November 5, 2009
Things are going pretty good with us. School has been flying by now. We didn't have school on Monday because of All Saints Day. Becky has giving her first test yesterday and today. The kids were complaining that it was too hard and that they didn't have enough time. She got talked to by her homologue because the kids complained so much. When she showed the test to our homologues, they called the kids idiots and told her not to listen to them. They said that she should give them two hours to take the test just so that they will complain less, even though it won't help them. The kids are horrible cheaters too. Becky caught six kids cheating and they got zeros on their tests. They are so bad that when she was collecting tests she found the work of one kid under his bench mate's test, and he was copying the work
I haven't given a test yet but am planning one in two weeks. The kids keep asking what the coefficient is for my class. The coefficient decides how much a class will affect your overall grade and my class doesn't have one. So I decided that you need to pass my class to get into the second trimester. They think that it is some kind of joke or that the Censureur won't let me kick them out and the end of the trimester. What they don't know is that he was all for letting me take only the top 25 students after the first trimester.
I had to close my lab this week because the voltage regulator shorted and I can't run the lab on just one regulator. So now I'm waiting for the Intendant to buy me a new one. My server is still down and I'm waiting for the tech to come to school to look at it. The repair process may take a while to get done, but hopefully sometime around New Years I'll have my server back.
We are still waiting on running water. I talked with the guy at the company again and he said that he is waiting on a truck. The truck should be here in a couple of weeks. I'm not too hopeful about having water in a couple of weeks either. Maybe by June we'll have running water. I would really love it for April but that may be asking too much.
We put in our garden on our day off. I have realized why the Burkinabe are so strong. It was hard to break up enough ground just to fill the boxes. I don't relish the idea of having to dig out the rest of the garden for when we transfer things into the ground.
Surreal is a little terror now. She is digging in things that she shouldn't be. Becky gets just a little peeved with her. Becky has given up on Flamboyant trees for the moment after Surreal dug up the same spot six times. She doesn't dig it up right away either, she waits till it grows just little so that it is more fun. Surreal gives Becky false hope that her tree will make it this time then she digs it out of her with her tiny little paws. Surreal can now sit and shake, which amazes our neighbor when she comes over. We are still working on down and nice.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Saved by the (cow) bell
October 24, 2009
Well it has been a while since we have written a blog entry and a lot has happened. We are both doing fine. We are both healthy right now. Yay!
So the weather in October is very interesting to say the least. There were a couple of days were we measured the temperature outside and it was 121 F. Oh my God! We have never sweated so much in our lives. Just so you know, a fan can't even cool you off in that type of heat. We pretty much just sat there and tried not to move too much. When the temperature is that high, all you can really do is take lots and lots of bucket baths. The water might be 90, but to you it feels absolutely wonderful :) October here is a mini hot season, so that's the reason for the ridiculous heat. Now that we are toward the end of October, the temperature is a lot more comfortable. The daytime temperature ranges between 90-105. What is sad is that we are happy to have a temperature of 95, that's comfortable to us! The nights are starting to get really cool. We go to bed with the fans blowing on us and we are hot. By 3 or 4 a.m., we are fighting each other for the sheets to cover up with. From what we have heard, the temperature should start to fall now. The daytime temperature during the winter is around 80 and we hear that it gets cold at night, 50-60s!
The house is really starting to come along. We have almost the entire house painted. The living room is a really pretty blue. Tim painted the kitchen. Well I will say that mixing paint here is very difficult. You buy your own pigments and add them to white paint. Tim was trying to get a burnt orange for the kitchen and ended up with peach :) Then he ran out of paint halfway through painting the room, so he decided to make the next batch a deep red. Well he ended up with florescent pink! He said there is no way he was having a peach and hot pink kitchen, so he decided to add some blue to the paint. He used all the blue that we had and the hot pink paint turned into a bright lavender. (LOL) Oh no it is completely ok to tease him about it, I did for a solid week. My special Timmy :) I painted most of the bedroom a sea foam color. There is one wall left, but we ran out of paint completely. We are going to buy some more and finish the bedroom off with a yellow accent wall. We also have to finish the living room by painting the mural. Please check out the pictures of the painted house :)
Surreal, our puppy, is getting huge! She can't fit into her harness anymore, so now she runs around with a bandanna on. She is now a big girl and stays outside when we are not home. She even sleeps/plays outside all throughout the night. We are teaching her to sit and shake. She kind of has it down as long as there is food involved. She is so much like lucky, its scary. Surreal has started to find her voice too. She now barks when people come into the courtyard and she sees them. She is not a big fan of strange black people coming into her courtyard. She loves our friend David. He came to visit and they played all the time. We still need to break her of biting. Those puppy teeth hurt! She is starting to get a little adventurous too. If we leave the courtyard door open, she wonders around outside. She is super cute and has Tim wrapped around her little paw.
Well as most of you know, school started on October 1st. Well lets just say that things are very different here and very interesting. Tim and I both enjoy and hate teaching at the same time. Hard to explain, but for me, the kids are such little snots some days. My kids and I have finally found a middle ground. They know exactly what I expect out of them and I try to make class as fun as possible. The kids really tried to push me in the beginning and unfortunately for them, I didn't budge. If anything, I just got more strict and they lost more points off their next test. One of the rules in my class is if I kick you out of class you lose 5 pts off your next test. When your test is only worth 20 pts, that really makes them not what to get kicked out. In the three weeks of teaching, I have accumulated eight names. The kids aren't really sure if I will actually take the points off the test or not, but they will find out on November 2, that I mean business as that is their first test. The only other remarkable thing that has happened in a class, was my first day with 5e C, a kid vomited during class. That was not a fun experience. I made the chef de class clean it up. YUCK!
As for me classes are quite a bit different from Becky's. I have 7 different classes that I teach. 3 classes are 7th graders and they act like it. They are so annoying some days. With 90 kids in each of those classes, lab is interesting. I have 23 computers that work so I have 23 kids come into the lab. They don't understand that everyone will get a turn in the lab and there have been several small riots when I open the doors. Kids getting mushed against the glass, hitting each other, yelling and then running for a computer; followed by at least one person coming back to retrieve a lost shoe. Once they settle down a little I have the chef de class read off the names of people that were in the lab before and they get kicked out so someone new gets a turn. It is funny to me but bothersome because they are wasting so much time. I also teach 4 classes of upper level high school. There are three high school levels, but it is much harder to get into high school here. So I teach the sophomores and juniors. They are much easier to teach and learn the things much faster. Which is nice until I am trying to plan lessons for them. They are done with something that would take the other classes all hour to do in about 15-20 minutes then I am having to try and make things up or letting them explore the computer, mostly playing games. So that is how most of my classes go and then I struggle to kick them out of the lab. The kids never want to leave, and kicking them out takes me shutting down their computers remotely and then yelling at them to leave. Then the cow bell starts to ring signaling the end of class and that they need to head to there next class. Save by the cow bell. After class is done I head home and hang out with Becky, play with the puppy and then head to bed.
Well it has been a while since we have written a blog entry and a lot has happened. We are both doing fine. We are both healthy right now. Yay!
So the weather in October is very interesting to say the least. There were a couple of days were we measured the temperature outside and it was 121 F. Oh my God! We have never sweated so much in our lives. Just so you know, a fan can't even cool you off in that type of heat. We pretty much just sat there and tried not to move too much. When the temperature is that high, all you can really do is take lots and lots of bucket baths. The water might be 90, but to you it feels absolutely wonderful :) October here is a mini hot season, so that's the reason for the ridiculous heat. Now that we are toward the end of October, the temperature is a lot more comfortable. The daytime temperature ranges between 90-105. What is sad is that we are happy to have a temperature of 95, that's comfortable to us! The nights are starting to get really cool. We go to bed with the fans blowing on us and we are hot. By 3 or 4 a.m., we are fighting each other for the sheets to cover up with. From what we have heard, the temperature should start to fall now. The daytime temperature during the winter is around 80 and we hear that it gets cold at night, 50-60s!
The house is really starting to come along. We have almost the entire house painted. The living room is a really pretty blue. Tim painted the kitchen. Well I will say that mixing paint here is very difficult. You buy your own pigments and add them to white paint. Tim was trying to get a burnt orange for the kitchen and ended up with peach :) Then he ran out of paint halfway through painting the room, so he decided to make the next batch a deep red. Well he ended up with florescent pink! He said there is no way he was having a peach and hot pink kitchen, so he decided to add some blue to the paint. He used all the blue that we had and the hot pink paint turned into a bright lavender. (LOL) Oh no it is completely ok to tease him about it, I did for a solid week. My special Timmy :) I painted most of the bedroom a sea foam color. There is one wall left, but we ran out of paint completely. We are going to buy some more and finish the bedroom off with a yellow accent wall. We also have to finish the living room by painting the mural. Please check out the pictures of the painted house :)
Surreal, our puppy, is getting huge! She can't fit into her harness anymore, so now she runs around with a bandanna on. She is now a big girl and stays outside when we are not home. She even sleeps/plays outside all throughout the night. We are teaching her to sit and shake. She kind of has it down as long as there is food involved. She is so much like lucky, its scary. Surreal has started to find her voice too. She now barks when people come into the courtyard and she sees them. She is not a big fan of strange black people coming into her courtyard. She loves our friend David. He came to visit and they played all the time. We still need to break her of biting. Those puppy teeth hurt! She is starting to get a little adventurous too. If we leave the courtyard door open, she wonders around outside. She is super cute and has Tim wrapped around her little paw.
Well as most of you know, school started on October 1st. Well lets just say that things are very different here and very interesting. Tim and I both enjoy and hate teaching at the same time. Hard to explain, but for me, the kids are such little snots some days. My kids and I have finally found a middle ground. They know exactly what I expect out of them and I try to make class as fun as possible. The kids really tried to push me in the beginning and unfortunately for them, I didn't budge. If anything, I just got more strict and they lost more points off their next test. One of the rules in my class is if I kick you out of class you lose 5 pts off your next test. When your test is only worth 20 pts, that really makes them not what to get kicked out. In the three weeks of teaching, I have accumulated eight names. The kids aren't really sure if I will actually take the points off the test or not, but they will find out on November 2, that I mean business as that is their first test. The only other remarkable thing that has happened in a class, was my first day with 5e C, a kid vomited during class. That was not a fun experience. I made the chef de class clean it up. YUCK!
As for me classes are quite a bit different from Becky's. I have 7 different classes that I teach. 3 classes are 7th graders and they act like it. They are so annoying some days. With 90 kids in each of those classes, lab is interesting. I have 23 computers that work so I have 23 kids come into the lab. They don't understand that everyone will get a turn in the lab and there have been several small riots when I open the doors. Kids getting mushed against the glass, hitting each other, yelling and then running for a computer; followed by at least one person coming back to retrieve a lost shoe. Once they settle down a little I have the chef de class read off the names of people that were in the lab before and they get kicked out so someone new gets a turn. It is funny to me but bothersome because they are wasting so much time. I also teach 4 classes of upper level high school. There are three high school levels, but it is much harder to get into high school here. So I teach the sophomores and juniors. They are much easier to teach and learn the things much faster. Which is nice until I am trying to plan lessons for them. They are done with something that would take the other classes all hour to do in about 15-20 minutes then I am having to try and make things up or letting them explore the computer, mostly playing games. So that is how most of my classes go and then I struggle to kick them out of the lab. The kids never want to leave, and kicking them out takes me shutting down their computers remotely and then yelling at them to leave. Then the cow bell starts to ring signaling the end of class and that they need to head to there next class. Save by the cow bell. After class is done I head home and hang out with Becky, play with the puppy and then head to bed.
Our First Month in Boulsa
September 30, 2009
Hello everybody!
Well Tim and I had an awesome time in Ouaga. Then again, I really don't think that you can ever have a bad time in Ouaga. It is most certainly our haven here in Burkina Faso. Tim and I gorged ourselves on food. I have discovered a new liking for veal cord on bleu. Yep I love ham now! You could get me to touch the stuff in the U.S. Now stand back or you might lose finger :) Tim still prefers his pizza, but the next time we travel to Ouaga, he is all about the veal. Staying at the transit house is such a nice change. We get to sleep on real mattresses, that is something of a luxury here. Going to Ouaga refreshes both your mind and body after spending a bunch of time in village.
The house is coming along. Tim and I have purchased two types of paint. We have quick lime paint and oil based paint. We have certainly gotten a workout with the quick lime paint. We both emphatically state: “Whitewashing SUCKS!” We now understand why that form of paint is rarely used in the U.S. Anymore. Tim ordered furniture for the house. He designed an awesome cabinet unit. It is 2 meters long, 1 meter tall, and 40 cm in depth. It is absolutely marvelous! I have been able to organize almost everything we have into the cabinet or on the desk. I love being organized :) Tim also had the carpenter build a cubby unit for our clothes. This one is 2 meters tall, 1.5 meters long, and 30 cm in depth. Yeah, my husband likes them big :) It was rather interesting to watch a donkey cart pull into our courtyard loaded down with the two pieces of massive furniture. The poor guys that had to maneuver them into the house were wonderful though. They got both pieces through the front door and into the house without bumping into anything.
