulled... and pulled... and pulled. I try swimming against it, but the more that I try the farther I go. I try for about a minute then I quit swimming and just worry about floating. I then start to yell for help. I realize that I am screwed. The more I try to go for the beach, the more the current pulls against me. I see the Canadian girl and she is on the beach yelling for someone to help me. As I am floating, I keep thinking the same thing... I cannot die this way, this is a stupid way to die. Then I finally get myself calmed down and I say, well I may get carried out to sea, but enough people have saw me go that they will get a jet ski and come save me, so I just need to worry about not drowning. Finally, I look up and see a German guy coming towards me with a football in his hand and he is telling me to swim sideways, so I swim sideways and he is telling me calmly to swim towards him and as I do, I realize I am making progress and I am going back to the beach. I reach him and I realize I can stand up and I walk to the beach. This is when I recieve the information that if you are ever caught in a current you are supposed to swim sideways to get out of the current. Information that I did not know, because I have swam in an ocean maybe 3 times my entire life. So now, if I ever start to get pulled out to the ocean again, I know my safety rules. I also learned the rule of if the water keeps changing temperature... get out. So that was my, Oh my God, I am going to die moment. I feel every vacation needs at least one of those... Right?
After that, I was done with the ocean. Which was fine, because our next location was the Desert Rose Lodge. It was run by a Swedish couple and it was a resort by itself. It had a pool and pool tables and was a nice out of the way place to stay. We were staying there for the holiday though and the count was 7 Swedes, 7 Aussies, and 6 Americans. 2 of the Americans were with the Aussies and we made up the other four. It was almost like an International Spring Break. I learned how to play a new game called Kubb which is awesome and is kinda like a Cornhole, but with sticks. We drank and played pool and darts on Christmas Eve, which is when the Swedish celebrate Christmas, and then on Christmas they roasted a pig and it tasted amazing.
The morning after Christmas we left and started our long journey back to Ouaga. We were really excited when we learned we caught our bus back to Ouaga, because we thought that we were going to miss it. Now we are back in Ouaga and Jade leaves at 6 am tomorrow. It has been great having her with me and really awesome to have someone from home who knows about the the things that I do and how I live. It was great for her to see these things. One of the other great benefits is that she is going to be posting pictures. Yes, that is right pictures. I will maybe post a few on here, but if not, they will be linked on my facebook. Finally, you get to see some pictures of things.
Well I know this has been a long one, but again I hope everyone here has a wonderful New years. I have people coming up to Kaya to celebrate. I will give you a shorter blog post about that later.
I love you all and let the countdown begin. 7 months left.
Trent
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
Trent hunts a child...
Ok so I realize that I have been sucking as of late and that my blog entries are about as boring as watching paint dry. I apologize to you (by you, I mean my faithful readers). So I am going to try to zap some energy into this one. Watch out, because here I go.
Ok, so about 3 weeks ago I was lazy and gave 2 kids 5 mille to go buy me milk. I gave them both 100cfa as a gift to go do this. The next day I was out 5200cfa. The kids never came back. So I told my bread guy about this and he said that he knew who the kids were and would tell me. So I waited. It paid off yesterday...
I was having a bad day. My kids would not listen and were just basically laughing and playing the whole class. I had a kid after class who kept calling me Nasara and would not stop; so I threw rocks at him in frustration. I know there should be better ways, but whatever. Judge me.
So I am walking up to my bread guy and he tells me that right there is one of the kids who took my five mille. I turn and look at him. He looks at me. I feel like a hunter who has seen the deer and the deer has seen him and they are both just waiting for the other one to make a move. I tell him that I just want to talk to him. He tells me that his friend is the one who took the money and I should talk to him. Well sure enough, guess who walks around the corner... I see him and he sees me and he starts running away.
However, there is a problem with Burkinabe, they want to see things. I know this. I know that he will want to taunt me a little. So I wait. Sure enough a minute later he is peaking his head around the corner. I walk around the corner and he has moved up to the next building. I give my bag to the brochette (meat on a stick) guy and I wait. He comes back around the corner and sees me, I see him. Then the chase is on. I start running and he starts running.
I know that I have no chance in hell in actually catching this kid. He is an Burkinabe child. He is physically made to run away from lions and shit. I am a fat American who is physically made to... well, not chase Burkinabe children. So after about 3 blocks, I lose him. He is gone, but I have made my point; which is that I will get you eventually.