The courtyard is still a work in progress. There are hundreds of bur/thorn plants. It seems like the week after we pull them all up, they have grown in again. It is a little bit of a daunting tak, especially with the climate here. I have been busy planting trees all over the front of the courtyard. I have eight spots planted with moringa. Moringa trees are not very good for shade, but they are good for nutrition. You can harvest the leaves and dry them. The amount of vitamins in the leaves is remarkable. If the people here in Burkina only knew how great these leaves were and used them properly to cook with, they would have the majority of the vitamins that they need.
Tim and I have been having meetings at the lycée this week. School starts tomorrow. Yay! Tim is going to be teaching seven different classes. He has two 1er, two 2nd, and three 4e classes. He is going to be teaching a total of 14 hours a week. Not too bad compared to other IT volunteers here in Burkina. I am teaching math to two 5e classes. We are both hoping that the kids are going to be nice to us and understand that we have only been studying French for three and a half months. I guess tomorrow will tell.
We have a new addition to the family. We got a puppy! The boy who gets our water for us found her. She has been here for four days now. We named her Surreal. She is so tiny. We are not sure how old she is but the first two days she was here, she wouldn't drink water, just milk. We both think that if she was weaned, then they just started. She is pretty darn cute. She doesn't do a whole lot right now, but we are still pretty new to her. Tim ended up sleeping with her out in the living room her first night. When I got up the next morning, it was a rather cute sight; Tim sleeping and the puppy curled up right next to him. Of course, we are having a ton of fun playing the potty game. Anytime we see her try and squat, we make a mad dash at her and try to get her outside. You have got to love training a puppy. We have bought her a few toy balls from the marché, but we have to be careful that the neighborhoods kids don't steal them. They don't understand the idea that we buy toys for our dog to play with. We both love to stun them with our bizarre western ideas and habits.
Hello everybody!
Well Tim and I had an awesome time in Ouaga. Then again, I really don't think that you can ever have a bad time in Ouaga. It is most certainly our haven here in Burkina Faso. Tim and I gorged ourselves on food. I have discovered a new liking for veal cord on bleu. Yep I love ham now! You could get me to touch the stuff in the U.S. Now stand back or you might lose finger :) Tim still prefers his pizza, but the next time we travel to Ouaga, he is all about the veal. Staying at the transit house is such a nice change. We get to sleep on real mattresses, that is something of a luxury here. Going to Ouaga refreshes both your mind and body after spending a bunch of time in village.
The house is coming along. Tim and I have purchased two types of paint. We have quick lime paint and oil based paint. We have certainly gotten a workout with the quick lime paint. We both emphatically state: “Whitewashing SUCKS!” We now understand why that form of paint is rarely used in the U.S. Anymore. Tim ordered furniture for the house. He designed an awesome cabinet unit. It is 2 meters long, 1 meter tall, and 40 cm in depth. It is absolutely marvelous! I have been able to organize almost everything we have into the cabinet or on the desk. I love being organized :) Tim also had the carpenter build a cubby unit for our clothes. This one is 2 meters tall, 1.5 meters long, and 30 cm in depth. Yeah, my husband likes them big :) It was rather interesting to watch a donkey cart pull into our courtyard loaded down with the two pieces of massive furniture. The poor guys that had to maneuver them into the house were wonderful though. They got both pieces through the front door and into the house without bumping into anything.
The courtyard is still a work in progress. There are hundreds of bur/thorn plants. It seems like the week after we pull them all up, they have grown in again. It is a little bit of a daunting tak, especially with the climate here. I have been busy planting trees all over the front of the courtyard. I have eight spots planted with moringa. Moringa trees are not very good for shade, but they are good for nutrition. You can harvest the leaves and dry them. The amount of vitamins in the leaves is remarkable. If the people here in Burkina only knew how great these leaves were and used them properly to cook with, they would have the majority of the vitamins that they need.
Tim and I have been having meetings at the lycée this week. School starts tomorrow. Yay! Tim is going to be teaching seven different classes. He has two 1er, two 2nd, and three 4e classes. He is going to be teaching a total of 14 hours a week. Not too bad compared to other IT volunteers here in Burkina. I am teaching math to two 5e classes. We are both hoping that the kids are going to be nice to us and understand that we have only been studying French for three and a half months. I guess tomorrow will tell.
We have a new addition to the family. We got a puppy! The boy who gets our water for us found her. She has been here for four days now. We named her Surreal. She is so tiny. We are not sure how old she is but the first two days she was here, she wouldn't drink water, just milk. We both think that if she was weaned, then they just started. She is pretty darn cute. She doesn't do a whole lot right now, but we are still pretty new to her. Tim ended up sleeping with her out in the living room her first night. When I got up the next morning, it was a rather cute sight; Tim sleeping and the puppy curled up right next to him. Of course, we are having a ton of fun playing the potty game. Anytime we see her try and squat, we make a mad dash at her and try to get her outside. You have got to love training a puppy. We have bought her a few toy balls from the marché, but we have to be careful that the neighborhoods kids don't steal them. They don't understand the idea that we buy toys for our dog to play with. We both love to stun them with our bizarre western ideas and habits.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Boulsa Take 2
September 11, 2009
Well Boulsa is starting to get a little more livable. We both have finally gotten to talk to both of our parents. Neither the parents or us know what the heck is going on with the international calling right now, because we can call home without any problem, but home can't call us. Oh well, just have to figure out what is going on sometime to know when to call.
Becky is now 24! Yeah, I am starting to feel my age too. Tim and I have started to exercise here, and OMG it hurts. Whoever invented planks is a twisted sadist. Anyway, it is one easy way to make sure that we are awake and going in the mornings.
We are starting to have a pretty normal routine here. Tim gets water everyday with my bike. He is always breaking his bike. I will admit, it is entirely worth the inconvenience of only having one bike since I get to watch him ride a bike that is at least 5 inches to small for him :) I go down to the veggie ladies everyday and deal with there viscous badgering. I really enjoy listening to them say that their veggies are so much better than the lady's right next to them. They have even tried to entice me with generous cadeaux. I will admit, the free gifts do help. What can I say, I'm a sucker for extra tomatoes :)
Tim and I are starting to get adventurous with our cooking. This week I made village tacos out of canned corn beef, and I made a creamy tomato mushroom sauce from scratch! Tim made some awesome pizza sauce the other night that we put over village bread and some yummy fried rice. I also made some from scratch bruschetta today that Tim devoured.
We finally made it out to the lycée this week. Tim got to go in and see his lab. It is really nice by the way. There are 25 computers that are linked to a server. He found out that he will be teaching the following grade levels: 4em, 2er, and 1er. He is going to have 14 hours a week of teaching. I found out that I will be teaching two 5em classes and one 4em class. I am going to teach 13 hours a week. I am a little nervous about teaching 4em students since their French level is much higher.
We are starting to branch out a little more in the town. Tim and I have been taking daily walks around the town. We have come across all sorts of interesting things. One thing that I pretty much ran from was a butcher chopping up the head of a hog (EW!!!). We have found all sorts of local bars here in Boulsa; who would have thought? I have gotten pretty friendly with the post office people as I have picked up that archaic thing called writing letter?!?! Thus if you are an avid stamp collector and want me to write you a letter, I have oodles of time. Just shoot me an email sometime with your address and I'll write you a letter. Some of you have no choice and are going to receive endless amounts of letters from me ;)
We have started painting our house. All I can say is I know exactly why whitewash doesn't get used a whole lot anymore. I will say one thing in favor of whitewashing, it comes out of your clothes pretty easily. There is the coolest chemical reaction that happens when we add the water to the paint chuncks/rocks. Oh and if we add hot water, OMG the reaction is three times cooler. Maybe now I know why Em and I got in trouble in chem lab...
NOT SO FUNNY STORY TIME
Authored by Tim:
So Becky and I are going to kill one of the neighbor kids soon. This evening I was reading my book in the bedroom and Becky was under the hanger doing some laundry when a kid came into our house and started to look around. Not cool. I yelled at him when I noticed that he was there and he ran out the door. Becky chased him out of the courtyard. He ran off so we don't know where he went but there was another kid who had come into the courtyard at the same time and we talked to him, then his older brother and finally his uncle. The kids might have thought it was funny or not that big of a deal until the uncle started to scold them Then tonight we were greeting our neighbors and that came up with the kid's mom and the future didn't look bright for him or his friend. While we were talking, the topic of pets came up and we asked were we could find a puppy. They are going to help look for one for us. We both pretty pumped. The kids coming in unnoticed yet again has solidified our decision that getting a dog is a good idea, cause they are not friendly like in the States.
Well Boulsa is starting to get a little more livable. We both have finally gotten to talk to both of our parents. Neither the parents or us know what the heck is going on with the international calling right now, because we can call home without any problem, but home can't call us. Oh well, just have to figure out what is going on sometime to know when to call.
Becky is now 24! Yeah, I am starting to feel my age too. Tim and I have started to exercise here, and OMG it hurts. Whoever invented planks is a twisted sadist. Anyway, it is one easy way to make sure that we are awake and going in the mornings.
We are starting to have a pretty normal routine here. Tim gets water everyday with my bike. He is always breaking his bike. I will admit, it is entirely worth the inconvenience of only having one bike since I get to watch him ride a bike that is at least 5 inches to small for him :) I go down to the veggie ladies everyday and deal with there viscous badgering. I really enjoy listening to them say that their veggies are so much better than the lady's right next to them. They have even tried to entice me with generous cadeaux. I will admit, the free gifts do help. What can I say, I'm a sucker for extra tomatoes :)
Tim and I are starting to get adventurous with our cooking. This week I made village tacos out of canned corn beef, and I made a creamy tomato mushroom sauce from scratch! Tim made some awesome pizza sauce the other night that we put over village bread and some yummy fried rice. I also made some from scratch bruschetta today that Tim devoured.
We finally made it out to the lycée this week. Tim got to go in and see his lab. It is really nice by the way. There are 25 computers that are linked to a server. He found out that he will be teaching the following grade levels: 4em, 2er, and 1er. He is going to have 14 hours a week of teaching. I found out that I will be teaching two 5em classes and one 4em class. I am going to teach 13 hours a week. I am a little nervous about teaching 4em students since their French level is much higher.
We are starting to branch out a little more in the town. Tim and I have been taking daily walks around the town. We have come across all sorts of interesting things. One thing that I pretty much ran from was a butcher chopping up the head of a hog (EW!!!). We have found all sorts of local bars here in Boulsa; who would have thought? I have gotten pretty friendly with the post office people as I have picked up that archaic thing called writing letter?!?! Thus if you are an avid stamp collector and want me to write you a letter, I have oodles of time. Just shoot me an email sometime with your address and I'll write you a letter. Some of you have no choice and are going to receive endless amounts of letters from me ;)
We have started painting our house. All I can say is I know exactly why whitewash doesn't get used a whole lot anymore. I will say one thing in favor of whitewashing, it comes out of your clothes pretty easily. There is the coolest chemical reaction that happens when we add the water to the paint chuncks/rocks. Oh and if we add hot water, OMG the reaction is three times cooler. Maybe now I know why Em and I got in trouble in chem lab...
NOT SO FUNNY STORY TIME
Authored by Tim:
So Becky and I are going to kill one of the neighbor kids soon. This evening I was reading my book in the bedroom and Becky was under the hanger doing some laundry when a kid came into our house and started to look around. Not cool. I yelled at him when I noticed that he was there and he ran out the door. Becky chased him out of the courtyard. He ran off so we don't know where he went but there was another kid who had come into the courtyard at the same time and we talked to him, then his older brother and finally his uncle. The kids might have thought it was funny or not that big of a deal until the uncle started to scold them Then tonight we were greeting our neighbors and that came up with the kid's mom and the future didn't look bright for him or his friend. While we were talking, the topic of pets came up and we asked were we could find a puppy. They are going to help look for one for us. We both pretty pumped. The kids coming in unnoticed yet again has solidified our decision that getting a dog is a good idea, cause they are not friendly like in the States.
Boulsa!!!
September 4, 2009
So we have now been residents of Boulsa for ten days. Well I'm not really sure where is the best place to start. The first couple of days was really hard for me, but Tim seemed not to have too much of a problem. The first two days, we pretty much just laid around and napped. You would not believe how tired we were after three months of training. It was absolutely amazing to finally be able to sleep in late, 8 a.m.! Tim and I have made it a goal to go out into the community every day. That sounds like it wouldn't be too difficult, but when you don't know anyone in the city and you aren't comfortable speaking the language, it is very difficult. We have survived a couple of marché days now. There are so many people packed into a flee market setting, it is almost surreal then we both remember TIA. The vendors here seem to be rather honest which is a huge surprise! We really don't haggle too much over the prices here since the people are so honest. Usually if they are inflating the price because we are white, it isn't by a whole lot. I will admit that I do miss getting to make the vendors really mad with my stellar negotiation skills over prices. It seems so alien to leave a boutique and not have the vendor absolutely furious at me for getting a reasonable price, instead of the nasaara price, which is at least double if not triple the real price!
The people of Boulsa seem pretty nice. It is a little difficult to get a real feel for the city since so many people are intimidated by us and don't really want to talk to us a whole lot. I guess that is to be expected in a town that isn't used to having white people here. One of my favorite reactions when we greet people is their mouth pretty much hitting the floor. There are times that I have to ask Tim if I said the correct thing to the Burkinabé because I get absolutely no response and they just stare at me. Talk about breaking your confidence in a hurry. I am now rather hesitant to even say hello to people. I really can't explain what this feels like... So Tim and I pretty much live in a fishbowl here. Everyone is watching us because we are new to the town and we are also white. Add to that the fact that kids just come over to your house to stare at you because you are different. Then you also have everyone astounded that you can even greet them in French or Mooré and boy does that make a fantastic mixture. I've never had a problem being the center of attention before, but this is so unnerving. Tim isn't as creeped out by it as I am. However, he does find it hilarious when I try to attract as little attention to myself as possible and it just attracts more attention :(
Our house was, well for the OCD people out there like me, a disaster. I swept the floors three times in one day and was still getting piles of dirt. Not to mention the lovely color my snot turned. Have you every seen reddish brown snot before? Its weird! Let me tell you it did not benefit my cold or our allergies. Tim and I have done a lot of work to the courtyard. We are trying to get the trees to grow straighter, but it is difficult with all the wind that comes in right before a storm. Most of the trees have a slight tilt in the northernly direction.
The kids here are not all fluffy bunnies and rainbows. Thus far, the kids are constantly coming into the courtyard and demanding money, candy, toys, Tim's shoes, our bikes, basically anything that they see we have or can think of. Oh!!! They have even asked us for the keys to the school... Why they think we have those keys... Don't know.
STORY TIME:
Authored by Tim
This afternoon was going along pretty much as normal. I was taking a nap through the afternoon heat and Becky was reading a book to pass the time. Apparently a couple of kids had come into the courtyard without distracting Becky from her book. All I hear is Becky scream and turn to see two kids running from the back door. I get up and go outside to see where they are and what is going on. On the porch there is a pair of flip flops and at the front gate there are two kids one of which is asking if she can have her shoes back. Just to let you know running through our courtyard barefoot would have to suck a lot. There are enough thorns that it would stop the penguin army. Of course I was laughing my ass off as Becky denied the existence of any shoes in our courtyard. So Becky has officially scared a kid straight out of her shoes. :) She didn't even use the LOOK. I don't want to see her use the LOOK on some poor unfortunate soul. They will never be able to recover, and Becky will be admin sepped for child abuse without ever having touched them.
So we have now been residents of Boulsa for ten days. Well I'm not really sure where is the best place to start. The first couple of days was really hard for me, but Tim seemed not to have too much of a problem. The first two days, we pretty much just laid around and napped. You would not believe how tired we were after three months of training. It was absolutely amazing to finally be able to sleep in late, 8 a.m.! Tim and I have made it a goal to go out into the community every day. That sounds like it wouldn't be too difficult, but when you don't know anyone in the city and you aren't comfortable speaking the language, it is very difficult. We have survived a couple of marché days now. There are so many people packed into a flee market setting, it is almost surreal then we both remember TIA. The vendors here seem to be rather honest which is a huge surprise! We really don't haggle too much over the prices here since the people are so honest. Usually if they are inflating the price because we are white, it isn't by a whole lot. I will admit that I do miss getting to make the vendors really mad with my stellar negotiation skills over prices. It seems so alien to leave a boutique and not have the vendor absolutely furious at me for getting a reasonable price, instead of the nasaara price, which is at least double if not triple the real price!
The people of Boulsa seem pretty nice. It is a little difficult to get a real feel for the city since so many people are intimidated by us and don't really want to talk to us a whole lot. I guess that is to be expected in a town that isn't used to having white people here. One of my favorite reactions when we greet people is their mouth pretty much hitting the floor. There are times that I have to ask Tim if I said the correct thing to the Burkinabé because I get absolutely no response and they just stare at me. Talk about breaking your confidence in a hurry. I am now rather hesitant to even say hello to people. I really can't explain what this feels like... So Tim and I pretty much live in a fishbowl here. Everyone is watching us because we are new to the town and we are also white. Add to that the fact that kids just come over to your house to stare at you because you are different. Then you also have everyone astounded that you can even greet them in French or Mooré and boy does that make a fantastic mixture. I've never had a problem being the center of attention before, but this is so unnerving. Tim isn't as creeped out by it as I am. However, he does find it hilarious when I try to attract as little attention to myself as possible and it just attracts more attention :(
Our house was, well for the OCD people out there like me, a disaster. I swept the floors three times in one day and was still getting piles of dirt. Not to mention the lovely color my snot turned. Have you every seen reddish brown snot before? Its weird! Let me tell you it did not benefit my cold or our allergies. Tim and I have done a lot of work to the courtyard. We are trying to get the trees to grow straighter, but it is difficult with all the wind that comes in right before a storm. Most of the trees have a slight tilt in the northernly direction.
The kids here are not all fluffy bunnies and rainbows. Thus far, the kids are constantly coming into the courtyard and demanding money, candy, toys, Tim's shoes, our bikes, basically anything that they see we have or can think of. Oh!!! They have even asked us for the keys to the school... Why they think we have those keys... Don't know.
STORY TIME:
Authored by Tim
This afternoon was going along pretty much as normal. I was taking a nap through the afternoon heat and Becky was reading a book to pass the time. Apparently a couple of kids had come into the courtyard without distracting Becky from her book. All I hear is Becky scream and turn to see two kids running from the back door. I get up and go outside to see where they are and what is going on. On the porch there is a pair of flip flops and at the front gate there are two kids one of which is asking if she can have her shoes back. Just to let you know running through our courtyard barefoot would have to suck a lot. There are enough thorns that it would stop the penguin army. Of course I was laughing my ass off as Becky denied the existence of any shoes in our courtyard. So Becky has officially scared a kid straight out of her shoes. :) She didn't even use the LOOK. I don't want to see her use the LOOK on some poor unfortunate soul. They will never be able to recover, and Becky will be admin sepped for child abuse without ever having touched them.
Fun Times in Ouaga
August 25, 2009
Sunday morning, we all piled onto the STMB bus that came to ECLA to pick us up. We were all relieved that the bus came to pick us up first before going to the bus station. At least this way, we all got a seat on the bus and there was no half the people going at 8 and the other half going at a different time. I noticed that the bus company had oversold the tickets for the bus. There were several people that had to wait for the next bus to Ouaga. A couple of the PCVFs made everyone frozen coffee! It was absolutely delicious :) I slept for most of the bus ride, and Tim watched the countryside as we road to Ouaga. After the bus dropped everyone else off at the station, the bus drove all the PCT to the hotel. From there people broke off into groups for lunch. Most of the people went to either a Lebanese place, a Chinese restaurant, or to the Four Seasons. Tim, Steph and I decided to find somewhere different and give it a go. We stumbled across this yummy little sandwich shop. I got the very special hamburger, which was a huge cheeseburger with a fried egg on top. Sounds gross, but it was amazing. Tim and Steph both got the schwarma.
After lunch, Tim and I crashed for an two hour nap in our air conditioned room! Lets just say, it was heaven... After that, we went down to the lobby to see what was going on that night. A group of 10 of decided to go to the Four Seasons for pizza for dinner. Tim and I each ordered a pizza, gosh it was so yummy. 5 of the group left after eating and the rest of us just hung out for a while and they ordered drinks while I got a banana split!
Monday morning and part of the afternoon were spent in classes. We had a class with Doug, our CD first. Then a class with Sylvie, our PCMO. We did manage to sneak over to the ice cream shop in between the first and second session :) Tim and I went to lunch at a Chinese restaurant. The food there was so good. I ordered the sweet and sour chicken. It was nothing like what I expected, but that wasn't entirely a bad thing. The sauce was super sweet, but very good. Tim ordered a beef dish that was amazingly wonderful. It reminded me of beef stroganoff. After lunch, we had our final session with Jeff. After this session, Tim and I went to the most wonderful place in Ouaga, Marina Marché. This store is amazing! It has wonderful European products for sale. Tim says it is the equivalent to a European Supermarket. I want to cry when I first walked into the store. Directly off to my left was a lovely chiller full of confectionery delights. You can also buy Lindorfer chocolate there, but not the yummy truffles. Tim and I decided that our first trip to the store was just to look around a little and not buy a whole lot, so we ended up spending 60,000 CFA there. Our next trip to the store, we spent another 60,000 CFA too. Yes I know we are horrible, but being denied yummy food for three months, you are going to go a little wild.
We got to take a tour of the embassy here in Burkina. That was pretty cool. The embassy here is rather small with only 30 people from the US working there and about 150 Burkinabé. We got to meet the person who is running the embassy now since we are waiting for the replacement to arrive in October. The speech that he gave about what the embassy does and how to become a member of the State Department. There was also a guy that had been in the Peace Corps. He gave us some advice on not looking to far into the future and that the Peace Corps wasn't really a career track because you can only be in for 5 years then you have to be out for 5 years. After the tour we went to the rec center and had a pretty good lunch with milkshakes, chili, and onion rings. The chili and milkshakes were awesome but the onion rings were a bit of a let down.
Tuesday afternoon was a busy time for both Tim and I. Tim went to this nice little store that sells all sorts of amazing things. You could buy nice European cookware and utensils, some really good cleaning products and shampoo. I spent my afternoon trying to get to the bureau to talk with Sylvie about my nasty little cold. I left the hotel a half hour before my appointment. I walked from the hotel to the round point. I jumped onto the Rue de Fada and went to talk to a taxi man. I asked him how much it was going to cost to drive me down the street to a specific intersection. He told me 3,000 CFA, I laughed and said no. I told him that I would give him 500 CFA and he told me it was a long distance. I shook my head and just started walking. I hate having to deal with the taxi people. They assume that since you are white, they can rape you with charges. I walk for until 5 minutes before my appointment then hailed a cab. I told him the intersection that I wanted and that I would pay him 300 CFA. He agreed to the price, so I hopped in. Well as we were driving, I noticed that I was only 3 blocks away from the street that you go down to get to the transit house. This meant that I was almost to the bureau. The driver kept on going and I wasn't 100% sure how far down the road I wanted was. When the driver started getting toward the outer edge of where I had seen before I got really nervous. I asked the driver where the intersection was. He told me it was up further, I told him no it wasn't and to stop the taxi. The driver wouldn't stop the taxi after I told him several times to stop, so I just opened the door. He stopped after I did that. I jumped out of the cab and started walking back the other way down Rue de Fada. I ended up texting the PCMO phone that I was going to be late because the taxi got lost. This was answered by a phonecall from Sylvie. After walking for another 5 minutes, I hailed another cab told him to take me to the Red Cross. I finally got to the bureau and my appointment 45 minutes late. Then again, being 45 minutes late in West Africa is being on time :) Sylvie scored myself and two other PCTs a ride back to the hotel that way we would have time to get ready for our swearing in ceremony.
The Swearing-in Ceremony was a lot of fun. We all got dressed up and headed over in our finest Burkinabé fashion. The food was pretty good and the cake was great. Becky kept going and getting two pieces using the excuse one for her and one for me. The speeches were kept short for the most part. Five of the trainees gave speeches in French and in local languages. The temporary ambassador gave a really good speech and had pretty good French as well. After the ceremony, we got to hang out for a bit and talk to all the other volunteers who had come. We talked with the guy that we are replacing and to our closest PC neighbor. The party ended around 8 o'clock and we headed back to the hotel for the post party around the pool. Becky and I headed to bed early cause we were getting taken to Boulsa the next morning at 7 in the morning.
Sunday morning, we all piled onto the STMB bus that came to ECLA to pick us up. We were all relieved that the bus came to pick us up first before going to the bus station. At least this way, we all got a seat on the bus and there was no half the people going at 8 and the other half going at a different time. I noticed that the bus company had oversold the tickets for the bus. There were several people that had to wait for the next bus to Ouaga. A couple of the PCVFs made everyone frozen coffee! It was absolutely delicious :) I slept for most of the bus ride, and Tim watched the countryside as we road to Ouaga. After the bus dropped everyone else off at the station, the bus drove all the PCT to the hotel. From there people broke off into groups for lunch. Most of the people went to either a Lebanese place, a Chinese restaurant, or to the Four Seasons. Tim, Steph and I decided to find somewhere different and give it a go. We stumbled across this yummy little sandwich shop. I got the very special hamburger, which was a huge cheeseburger with a fried egg on top. Sounds gross, but it was amazing. Tim and Steph both got the schwarma.
After lunch, Tim and I crashed for an two hour nap in our air conditioned room! Lets just say, it was heaven... After that, we went down to the lobby to see what was going on that night. A group of 10 of decided to go to the Four Seasons for pizza for dinner. Tim and I each ordered a pizza, gosh it was so yummy. 5 of the group left after eating and the rest of us just hung out for a while and they ordered drinks while I got a banana split!