I go back to where my bag is and there is a small crowd of people and they are all berating the first kid who took my money. I go up and shake his hand and ask him if he will do it again. He says, no with a look of absolute shame and unsure if I am going to beat the living shit out of him. I say ok and start to walk away. (ok honestly I told him ok, but if you steal again I will use my Nasara magic and send a snake after you while you sleep, but either way.)
I turn back and the people are yelling at him and are deciding whether to beat him and that is when I get angry. I turn around and tell them that it is just money and money comes and goes, it is not important and if I hear about anyone hitting this kid; I will be angry and I will come after them. There was an older Muslim man leading the charge and I looked at him and gave him the Burkinabe finger wag (which is very effective by the way) and told him that I would come for him if he continued to try to do any of this. He looked at me and did the palms up ok ok, like whatever you say (crazy Nasara) and let it go. This is one thing that I have learned from being a teacher. You speak to anyone in an authoritative tone and they take it as authority. I don't think it will be highly effective in the states, but it is a nice trick here.
Also, this will probably be my last blog until January. My friend/old roommate Jade will be visiting me in Burkina starting on Monday and the next Friday I go to Ghana. I am going to see how another third world country works. But this one has a beach!!!!
My time here in Peace Corps is coming to a slow halt. In March, I have my COS conference where they tell you everything you need to do to close your service. CLOSE OF SERVICE... Already? Only 8 months left here and I am already freaking out about what I am going to do in America. It seems so close... Crazy.
Hoping Everyone a Very Merry Christmas!!!
Trent
Ok, so about 3 weeks ago I was lazy and gave 2 kids 5 mille to go buy me milk. I gave them both 100cfa as a gift to go do this. The next day I was out 5200cfa. The kids never came back. So I told my bread guy about this and he said that he knew who the kids were and would tell me. So I waited. It paid off yesterday...
I was having a bad day. My kids would not listen and were just basically laughing and playing the whole class. I had a kid after class who kept calling me Nasara and would not stop; so I threw rocks at him in frustration. I know there should be better ways, but whatever. Judge me.
So I am walking up to my bread guy and he tells me that right there is one of the kids who took my five mille. I turn and look at him. He looks at me. I feel like a hunter who has seen the deer and the deer has seen him and they are both just waiting for the other one to make a move. I tell him that I just want to talk to him. He tells me that his friend is the one who took the money and I should talk to him. Well sure enough, guess who walks around the corner... I see him and he sees me and he starts running away.
However, there is a problem with Burkinabe, they want to see things. I know this. I know that he will want to taunt me a little. So I wait. Sure enough a minute later he is peaking his head around the corner. I walk around the corner and he has moved up to the next building. I give my bag to the brochette (meat on a stick) guy and I wait. He comes back around the corner and sees me, I see him. Then the chase is on. I start running and he starts running.
I know that I have no chance in hell in actually catching this kid. He is an Burkinabe child. He is physically made to run away from lions and shit. I am a fat American who is physically made to... well, not chase Burkinabe children. So after about 3 blocks, I lose him. He is gone, but I have made my point; which is that I will get you eventually.
I go back to where my bag is and there is a small crowd of people and they are all berating the first kid who took my money. I go up and shake his hand and ask him if he will do it again. He says, no with a look of absolute shame and unsure if I am going to beat the living shit out of him. I say ok and start to walk away. (ok honestly I told him ok, but if you steal again I will use my Nasara magic and send a snake after you while you sleep, but either way.)
I turn back and the people are yelling at him and are deciding whether to beat him and that is when I get angry. I turn around and tell them that it is just money and money comes and goes, it is not important and if I hear about anyone hitting this kid; I will be angry and I will come after them. There was an older Muslim man leading the charge and I looked at him and gave him the Burkinabe finger wag (which is very effective by the way) and told him that I would come for him if he continued to try to do any of this. He looked at me and did the palms up ok ok, like whatever you say (crazy Nasara) and let it go. This is one thing that I have learned from being a teacher. You speak to anyone in an authoritative tone and they take it as authority. I don't think it will be highly effective in the states, but it is a nice trick here.
Also, this will probably be my last blog until January. My friend/old roommate Jade will be visiting me in Burkina starting on Monday and the next Friday I go to Ghana. I am going to see how another third world country works. But this one has a beach!!!!
My time here in Peace Corps is coming to a slow halt. In March, I have my COS conference where they tell you everything you need to do to close your service. CLOSE OF SERVICE... Already? Only 8 months left here and I am already freaking out about what I am going to do in America. It seems so close... Crazy.
Hoping Everyone a Very Merry Christmas!!!
Trent
Monday, November 21, 2011
Trent's students protest dust... no seriously.
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.
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.
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!!!!
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