Monday morning and part of the afternoon were spent in classes. We had a class with Doug, our CD first. Then a class with Sylvie, our PCMO. We did manage to sneak over to the ice cream shop in between the first and second session :) Tim and I went to lunch at a Chinese restaurant. The food there was so good. I ordered the sweet and sour chicken. It was nothing like what I expected, but that wasn't entirely a bad thing. The sauce was super sweet, but very good. Tim ordered a beef dish that was amazingly wonderful. It reminded me of beef stroganoff. After lunch, we had our final session with Jeff. After this session, Tim and I went to the most wonderful place in Ouaga, Marina Marché. This store is amazing! It has wonderful European products for sale. Tim says it is the equivalent to a European Supermarket. I want to cry when I first walked into the store. Directly off to my left was a lovely chiller full of confectionery delights. You can also buy Lindorfer chocolate there, but not the yummy truffles. Tim and I decided that our first trip to the store was just to look around a little and not buy a whole lot, so we ended up spending 60,000 CFA there. Our next trip to the store, we spent another 60,000 CFA too. Yes I know we are horrible, but being denied yummy food for three months, you are going to go a little wild.
We got to take a tour of the embassy here in Burkina. That was pretty cool. The embassy here is rather small with only 30 people from the US working there and about 150 Burkinabé. We got to meet the person who is running the embassy now since we are waiting for the replacement to arrive in October. The speech that he gave about what the embassy does and how to become a member of the State Department. There was also a guy that had been in the Peace Corps. He gave us some advice on not looking to far into the future and that the Peace Corps wasn't really a career track because you can only be in for 5 years then you have to be out for 5 years. After the tour we went to the rec center and had a pretty good lunch with milkshakes, chili, and onion rings. The chili and milkshakes were awesome but the onion rings were a bit of a let down.
Tuesday afternoon was a busy time for both Tim and I. Tim went to this nice little store that sells all sorts of amazing things. You could buy nice European cookware and utensils, some really good cleaning products and shampoo. I spent my afternoon trying to get to the bureau to talk with Sylvie about my nasty little cold. I left the hotel a half hour before my appointment. I walked from the hotel to the round point. I jumped onto the Rue de Fada and went to talk to a taxi man. I asked him how much it was going to cost to drive me down the street to a specific intersection. He told me 3,000 CFA, I laughed and said no. I told him that I would give him 500 CFA and he told me it was a long distance. I shook my head and just started walking. I hate having to deal with the taxi people. They assume that since you are white, they can rape you with charges. I walk for until 5 minutes before my appointment then hailed a cab. I told him the intersection that I wanted and that I would pay him 300 CFA. He agreed to the price, so I hopped in. Well as we were driving, I noticed that I was only 3 blocks away from the street that you go down to get to the transit house. This meant that I was almost to the bureau. The driver kept on going and I wasn't 100% sure how far down the road I wanted was. When the driver started getting toward the outer edge of where I had seen before I got really nervous. I asked the driver where the intersection was. He told me it was up further, I told him no it wasn't and to stop the taxi. The driver wouldn't stop the taxi after I told him several times to stop, so I just opened the door. He stopped after I did that. I jumped out of the cab and started walking back the other way down Rue de Fada. I ended up texting the PCMO phone that I was going to be late because the taxi got lost. This was answered by a phonecall from Sylvie. After walking for another 5 minutes, I hailed another cab told him to take me to the Red Cross. I finally got to the bureau and my appointment 45 minutes late. Then again, being 45 minutes late in West Africa is being on time :) Sylvie scored myself and two other PCTs a ride back to the hotel that way we would have time to get ready for our swearing in ceremony.
The Swearing-in Ceremony was a lot of fun. We all got dressed up and headed over in our finest Burkinabé fashion. The food was pretty good and the cake was great. Becky kept going and getting two pieces using the excuse one for her and one for me. The speeches were kept short for the most part. Five of the trainees gave speeches in French and in local languages. The temporary ambassador gave a really good speech and had pretty good French as well. After the ceremony, we got to hang out for a bit and talk to all the other volunteers who had come. We talked with the guy that we are replacing and to our closest PC neighbor. The party ended around 8 o'clock and we headed back to the hotel for the post party around the pool. Becky and I headed to bed early cause we were getting taken to Boulsa the next morning at 7 in the morning.
Almost There!!!
August 22, 2009
Hi everyone
Well a lot of things have been going on with stage coming to an end. Our last couple of weeks have been absolutely crazy! With model school coming to an end, everyone is getting extremely antsy. By the way, after teaching algebra for the first two weeks and then switching over to geometry for the last two weeks, I can honestly say I am most assuredly an algebra kind of girl. So in my six days of teaching geometry I had to teach the students about perpendicular lines, parallel lines, rectangles, squares, and rhombuses. The kids had no trouble drawling perpendicular lines, but a lot of trouble with parallel lines. Then the fun really began to happen as I started teaching the students about the properties of geometric figures. They were absolutely stellar with the rectangle. They understood that one right away. Then I introduced the square to them. That went perfectly well until I ask then the question is a square a rectangle? They all of course said no. When I told them that a square was actually a rectangle, well let me just say that was 20 minutes of my life I will never get back ;) The kids really would not believe me that a square is a special type of rectangle. They finally said okay after I wrote the properties of a rectangle up on the board next to the properties of a square. Oh gosh the next day was even more chaos as I introduced the rhombus. They understood the properties of the rhombus and they could draw them very well. BUT when I asked the question is a square a rhomus? They said no, I said yes it actually is... Well there went another 30 minutes of my life arguing with sixth graders. Geeze you would think they could put a little faith in a teacher. When I wrote the properties of the square and rhombus up next to one another, they still would not believe me that a square is a special type of rhombus. The Burkinabé really do not like when one thing can be classified as multiple things. I can hardly wait to teach these two lessons again in October.
Oh I have a fun story about test day! So I ended up giving a joint test with Ryan another PCT for the 6em math class. We divided the test equally 10 pts for algebra and 10 pts for geometry. During the test Ryan and I were watching the students, ok me more than him, but I despise cheating. I ended up catching two different pairs of students cheating. One boy wrote on a piece of paper “Can you do this for me?” It was a division problem I think 75/8 was the problem. Then I caught two girls passing a piece of paper between them on the bench for a multiplication problem. I had all four students write down their names on a piece of paper. I deducted 5 pts from each test since I was responsible for 10 pts of the test. It was really brutal to their grades. None of them got anything higher than a 9 on the 20 point test (10 pts is passing here in BF). One student got a zero on the test after the 5 pt deduction. Ouch!
Well Tim has been having a lot of fun teaching computers. During his last week of teaching, he showed the kids the importance of the Internet and solitaire. What is sad is that he says teaching solitaire was one of the toughest things he taught to them these past four weeks.
We had a lot of closing ceremonies this week. One for the closure of model school and one for the host families. The one for model school was extremely hot and long. The one for the host families was really nice. There were lots of snack foods and pop. The host families got a certificate for hosting PCT and they got an invitation to go our swear in ceremony. Our host dad went to the ceremony. Our host parents got us a couple of gifts this past week. They got both Tim and I matching little purses, and they got me a really nice magnetic necklace. They also had a photographer come our last night with them and take pictures of everyone. They gave us a copy of the pictures :)
Tonight, we ate at a Lebanese hotel. The food was fantastic and a wonderful surprise for our taste buds!
Hi everyone
Well a lot of things have been going on with stage coming to an end. Our last couple of weeks have been absolutely crazy! With model school coming to an end, everyone is getting extremely antsy. By the way, after teaching algebra for the first two weeks and then switching over to geometry for the last two weeks, I can honestly say I am most assuredly an algebra kind of girl. So in my six days of teaching geometry I had to teach the students about perpendicular lines, parallel lines, rectangles, squares, and rhombuses. The kids had no trouble drawling perpendicular lines, but a lot of trouble with parallel lines. Then the fun really began to happen as I started teaching the students about the properties of geometric figures. They were absolutely stellar with the rectangle. They understood that one right away. Then I introduced the square to them. That went perfectly well until I ask then the question is a square a rectangle? They all of course said no. When I told them that a square was actually a rectangle, well let me just say that was 20 minutes of my life I will never get back ;) The kids really would not believe me that a square is a special type of rectangle. They finally said okay after I wrote the properties of a rectangle up on the board next to the properties of a square. Oh gosh the next day was even more chaos as I introduced the rhombus. They understood the properties of the rhombus and they could draw them very well. BUT when I asked the question is a square a rhomus? They said no, I said yes it actually is... Well there went another 30 minutes of my life arguing with sixth graders. Geeze you would think they could put a little faith in a teacher. When I wrote the properties of the square and rhombus up next to one another, they still would not believe me that a square is a special type of rhombus. The Burkinabé really do not like when one thing can be classified as multiple things. I can hardly wait to teach these two lessons again in October.
Oh I have a fun story about test day! So I ended up giving a joint test with Ryan another PCT for the 6em math class. We divided the test equally 10 pts for algebra and 10 pts for geometry. During the test Ryan and I were watching the students, ok me more than him, but I despise cheating. I ended up catching two different pairs of students cheating. One boy wrote on a piece of paper “Can you do this for me?” It was a division problem I think 75/8 was the problem. Then I caught two girls passing a piece of paper between them on the bench for a multiplication problem. I had all four students write down their names on a piece of paper. I deducted 5 pts from each test since I was responsible for 10 pts of the test. It was really brutal to their grades. None of them got anything higher than a 9 on the 20 point test (10 pts is passing here in BF). One student got a zero on the test after the 5 pt deduction. Ouch!
Well Tim has been having a lot of fun teaching computers. During his last week of teaching, he showed the kids the importance of the Internet and solitaire. What is sad is that he says teaching solitaire was one of the toughest things he taught to them these past four weeks.
We had a lot of closing ceremonies this week. One for the closure of model school and one for the host families. The one for model school was extremely hot and long. The one for the host families was really nice. There were lots of snack foods and pop. The host families got a certificate for hosting PCT and they got an invitation to go our swear in ceremony. Our host dad went to the ceremony. Our host parents got us a couple of gifts this past week. They got both Tim and I matching little purses, and they got me a really nice magnetic necklace. They also had a photographer come our last night with them and take pictures of everyone. They gave us a copy of the pictures :)
Tonight, we ate at a Lebanese hotel. The food was fantastic and a wonderful surprise for our taste buds!
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Seven Days Left!
So this has been a interesting week in training. We got to cook in groups this week which was a lot of fun and a great change in the diet because everything the Burkinabé cook is similar. Meaning that they cook some form of starch (rice, couscous, or pasta) and either tomato or peanut sauce with oil. They don't really believe in variety here.
Becky made banana bread that didn't quite get cooked all the way but was delicious anyway. We had planned to make a double batch of bread but there was time so we made a type of banana syrup that was pretty amazing. We used it to fill the crepes that we made. We had a salad, that was pretty good, from spinach, tomatoes, onions, and a dressing of honey, oil, garlic, and vinegar. We also made mashed potatoes with garlic and onions which were amazing. Then Becky and I cooked mashed potatoes and grilled cheese for our host family. They were pretty excited by that. I thought that it tasted pretty good as well.
Model school has been going OK.. For me, I am amazed by some of the things that these kids are able to do. One girl had opened 19 new documents during class and somehow did not crash the computer or get the exercise correct. She also hadn't erased any of her mistakes. Trying to get them understand that it is possible to fix a mistake without restarting from the beginning or try new things by themselves is very difficult. Becky changed from 6th grade algebra to geometry. The kids know how to draw a square and a rectangle, but anything with angles other than 90 degrees they just don't understand. One day a kid made fun of Becky on her pronunciation of a word, so she named that kid mon amis and every time that she asked a question mon amis was the one who had to answer. The class thought that it was hilarious and laughed at him every time Becky called him mon amis. Next week shouldn't be to bad for Becky, she is doing a review then giving a test for the class. I am going to get to teach about the Internet for a couple of days then am going to spend the last day going over how to play solitaire and freecell. That is going to be NO fun :)
Last weekend and this weekend we have had to ride out to village for our classes on Saturday, which isn't bad in and of itself, but why wait till the last two weeks of stage to do it. We are tired and even less motivated than usual on Saturdays. I would understand if we had done it at the beginning of stage when things were completely new, but now the only difference that I between village and city was the availability of distractions. There aren't any in village. That and the trainers forget that we need more than one water filter for 32 of us.
The Peace Corps giving me a bike probably wasn't the best idea on their part. I like to go fast and bikes aren't really made to carry a guy as big as me. Thus far I have bent one rim so badly that it could be fixed and have another rim that now needs to be replaced. It is also not the best for my health. On the way back from village I took a tumble after hitting a bump a little too fast. I had to ask Becky to patch me up after washing the most of the dirt off. I'm fine just a little road rash. Becky isn't really good for her bike either. She has gone through two sets of pedals and one kickstand. Plus she's had a couple of flats.
We got to go to the tailor this week too. That was kinda fun. Becky is getting a dress and two skirts made. I am getting a shirt and a mini boubou made for swearing in. My shirt and Becky's dress are from the same material. One of Becky's skirts and my mini boubou are going to be of the same material. Aren't we cute. The tailor is charging us about 13,000 cfa, which is about $30. Yeah the tailor is ripping us off a little but can't complain to much since she is making a dress from the Victoria's Secret catalog. :)
Becky made banana bread that didn't quite get cooked all the way but was delicious anyway. We had planned to make a double batch of bread but there was time so we made a type of banana syrup that was pretty amazing. We used it to fill the crepes that we made. We had a salad, that was pretty good, from spinach, tomatoes, onions, and a dressing of honey, oil, garlic, and vinegar. We also made mashed potatoes with garlic and onions which were amazing. Then Becky and I cooked mashed potatoes and grilled cheese for our host family. They were pretty excited by that. I thought that it tasted pretty good as well.
Model school has been going OK.. For me, I am amazed by some of the things that these kids are able to do. One girl had opened 19 new documents during class and somehow did not crash the computer or get the exercise correct. She also hadn't erased any of her mistakes. Trying to get them understand that it is possible to fix a mistake without restarting from the beginning or try new things by themselves is very difficult. Becky changed from 6th grade algebra to geometry. The kids know how to draw a square and a rectangle, but anything with angles other than 90 degrees they just don't understand. One day a kid made fun of Becky on her pronunciation of a word, so she named that kid mon amis and every time that she asked a question mon amis was the one who had to answer. The class thought that it was hilarious and laughed at him every time Becky called him mon amis. Next week shouldn't be to bad for Becky, she is doing a review then giving a test for the class. I am going to get to teach about the Internet for a couple of days then am going to spend the last day going over how to play solitaire and freecell. That is going to be NO fun :)
Last weekend and this weekend we have had to ride out to village for our classes on Saturday, which isn't bad in and of itself, but why wait till the last two weeks of stage to do it. We are tired and even less motivated than usual on Saturdays. I would understand if we had done it at the beginning of stage when things were completely new, but now the only difference that I between village and city was the availability of distractions. There aren't any in village. That and the trainers forget that we need more than one water filter for 32 of us.
The Peace Corps giving me a bike probably wasn't the best idea on their part. I like to go fast and bikes aren't really made to carry a guy as big as me. Thus far I have bent one rim so badly that it could be fixed and have another rim that now needs to be replaced. It is also not the best for my health. On the way back from village I took a tumble after hitting a bump a little too fast. I had to ask Becky to patch me up after washing the most of the dirt off. I'm fine just a little road rash. Becky isn't really good for her bike either. She has gone through two sets of pedals and one kickstand. Plus she's had a couple of flats.
We got to go to the tailor this week too. That was kinda fun. Becky is getting a dress and two skirts made. I am getting a shirt and a mini boubou made for swearing in. My shirt and Becky's dress are from the same material. One of Becky's skirts and my mini boubou are going to be of the same material. Aren't we cute. The tailor is charging us about 13,000 cfa, which is about $30. Yeah the tailor is ripping us off a little but can't complain to much since she is making a dress from the Victoria's Secret catalog. :)
Monday, August 10, 2009
Not so long awaited..... :P
Hi everyone! Sorry that we were not able to post a blog last week. The cyber cafe that we usually us was closed all week due to someone having a baby. Don't worry though, we posted the blog that we wrote for last week anyway :)
Its official, we only have two more weeks left of training! I have am starting to tell everyone how many days we have left every morning. This may sound silly but I have every intention of being extremely lazy that first week at site. I'm even thinking about sleeping in until 7 a.m. Holy cow! Yep we have sad sad little lives here. We wake up at 5 a.m. and are watching the clock by 7 so that we can go to bed by 8 p.m. I know my Mom is laughing her butt of reading this especially since I always made fun of her for falling asleep while she was watching T.V.
Model school is more than half way over. I can honestly say that for me, model school has really made my French progress a lot. I now reprimand children for not following directions or tease them when they do not listen to the question that I ask and give me these horrible replies. I am even starting to not follow word for word what is in the book. Sure there are times when the kids just look at me like I'm an idiot when I'm talking, but I figure I'm doing darn good for only having started to learn the language 8 weeks ago :) Tim is a goof. He hates lesson planning so he rarely does it at all. More often than not, he is asking me what he should teach the students to do that day while we are eating breakfast. I'm glad he is so laid back. If I did something like that...oh I can't even imagine it. I love have plans and orderly schedules. Yes I admit I am extremely anal, maybe even slightly OCD :)
Other important or interesting things that are going on over here: Wednesday all of the secondary education volunteers biked out to Bogoya Z. The 7k ride was amazing. I will admit I was getting slightly irritated with our group of riders. Ok story time: So there are 16 SE volunteers and we had to ride out to the GEE village training site. We broke up into four groups. Each of the groups had people in them that had been to village before and said they knew the way there. Well that wasn't quite the case for my group. So the person who had been to village and was leading the group couldn't remember where the road was that lead out of our village to get to Bogoya. So our group leader spent approximately 20 minutes looking for the road that they were sure they would eventually find. Meanwhile I am starting to get a little testy because we are going to be late, and I detest being late to anything. Well as luck would have it, she did eventually find the road that lead to Bogoya. We arrived about 15 minutes late. I love the look Tim gave me when we finally got to the village. It definitely implied pleased don't kill anyone and HI. The day didn't get a lot better after that either. It was so hot that day and there was only one 5 gallon bucket water filter for over 45 people. So that may not seem like a big deal to you right now, but I can explain. The filters are somewhat slow especially if it is not a new filter. After the water is finally through the filter, you must at bleach and then wait an addition 15 minutes before drinking. Yeah not the wisest thing to only have one filter, especially when the filter wasn't working well at all and caused us not to have water for a couple of hours until an LCF went back to ECLA and got another water filter. All Tim and I are going to say about this is TIA (This Is Africa).
Oh some other interesting news to tell you all about; we did our committee voting this past Wednesday too. So there are several groups/committees that you can be voted onto here in the PC BF. Tim volunteered to be on the IT group and I was voted in as the SE representative for VAC. This means that we both go to Ouaga once every three months for a quarterly meeting. We are both pretty excited about being on each committee. The IT committee is working on expanding sharepoint so that it can be accessed from any computer in BF. VAC is more or less the student council of PC BF.
Its official, we only have two more weeks left of training! I have am starting to tell everyone how many days we have left every morning. This may sound silly but I have every intention of being extremely lazy that first week at site. I'm even thinking about sleeping in until 7 a.m. Holy cow! Yep we have sad sad little lives here. We wake up at 5 a.m. and are watching the clock by 7 so that we can go to bed by 8 p.m. I know my Mom is laughing her butt of reading this especially since I always made fun of her for falling asleep while she was watching T.V.
Model school is more than half way over. I can honestly say that for me, model school has really made my French progress a lot. I now reprimand children for not following directions or tease them when they do not listen to the question that I ask and give me these horrible replies. I am even starting to not follow word for word what is in the book. Sure there are times when the kids just look at me like I'm an idiot when I'm talking, but I figure I'm doing darn good for only having started to learn the language 8 weeks ago :) Tim is a goof. He hates lesson planning so he rarely does it at all. More often than not, he is asking me what he should teach the students to do that day while we are eating breakfast. I'm glad he is so laid back. If I did something like that...oh I can't even imagine it. I love have plans and orderly schedules. Yes I admit I am extremely anal, maybe even slightly OCD :)
Other important or interesting things that are going on over here: Wednesday all of the secondary education volunteers biked out to Bogoya Z. The 7k ride was amazing. I will admit I was getting slightly irritated with our group of riders. Ok story time: So there are 16 SE volunteers and we had to ride out to the GEE village training site. We broke up into four groups. Each of the groups had people in them that had been to village before and said they knew the way there. Well that wasn't quite the case for my group. So the person who had been to village and was leading the group couldn't remember where the road was that lead out of our village to get to Bogoya. So our group leader spent approximately 20 minutes looking for the road that they were sure they would eventually find. Meanwhile I am starting to get a little testy because we are going to be late, and I detest being late to anything. Well as luck would have it, she did eventually find the road that lead to Bogoya. We arrived about 15 minutes late. I love the look Tim gave me when we finally got to the village. It definitely implied pleased don't kill anyone and HI. The day didn't get a lot better after that either. It was so hot that day and there was only one 5 gallon bucket water filter for over 45 people. So that may not seem like a big deal to you right now, but I can explain. The filters are somewhat slow especially if it is not a new filter. After the water is finally through the filter, you must at bleach and then wait an addition 15 minutes before drinking. Yeah not the wisest thing to only have one filter, especially when the filter wasn't working well at all and caused us not to have water for a couple of hours until an LCF went back to ECLA and got another water filter. All Tim and I are going to say about this is TIA (This Is Africa).
Oh some other interesting news to tell you all about; we did our committee voting this past Wednesday too. So there are several groups/committees that you can be voted onto here in the PC BF. Tim volunteered to be on the IT group and I was voted in as the SE representative for VAC. This means that we both go to Ouaga once every three months for a quarterly meeting. We are both pretty excited about being on each committee. The IT committee is working on expanding sharepoint so that it can be accessed from any computer in BF. VAC is more or less the student council of PC BF.
Long Awaited......
We are starting our second week of model school now and Becky is starting to be a hard ass during her classes. She has kicked out 2 kids from her class and yelled at a couple of others. I on the other hand am the nice teacher and have not had to kick out anyone. The LCFs say that Becky's assertiveness is good though for when we get to site. They really like that she doesn't take any flak from the students. On the other hand the PCVF say that she needs to mock the students when they don't listen and thus issue stupid responses to questions. My kids just don't even try to answer the questions cause they have never used a computer. But they know that they can download music and they are excited by that idea.
Today I brought material for my outfit for the swearing in ceremony in a couple of weeks. I think that I am going to have a bubu made. A bubu is a shirt that comes about to thigh length then has matching pants. Becky found material that she really likes but we couldn't get it today because we didn't have enough cash on us. It is a deep red with gold peacocks. My pagne is gold with black designs all over it.
We're pretty pumped that we haven't killed each other and that we are a still happily married most of the time. When Becky is sick at night I am giving her the wash bucket and tell her not to wake me up . Now that I'm on amoxicillin Becky tells me to stay away from her and we are both happy.
Today I brought material for my outfit for the swearing in ceremony in a couple of weeks. I think that I am going to have a bubu made. A bubu is a shirt that comes about to thigh length then has matching pants. Becky found material that she really likes but we couldn't get it today because we didn't have enough cash on us. It is a deep red with gold peacocks. My pagne is gold with black designs all over it.
We're pretty pumped that we haven't killed each other and that we are a still happily married most of the time. When Becky is sick at night I am giving her the wash bucket and tell her not to wake me up . Now that I'm on amoxicillin Becky tells me to stay away from her and we are both happy.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
The Glass is Half Full
So now comes the time to test all the skills that we were supposed to be developing during our PST. Model school starts next week and this week we watched Burkinabe teach a class then PCVFs teach a class. Becky is teaching 6eme algebra, which is equivalent to 6 th grade math. She has a class of about 30. I am teaching intro to computers and have 14 in my class. Taking attendance is going to be a treat trying to pronounce the students names. Trying to come up with a lesson plan is also hard because I don't know where to start teaching kids how to use a computer. Some of the stories that the other teachers have are pretty funny. And I have to team teach an advanced course for people who already have some experience with computers. Advanced is a very general term though cause the test that we gave to check for basic knowledge would usually only take about 5 minutes for me to do took the better part of 45 for them if they were able to do all the tasks. The lab that we are using is a piece of junk. We went in on Saturday to try and get it running a little better but that didn't work at all. There are 12 computers of which 9 are functional if slow, 2 more take over a half hour to boot, and 1 that makes for a large paper weight. Next week though we are changing labs and the new one is supposed to be pretty nice with 20 machines.
Becky's chef de class is probably close to 16 and she had already seen a kid kicked out of class in just the second day for falling asleep in class. Speaking of sleep the Burkinabe can sleep anywhere. I saw a lady sleeping on the ground using a wooden foot stool as a pillow. When we go shopping it isn't unusual to find the vendors asleep in their stalls. Eating lunch the other day there were a couple of women sleeping on broken concrete and gravel under a hanger. I don't know how that could be comfortable, but it is to them.
REFLECTIONS AT MID-STAGE
Language—We both feel very strongly about French as a language. As of this moment, I can understand why the French have never succeeded in winning a war, everything sounds the same. I have asked my LCF (Language & Culture Facilitator) how people can understand what is being said when a conjugated verb is pronounced the same exact way. Not to mention the fact that he is pronounced the same way as they/them. The only answer I have gotten thus far is that you can tell by context. My feelings on this answer is a rather naughty response. We only hope in time that we will be able to tell the difference. On the flip-side, we both are in love with Mooré. This is one of the oddest sounding languages I have heard. The grammar is wonderful and easy. I will admit that the nasal vowels are extremely difficult to pronounce. Tim loves to make fun of me because I have to scrunch my nose to get a nasal sound.--Side note- Coming back to our families house one day this week, there was little girl probably 5ish standing outside of the courtyard gate. She pointed at us and said “Nasaare.” I decided to give my Mooré a try and so I greeted her with “Ne y zaabre.” The little girl stared me down for a few seconds and then proceeded to cry and run away. Tim and I have decided that if this is how all kids here react to us speaking Mooré we will greet them all the time in Mooré.
Food—The food in Burkina Faso is very palatable. However, there are only three choices: carbs, mystery meat with bone fragments, and mango or banana. So those of you who are on the Atkin's Diet, don't even think about stepping foot in Africa. Becky has lost over 22lbs, but now has a belly due to the excessive carbs. Tim has lost close 25lbs with no gain in belly jiggle ability. The food in Ouaga is excluded from the previous statement due to the fact that you can get anything in Ouaga as long as you are willing to pay the price.
Weather—Its hotter than Hades!!!!!!!!
People—They are very friendly here and always willing to help you, even if you don't want their help. I will say that the vendors do have a little bit of a pouting problem. Side note—The vendors here due not believe that white people should get to pay the actual retail price. Today Tim and I badgered a vendor into selling us a power strip for half his asking price and telling him we could buy the same one at another boutique for less when he wouldn't lower the price. The vendor was quite putout with us because he didn't make a huge profit. I also think we made his brain hurt with our poor skills. Then again we got exactly what we wanted at the price we wanted :)
Country—Its hot here! Otherwise the landscapes are gorgeous. So is the sky for that matter. I have never seen so many stars in my life. You would not believe how big Orion is here in the night sky. He is probably 2-3 times as big as he is in Illinois. We love to just sit outside and gaze at the stars. This country is very dusty. If you do not care for the color “African Red” then don't come here. Inevitably, everything you own and your feet with be some shade of this color no matter what you what you do.
P.S. Sorry for any confusion on the timing of this post. We wrote this post on Sunday, but due to the rain we had to delay putting it up on the blog.
So the first two days of model school are done :) Thank god too! I was so nervous about teaching in a language that I don't fully understand. I have gotten a lot of positive feedback though! Today, David, a PCVF told me that once I master French I'll be a kick-ass teacher. I am having a little trouble with one or two students not standing up when I enter the class so tomorrow, I am going to make them stand for the entire class if they do it again. I know mean teacher, but they have to learn to respect me even if I am a white woman teaching them.
Oh I am also feeling a million times better! Thanks for all the get wells.
Love
Becky and Tim
Becky's chef de class is probably close to 16 and she had already seen a kid kicked out of class in just the second day for falling asleep in class. Speaking of sleep the Burkinabe can sleep anywhere. I saw a lady sleeping on the ground using a wooden foot stool as a pillow. When we go shopping it isn't unusual to find the vendors asleep in their stalls. Eating lunch the other day there were a couple of women sleeping on broken concrete and gravel under a hanger. I don't know how that could be comfortable, but it is to them.
REFLECTIONS AT MID-STAGE
Language—We both feel very strongly about French as a language. As of this moment, I can understand why the French have never succeeded in winning a war, everything sounds the same. I have asked my LCF (Language & Culture Facilitator) how people can understand what is being said when a conjugated verb is pronounced the same exact way. Not to mention the fact that he is pronounced the same way as they/them. The only answer I have gotten thus far is that you can tell by context. My feelings on this answer is a rather naughty response. We only hope in time that we will be able to tell the difference. On the flip-side, we both are in love with Mooré. This is one of the oddest sounding languages I have heard. The grammar is wonderful and easy. I will admit that the nasal vowels are extremely difficult to pronounce. Tim loves to make fun of me because I have to scrunch my nose to get a nasal sound.--Side note- Coming back to our families house one day this week, there was little girl probably 5ish standing outside of the courtyard gate. She pointed at us and said “Nasaare.” I decided to give my Mooré a try and so I greeted her with “Ne y zaabre.” The little girl stared me down for a few seconds and then proceeded to cry and run away. Tim and I have decided that if this is how all kids here react to us speaking Mooré we will greet them all the time in Mooré.
Food—The food in Burkina Faso is very palatable. However, there are only three choices: carbs, mystery meat with bone fragments, and mango or banana. So those of you who are on the Atkin's Diet, don't even think about stepping foot in Africa. Becky has lost over 22lbs, but now has a belly due to the excessive carbs. Tim has lost close 25lbs with no gain in belly jiggle ability. The food in Ouaga is excluded from the previous statement due to the fact that you can get anything in Ouaga as long as you are willing to pay the price.
Weather—Its hotter than Hades!!!!!!!!
People—They are very friendly here and always willing to help you, even if you don't want their help. I will say that the vendors do have a little bit of a pouting problem. Side note—The vendors here due not believe that white people should get to pay the actual retail price. Today Tim and I badgered a vendor into selling us a power strip for half his asking price and telling him we could buy the same one at another boutique for less when he wouldn't lower the price. The vendor was quite putout with us because he didn't make a huge profit. I also think we made his brain hurt with our poor skills. Then again we got exactly what we wanted at the price we wanted :)
Country—Its hot here! Otherwise the landscapes are gorgeous. So is the sky for that matter. I have never seen so many stars in my life. You would not believe how big Orion is here in the night sky. He is probably 2-3 times as big as he is in Illinois. We love to just sit outside and gaze at the stars. This country is very dusty. If you do not care for the color “African Red” then don't come here. Inevitably, everything you own and your feet with be some shade of this color no matter what you what you do.
P.S. Sorry for any confusion on the timing of this post. We wrote this post on Sunday, but due to the rain we had to delay putting it up on the blog.
So the first two days of model school are done :) Thank god too! I was so nervous about teaching in a language that I don't fully understand. I have gotten a lot of positive feedback though! Today, David, a PCVF told me that once I master French I'll be a kick-ass teacher. I am having a little trouble with one or two students not standing up when I enter the class so tomorrow, I am going to make them stand for the entire class if they do it again. I know mean teacher, but they have to learn to respect me even if I am a white woman teaching them.
Oh I am also feeling a million times better! Thanks for all the get wells.
Love
Becky and Tim
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Loving Our Future Town
Hi everyone!
Well we just got back from our exciting trip to Boulsa. We are both extremely happy with our site. Boulsa is a pretty big town by Burkinabe standards. Roughly 25,000 people live in Boulsa. The city actually houses a technical school, a municipal lycèe, a provincial lycèe and several primary schools. Tim and I will be teaching at the provincial lycèe. This is the largest of all the schools in Boulsa. The school itself is rather modern. The school has several regular classrooms. This lycèe is very lucky to be equipped with two laboratories: one for Psychics and Chemistry and one for Natural Science. By the way, there happens to be a regular toilet located in the building for the two laboratories :) The school also has a pretty sweet building for the computers. Tim's lab has 25 virtual computers running off of a large server. This computer lab is also equipped with TWO air conditioners! Guess where I am going to be hanging out and grading papers. Our school also has a pretty nice teachers lounge. It even has a frig! The school also has a running track and two volleyball courts; although they are essentially just dirt fields.
As for our house, well to some it up in one word—sweet. I will admit that when I first saw the house, I just wanted to cry and say no way in the world I can live here for two years, but after some time and reflection I realized how silly I was being. Now I am extremely excited about our house. We have two bedrooms in our house; although one is being used as a kitchen. We also have a huge salon with two windows on opposite sides of the room, and two doors from the outside! We were also lucky enough to have an indoor showering area. I must admit that the house definitely needs quite a bit of TLC, but I am really looking forward to it. I think that once we slap a coat of fresh paint on the walls everything will look a million times better. As for our private courtyard, I am in heaven. There are quite a few trees growing within our courtyard. I am really looking forward to possibly buying some gravel and doing some major landscaping in one section of the courtyard. I think that I could really make part of the courtyard into a beautiful oasis. We will be posting pictures soon so that you can see our house and courtyard.
After visiting Boulsa, we got to spend two more nights in Ouagadougou. This city is a break from reality. In Ouaga you can buy anything! We ate pizza, hamburgers, twice baked potatoes, BBQ beef sandwiches, breaded chicken sandwiches, onion rings and milkshakes! OH YEAH!!! Talk about being in heaven. Hey Mom guess what I actually like Hawaiian Pizza now, even with the ham on it :) While in Ouagadougou we also got to go over to the Assistant Country Directors house for dinner, Mexican themed. We also got to tour the Peace Corps' bureau, which was pretty cool.
Some not so fun news to let people know about. Traveling is a bit hard on Tim as his sinuses act up quite a bit. He chewed on quite a bit of sinus meds these past five days. I can't blame him for getting sick though, because there is a ton of dust here. As for me, well, I am officially the first one of the two of us to go and pray to the porcelain god. I woke up Monday morning and had to make a mad dash down the hall of the transit house to get to the bathroom. After my unwanted intimate time with the Hasselhoff, I curled up with Tim and popped a few Pepto. Side note all of the bathrooms at the transit house are named after deities and the bunks are names after infections. I woke up and thought that I was all better. Ha that was not quite true. So Monday we took public transport back to Ouahigouya which was not fun at all. The bus was overcrowded and extremely hot. This is about the time that my body decides to take vengeance on me. During our four hour bus ride back to Ouahigouya, I was unaware that I had spiked a fever. I just thought that I was hot and miserable due to the heat in the bus. So I began to now something wasn't quite right in the bus station in Ouahigouya. Tim and I had to leave our bike behind in Ouagadougou because there was not enough room on the bus. I wasn't feeling good at all by this time and having to hike 4k back to our house was not going to happen. We got a ride back to ECLA from the PC. That's about the time when Tim told me I looked like shit and a shade of yellow. Thank god for my hubby, he got the PC to drive us to our house and drop us off. I actually started to feel a little better on the ride home as the air conditioner was blowing right on me. I took a bucket bath and felt even better. I took my temperature afterward and it was 101. I munched on some acetaminophen and went to bed. I felt a lot better in the morning but still had a low grade fever :( Oh well, that just meant I munched on some more acetaminophen. Now my temperature goes up and then back down, so I can say fun times ahead for me. If the fever doesn't break by morning I will finally get to call Jean Luc and say, “Jean Luc, I'm dying!” LOL although, I might have to race Tim for the phone.
Well that is about everything that has happened. We love you all and miss you bunches and bunches! Don't worry too much about us. Aside from the stress, we are having some fun here.
Love
Becky and Tim
PS We appreciate all the comments that you guys are leaving it helps to boost our spirits when we see them. :p
Well we just got back from our exciting trip to Boulsa. We are both extremely happy with our site. Boulsa is a pretty big town by Burkinabe standards. Roughly 25,000 people live in Boulsa. The city actually houses a technical school, a municipal lycèe, a provincial lycèe and several primary schools. Tim and I will be teaching at the provincial lycèe. This is the largest of all the schools in Boulsa. The school itself is rather modern. The school has several regular classrooms. This lycèe is very lucky to be equipped with two laboratories: one for Psychics and Chemistry and one for Natural Science. By the way, there happens to be a regular toilet located in the building for the two laboratories :) The school also has a pretty sweet building for the computers. Tim's lab has 25 virtual computers running off of a large server. This computer lab is also equipped with TWO air conditioners! Guess where I am going to be hanging out and grading papers. Our school also has a pretty nice teachers lounge. It even has a frig! The school also has a running track and two volleyball courts; although they are essentially just dirt fields.
As for our house, well to some it up in one word—sweet. I will admit that when I first saw the house, I just wanted to cry and say no way in the world I can live here for two years, but after some time and reflection I realized how silly I was being. Now I am extremely excited about our house. We have two bedrooms in our house; although one is being used as a kitchen. We also have a huge salon with two windows on opposite sides of the room, and two doors from the outside! We were also lucky enough to have an indoor showering area. I must admit that the house definitely needs quite a bit of TLC, but I am really looking forward to it. I think that once we slap a coat of fresh paint on the walls everything will look a million times better. As for our private courtyard, I am in heaven. There are quite a few trees growing within our courtyard. I am really looking forward to possibly buying some gravel and doing some major landscaping in one section of the courtyard. I think that I could really make part of the courtyard into a beautiful oasis. We will be posting pictures soon so that you can see our house and courtyard.
After visiting Boulsa, we got to spend two more nights in Ouagadougou. This city is a break from reality. In Ouaga you can buy anything! We ate pizza, hamburgers, twice baked potatoes, BBQ beef sandwiches, breaded chicken sandwiches, onion rings and milkshakes! OH YEAH!!! Talk about being in heaven. Hey Mom guess what I actually like Hawaiian Pizza now, even with the ham on it :) While in Ouagadougou we also got to go over to the Assistant Country Directors house for dinner, Mexican themed. We also got to tour the Peace Corps' bureau, which was pretty cool.
Some not so fun news to let people know about. Traveling is a bit hard on Tim as his sinuses act up quite a bit. He chewed on quite a bit of sinus meds these past five days. I can't blame him for getting sick though, because there is a ton of dust here. As for me, well, I am officially the first one of the two of us to go and pray to the porcelain god. I woke up Monday morning and had to make a mad dash down the hall of the transit house to get to the bathroom. After my unwanted intimate time with the Hasselhoff, I curled up with Tim and popped a few Pepto. Side note all of the bathrooms at the transit house are named after deities and the bunks are names after infections. I woke up and thought that I was all better. Ha that was not quite true. So Monday we took public transport back to Ouahigouya which was not fun at all. The bus was overcrowded and extremely hot. This is about the time that my body decides to take vengeance on me. During our four hour bus ride back to Ouahigouya, I was unaware that I had spiked a fever. I just thought that I was hot and miserable due to the heat in the bus. So I began to now something wasn't quite right in the bus station in Ouahigouya. Tim and I had to leave our bike behind in Ouagadougou because there was not enough room on the bus. I wasn't feeling good at all by this time and having to hike 4k back to our house was not going to happen. We got a ride back to ECLA from the PC. That's about the time when Tim told me I looked like shit and a shade of yellow. Thank god for my hubby, he got the PC to drive us to our house and drop us off. I actually started to feel a little better on the ride home as the air conditioner was blowing right on me. I took a bucket bath and felt even better. I took my temperature afterward and it was 101. I munched on some acetaminophen and went to bed. I felt a lot better in the morning but still had a low grade fever :( Oh well, that just meant I munched on some more acetaminophen. Now my temperature goes up and then back down, so I can say fun times ahead for me. If the fever doesn't break by morning I will finally get to call Jean Luc and say, “Jean Luc, I'm dying!” LOL although, I might have to race Tim for the phone.
Well that is about everything that has happened. We love you all and miss you bunches and bunches! Don't worry too much about us. Aside from the stress, we are having some fun here.
Love
Becky and Tim
PS We appreciate all the comments that you guys are leaving it helps to boost our spirits when we see them. :p
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Where In The World Are Becky and Tim
Drum roll please....................................................................................................................................
You have won an exciting two year vacation to the wonderful city of Boulsa!
Now for those of you who are sitting there asking yourself “Boulsa...Where is that?” My first response to you would be “Why in Burkina Faso silly!” Haha :) I just felt like being a little bit of a smart ass especially since that is how most of you remember me :) OK so putting all my lovely wittiness aside, Boulsa sounds like it is going to be a pretty cool place to live. The city is actually pretty big in size. The city is located in the East kinda between Ouaga and Fada. The city is located close to a paved road, so traveling to the capital won't be too terrible. We are going to be teaching at a big lycee. There is electricity in our city and in our house! I'm pretty pumped about that, so is Tim :) I personally think he is only excited about being able to sleep with a fan blowing on us all night long. Our house sounds amazing. Seb has told us that the house has two bedrooms! This is a pretty big deal here. That extra room is going to be amazing to have. We will be able to have friends come and stay anytime they want. Our house also has a big salon. This is the area that will have the living area and more than likely a small cooking area too. Our house is also equipped with an indoor shower area for our bucket baths :) No more getting to watch people in the courtyard over the low wall in the shower. Oh sweet, delicious privacy!
So some new developments that have arisen over on our interesting continent. I am no longer teaching SVT (natural science) or IT, I am now going to be teaching math! Apparently there were two math teachers at our school that just got affectated. Thus leaving the school in desperate need of at least one math teacher. So now I have to brush off the cobwebs and remember all the lovely lessons that Mr. Mac taught me so many years ago. Oh the endless memories of class in the little school surround by cornfields :)
This coming week is going to be very busy for both Tim and I. On Monday and Tuesday we have a day long counterpart workshop with our homologues from our school. For those of you who are wondering, a homologue is one of our most vital resources while in village. The homologue is there to help us not make asses out of ourselves. Basically our counterparts have been warned that we know nothing and that we are not trying offend anyone, so if it happens that we do offend them we didn't mean it. They are responsible for us when we visit our site this week too. We leave Ouahigouya on Wednesday and head for Boulsa. We get to take public transport for the first time too. Oh goodie! To be honest, I am terrified of public transport due to some of the stories that I have heard. People have told me that they have had babies pee and vomit on them!!! Anyway, its only about a 7 hour bus ride, so think happy thoughts. Once in Boulsa, we have a whole list of people we have to go and meet. First and foremost, we have to go and greet the Chef of the village. We then have to walk around with our homologue and of course meet our neighbors, the perfects of the village, high ranking functionars, and our coworkers. We are also going to meet the current PCV in our village that we are going to replace. We will be taking over his house and working in the school that he did. He is pretty excited to meet us and we are most certainly excited to meet him. We are hoping that he will be able to show us some useful spots around town.
Well I think that is about all that is new here. We are still trudging through our French lessons. I still am not too fond of them, but I am getting better at speaking the language. Tim is doing really good too! We still get our lovely wakeup call from the stupid rooster every morning around 3:30 :) We'll keep you all posted on any new developments. Hopefully our next post will also include some pictures of our future house.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
And the heat is on ....
It's still hot here. We are starting to see some rain but it hasn't been enough to cool off yet. The farmers are starting to get their fields ready now. We heard rumor that it might be a short rainy season, which is really bad for the people here.
We are so tired right now. We have turned into some retirees going to bed at 8:30 at night. But who ever heard of a rooster crowing at 3:30 in the morning. I think that the only reason it does it is cause the mosque just down the road took over the job of getting us up at the crack of dawn. If those two don't work then our host family washing pots and pans at 5:30 will make sure that we're up.
Then it off to class for 9 hours then some homework. Maybe a little relaxing to end the day before heading back to our host family for a dinner of sauce with mystery meat and little pieces of bone to chew on. Becky has tried for two weeks now to explain that she is vegetarian, so far it has been mildly successful. Having to watch me eat a chicken liver one time made Becky a little sick, but it wasn't too bad.
We are trying to get our laundry done on Sundays now because it's the only day that we have off. Laundry is not like back home where you just throw it in a washer and come back when it is done. We have to first let it soak in Omo for 10 minutes, then we start to scrub on our clothes using another bar of soap. Then we rinse in another bucket and start with the scrubbing again. Then repeat once more and let hang dry. It takes hours to get it done. Our host family said that we should try to wash during the week but we never have time. Becky is also allergic to the Omo.
One of our fellow trainees has fallen ill with malaria. It's a bitch when the government misdoses you on antimalarials. Apparently we were supposed to have gotten our dose a week early to have full coverage. The only thing that the PCMO could come up with was that he was infected within the first two days of being here. Otherwise our stage is holding together OK. Just a few stress induced meltdowns, Becky included. French fucking sucks. No wonder they never won a war. We did do our first lesson in French and that was brutal.
This week we get to find out where we are going to be spending the next two years. Then the week after we get to visit our site. We had interviews with the director of education to describe what we would like in a site. I told him that I want beach front and if that's not possible a swimming pool. He said that he would see what he could do. That means we're probably going to end up in the Sahel. Çe la vive.
We are so tired right now. We have turned into some retirees going to bed at 8:30 at night. But who ever heard of a rooster crowing at 3:30 in the morning. I think that the only reason it does it is cause the mosque just down the road took over the job of getting us up at the crack of dawn. If those two don't work then our host family washing pots and pans at 5:30 will make sure that we're up.
Then it off to class for 9 hours then some homework. Maybe a little relaxing to end the day before heading back to our host family for a dinner of sauce with mystery meat and little pieces of bone to chew on. Becky has tried for two weeks now to explain that she is vegetarian, so far it has been mildly successful. Having to watch me eat a chicken liver one time made Becky a little sick, but it wasn't too bad.
We are trying to get our laundry done on Sundays now because it's the only day that we have off. Laundry is not like back home where you just throw it in a washer and come back when it is done. We have to first let it soak in Omo for 10 minutes, then we start to scrub on our clothes using another bar of soap. Then we rinse in another bucket and start with the scrubbing again. Then repeat once more and let hang dry. It takes hours to get it done. Our host family said that we should try to wash during the week but we never have time. Becky is also allergic to the Omo.
One of our fellow trainees has fallen ill with malaria. It's a bitch when the government misdoses you on antimalarials. Apparently we were supposed to have gotten our dose a week early to have full coverage. The only thing that the PCMO could come up with was that he was infected within the first two days of being here. Otherwise our stage is holding together OK. Just a few stress induced meltdowns, Becky included. French fucking sucks. No wonder they never won a war. We did do our first lesson in French and that was brutal.
This week we get to find out where we are going to be spending the next two years. Then the week after we get to visit our site. We had interviews with the director of education to describe what we would like in a site. I told him that I want beach front and if that's not possible a swimming pool. He said that he would see what he could do. That means we're probably going to end up in the Sahel. Çe la vive.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Two weeks down
Hi everyone!
Well I think that we are finally settling into a route here in B.F. We wake up every morning at 5 a.m. Let me tell you, that call to pray is never late :) It is pretty to listen for the first minute or so and then we both roll over for an additional 30 minutes of sleep, or until the girls get to loud from preforming their morning chores. We both grab a quick bucket bath cause it never gets cool here. Also the Burkinabé believe that there is a genie that sleeps with you that is scared away when you take a shower in the morning. If you don't take a shower it will haunt you throughout the day and cause other people trouble cause we each have our own genie. Then we get breakfast, which usually consists of café with sugar and milk, we share half of a baguette with either eggs or an avocado spread. Around 7 a.m., we pack up our stuff and bike 15 minutes into town—uphill all the way :( We then endure classes from 8 a.m. until 12:30. Lunch break is an hour and a half, only if the classes do not run over. We then reassemble at 2 and continue to sweat our butts off in class until 5:15. We usually hangout with the other trainees until 6 p.m. We then get to go on the fun 15 minute bike ride home that is downhill all the way home—score. Once we arrive at our African—suburban home, we have to shower right away. We are covered head to toe by sweat and red dirt! We usually dine with our host dad, Jean, and talk with each other until 8. We finally get to say that we are tired and can bring all of our bedding including the mattress outside for sleeping.
So that is our day in a nutshell. Sometimes we like to spice things up and add in a trip to the cyber café or we will get to talk with other members in our host families. One night last week, I was rather bored and a little irritated that kids would not talk to us, so I bribed them with a game. Apparently the Burkinabé love games, so I broke out our game of CLR. Well it was nothing less than successful. The kids love us now, and they are starting to talk to us! On Tuesday, we learned that the children here find animated films to be quite fascinating. So me being my lovely self bribe them again with Over the Hedge played on our iPod. They all loved it, even though they couldn't understand it in English. Every night since I had played that movie they have asked to see another one. Last night, Tim and I set up the laptop in the living room and played Night at the Museum for them in French. The kids and Celestine loved the movie. I was a little worried about the magical content especially with them being Animists, but they really enjoyed the movie.
On a much brighter note, mine and Tim's stomaches are starting to settle down :) This makes all of us very very happy. I have developed a new found love for jus de wetta. This is the most amazing juice ever. It tastes like orange juice mixed with pineappley awesomeness.
We are missing all of you like crazy! I hope to hear from some of you soon. We are checking our emails every Saturday and mail gets delivered here about once a week. We love everyone's questions on the blog. Keep them coming and we'll keep on answering :)
Love
Becky and Tim
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Pla-la-la-lala-la
Yep you have guessed it; Tim and I are suffering through the adjustment period. We now get to eat pepto with our meals that maybe stay in us for a couple of hours before we see it out the other end :) We are learning the fine art of using a pit latrine :)
It has been hot here. Really hot like 104-5 with it dropping to 95 at night. Not the best sleeping weather but we are getting to sleep outside that is helping some. It has rained here the last couple of days, and when it rains it comes in buckets and buckets. Last night it finally cooled off enough that we could stand to be in the same bed.
Our host family is very nice. The father is a teacher at the high school and the mother is a teacher at the elementary school. They are working with us to get our french up to speed and that is difficult at times! The kids finally stopped being scared of us after Becky broke out CLR to play with them. They spoil us with their cooking. We get to suggest what to have each night for dinner and each morning we have coffee with bread and butter. We even get salad which is very expensive here.
Washing our laundry for the first time was an experience. Our father brought us a large basin and a bucket, put some water in them added a little detergent in the basin and walked off. Becky followed the example from 7 brides for 7 brothers. Thank god for old movies! When our mother got home she brought us a bar of soap and showed us how we were really supposed to wash our laundry. She made it look so easy.
Becky is obsessed with catching one of the 5 million geckos that are running around here. They are everywhere that she can't reach and it isn't proper to catch the geckos. There aren't any snakes here, but there are vultures and I think that they are starting to follow the trainees. A sign of things to come????
There is an awesome golf course in Ouaga. The fairways are suppose to be well kept and the rough isn't to deep. You have great roll cause the ground can get a little hard during the dry season. Granted you are carry the fairway with you in the form of an Astroturf mat. Sounds fun to me.
You can contact us either through email or post. The information is on our contact link. Email is definitely faster but we don't have constant access. Real letters are like Christmas. We have a phone now that has free incoming calls. Call the moms for the info.
It has been hot here. Really hot like 104-5 with it dropping to 95 at night. Not the best sleeping weather but we are getting to sleep outside that is helping some. It has rained here the last couple of days, and when it rains it comes in buckets and buckets. Last night it finally cooled off enough that we could stand to be in the same bed.
Our host family is very nice. The father is a teacher at the high school and the mother is a teacher at the elementary school. They are working with us to get our french up to speed and that is difficult at times! The kids finally stopped being scared of us after Becky broke out CLR to play with them. They spoil us with their cooking. We get to suggest what to have each night for dinner and each morning we have coffee with bread and butter. We even get salad which is very expensive here.
Washing our laundry for the first time was an experience. Our father brought us a large basin and a bucket, put some water in them added a little detergent in the basin and walked off. Becky followed the example from 7 brides for 7 brothers. Thank god for old movies! When our mother got home she brought us a bar of soap and showed us how we were really supposed to wash our laundry. She made it look so easy.
Becky is obsessed with catching one of the 5 million geckos that are running around here. They are everywhere that she can't reach and it isn't proper to catch the geckos. There aren't any snakes here, but there are vultures and I think that they are starting to follow the trainees. A sign of things to come????
There is an awesome golf course in Ouaga. The fairways are suppose to be well kept and the rough isn't to deep. You have great roll cause the ground can get a little hard during the dry season. Granted you are carry the fairway with you in the form of an Astroturf mat. Sounds fun to me.
You can contact us either through email or post. The information is on our contact link. Email is definitely faster but we don't have constant access. Real letters are like Christmas. We have a phone now that has free incoming calls. Call the moms for the info.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Made It
We finally made it to Burkina Faso. Things have been going ok so far. The language is being difficult and Becky and I tested into the same group, novice. Our host family is going to be a couple one of who is a professor of French at the local high school. Hopefully that will help us catch up. Please send us M&Ms. We love you all very much.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Getting There.. sorta
We are finally there. Africa that is. After nearly 18 hours on planes today we had a little trouble at our last stop and are stuck in Niger. But we are in a great hotel that has wireless and an awesome buffet with Air France footing the bill. I just had the best mango that I have ever eaten and the sauce that is apparently a staple is great with just a little kick to it. We have about an hour flight left to Burkina Faso, but thought that everyone would like to know that we are fine even though we're not in Ouagadougou just yet.
Signing off,
Tim and Becky
Signing off,
Tim and Becky
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Packing and Philly
Well I can honestly say that Tim and I did start packing earlier than some. We began our packing expedition on Sunday morning. Can I just say I really dislike packing! We decided to take everything out of the packaging prior to packing it in the suitcases for space saving reasons. By the time we had everything out of its original packaging and into properly labeled Ziploc bags, we had one 30 gallon trash bag and one 25 gallon Rubbermaid tub full of trash/packaging AND we had gone through an entire box of gallon sized Ziploc bags.
We had an interesting time playing the shuffle game with our luggage. Our goal was to pack everything into two pieces of luggage. Well that did not go over so well :) By the time we got most of the toiletries packed into my blue suitcase, it weighed nearly 50 lbs! We then proceeded to pack some books and some of the clothing into Tim's big backpack traveler luggage. Well that one was interesting too! We had the bag entirely filled and it weighed approximately 45 lbs and took up more than 57 ins of the total 107 ins that each of us was allowed to take. So after packing two bags and still having more stuff to pack we called Chris and had him bring his own smaller traveler luggage. Now at this time Tim has roughly 50 ins left for an additional bag and 35 lbs. I have roughly 52 ins and 30 lbs left for my allowance on packing.
Once Chris' bag arrived, Tim and I continued to pack. After filling that bag, we still had more stuff left over to pack! Well to be honest, by this time, I'm feeling a little down. We were only going to take two bags, then three, and now FOUR! Geeze I was starting to think that we had over packed. Oh well, Tim and I added our final choice piece of luggage, a sturdy black duffel bag. We finally had everything packed: YAY!!! Well we measured and weighed each piece of luggage and tried to figure out who was taking each piece. Disaster! The two traveling luggage bags from L.L. Bean were costing us too much space and weight. So Tim and I proceeded to unpack things that we were not going to us right away. We also started taping pockets down on these bags to get them within the linear constraints. After much finagling, we were ultimately able to pack everything down so that Tim's two L.L. Bean travelers backpacks were within the limits and my two bags didn not exceed weight.
This was one very long process. I have not been this stressed out about something since college. Oh we also had fun picking out what would be in our carryons besides our important papers. Packing actually took us two whole days.
Getting to Philadelphia was not too terrible. We did experience a flight delay of a little more than an hour after we had boarded our Chicago to Philadelphia plane. Our meeting was long, but full of useful information (some of which has caused us to repack our carryons and luggage). Later after the meeting was over at approximately 7:45 we went to dinner with five other volunteers. We had a great time and enjoyed some more ice cream!
Well I think that's all for now. Plenty in my opinion since my hand is starting to hurt a little :)
Love you all
Becky and Tim
We had an interesting time playing the shuffle game with our luggage. Our goal was to pack everything into two pieces of luggage. Well that did not go over so well :) By the time we got most of the toiletries packed into my blue suitcase, it weighed nearly 50 lbs! We then proceeded to pack some books and some of the clothing into Tim's big backpack traveler luggage. Well that one was interesting too! We had the bag entirely filled and it weighed approximately 45 lbs and took up more than 57 ins of the total 107 ins that each of us was allowed to take. So after packing two bags and still having more stuff to pack we called Chris and had him bring his own smaller traveler luggage. Now at this time Tim has roughly 50 ins left for an additional bag and 35 lbs. I have roughly 52 ins and 30 lbs left for my allowance on packing.
Once Chris' bag arrived, Tim and I continued to pack. After filling that bag, we still had more stuff left over to pack! Well to be honest, by this time, I'm feeling a little down. We were only going to take two bags, then three, and now FOUR! Geeze I was starting to think that we had over packed. Oh well, Tim and I added our final choice piece of luggage, a sturdy black duffel bag. We finally had everything packed: YAY!!! Well we measured and weighed each piece of luggage and tried to figure out who was taking each piece. Disaster! The two traveling luggage bags from L.L. Bean were costing us too much space and weight. So Tim and I proceeded to unpack things that we were not going to us right away. We also started taping pockets down on these bags to get them within the linear constraints. After much finagling, we were ultimately able to pack everything down so that Tim's two L.L. Bean travelers backpacks were within the limits and my two bags didn not exceed weight.
This was one very long process. I have not been this stressed out about something since college. Oh we also had fun picking out what would be in our carryons besides our important papers. Packing actually took us two whole days.
Getting to Philadelphia was not too terrible. We did experience a flight delay of a little more than an hour after we had boarded our Chicago to Philadelphia plane. Our meeting was long, but full of useful information (some of which has caused us to repack our carryons and luggage). Later after the meeting was over at approximately 7:45 we went to dinner with five other volunteers. We had a great time and enjoyed some more ice cream!
Well I think that's all for now. Plenty in my opinion since my hand is starting to hurt a little :)
Love you all
Becky and Tim
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Six Days Left and Counting
We now have six days left prior to starting our grand new adventure. Wow! I'm not sure where to begin. Tim and I have just returned from visiting his family up North. We had a blast. He even let me buy a new skirt (who would have ever thought that I would be excited about buying a skirt)! Tim got a couple of games of golf in this past week too. He and I teamed up one afternoon against his dad and Erik. Well I'm not one to brag, but we did beat them like they were red headed stepkids ;) I think the final score was 86 to 99 (OUCH)! --Tim says "Boom...Boom...FIREPOWER!" We have been struggling to convert our movies over to iPod form. How many freaking audio tracks does one DVD need; just so you know Mr. & Mrs. Smith has six.
Well to highlight our going aways parties in one word--AWESOME! The party up in Dixon was a lot of fun. There were a lot of people who showed up. Mary Coleman even stopped by and talk with us. She gave us a lot of valuable knowledge about Leslie and Ryan's PC time. Grandpa really loved those baked beans and he let everyone know it twice or even three times. The party down in Monmouth was well...hmm... a lot of chaos. I believe Em said it best, she's never been to a party like that before. She even ask my mom to invite her to more family parties. Oh my, I wonder what she would think if it wasn't such a tame party for the Turnquists at least. I'm not sure what the best part of the night was: Randy and Caleb's ATV mudding adventure or some of the interesting conversations people had.
We still have a lot of stuff to do prior to Sunday. We are going to have to organize all of our stuff into piles and run through the list of items (thanks Ryan & Leslie). We will of course have that last minute shopping trip to Peoria to get those final items. I still need to defer my loans. We both still need to do a little work on Rosetta Stone. --A word to anyone thinking of getting this program, DON'T. Becky's thoughts: worthless unless you don't mind not knowing exactly what you are saying. Tim's thoughts: It would be better to spend the money on "Language " For Dummies and a game of charades so that you have at least some practice at what you are going to be doing in BF.
Tim's things left to do go golfing, copy DVDs, go golfing, eat at the Packinghouse, go golfing, go out with Randy and Jannie, go golfing with Randy, win back the money from Jim and Randy from golfing by golfing more. Possibly spend some time with Becky and Desi golfing. :) Yep I need to golf more.
Until next time
Becky and Tim
Well to highlight our going aways parties in one word--AWESOME! The party up in Dixon was a lot of fun. There were a lot of people who showed up. Mary Coleman even stopped by and talk with us. She gave us a lot of valuable knowledge about Leslie and Ryan's PC time. Grandpa really loved those baked beans and he let everyone know it twice or even three times. The party down in Monmouth was well...hmm... a lot of chaos. I believe Em said it best, she's never been to a party like that before. She even ask my mom to invite her to more family parties. Oh my, I wonder what she would think if it wasn't such a tame party for the Turnquists at least. I'm not sure what the best part of the night was: Randy and Caleb's ATV mudding adventure or some of the interesting conversations people had.
We still have a lot of stuff to do prior to Sunday. We are going to have to organize all of our stuff into piles and run through the list of items (thanks Ryan & Leslie). We will of course have that last minute shopping trip to Peoria to get those final items. I still need to defer my loans. We both still need to do a little work on Rosetta Stone. --A word to anyone thinking of getting this program, DON'T. Becky's thoughts: worthless unless you don't mind not knowing exactly what you are saying. Tim's thoughts: It would be better to spend the money on "Language " For Dummies and a game of charades so that you have at least some practice at what you are going to be doing in BF.
Tim's things left to do go golfing, copy DVDs, go golfing, eat at the Packinghouse, go golfing, go out with Randy and Jannie, go golfing with Randy, win back the money from Jim and Randy from golfing by golfing more. Possibly spend some time with Becky and Desi golfing. :) Yep I need to golf more.
Until next time
Becky and Tim
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Let the Countdown Begin!
Last Friday Tim and I received our staging information via email! We got to read some more about a lot of things we already knew. Like making safety our number one priority over there (seems like a no brainer to me). The "packet" did contain some really helpful stuff though. It gave a schedule of what we would be doing in Philly and everything that we need to bring with us. It also gave us the information we needed to book our flights out there. So as of today at approximately 4 p.m. Tim and I will begin our Peace Corps adventure in full starting with a 6 a.m. flight out of Moline on June 9th! Ok, so the whole 6 a.m. thing really isn't that great of news...I still have to tell my hubby that I will be so excited that I won't be able to sleep and if I can't sleep well I get hyper =) I'm sure he is going to love that! From Moline we fly to O'Hare and have a two hour layover then we head on to Philly.
We also got the information on our other flights. Basically we fly from Philadelphia to Paris in 8 hours. We have a two hour wait until we hop a flight from Paris to Ouagadougou which is another 8 hour flight. So when everything is said and done, Tim and I leave Philly at 6:40 p.m. on June 10 and finally arrive in Burkina Faso at 4:40 p.m. June 11. All I can say is I think there is going to be some jet lag going on =)
Other than receiving our staging info Tim and I have been pretty busy getting all our stuff in order. We both have about 20 hours left to complete on Rosetta Stone. All I can say is that there is one girl in our cluster who has completed 82 hours...she must have no life, because we are struggling to complete the 40 hours. Oh I also found out that we have to learn some basics in Moore, just some general greetings and other things that we will need when we first arrive in Ouagadougou.
On a final note our going away parties are coming up. The one that Denny and Rose are giving is this coming Saturday. I'm pretty darn excited about this. Tim is planning on have bags and possibly some cribbage games going. I can't wait to play some cribbage with the family and I know Tim can't wait to have me as his Lucky partner. Then we have another party the following week on Sunday. This one is at Ron and Ida's. I'm trying to get a volleyball net for that party as well as a wicked beer/pop pong tournament going.
Well I think that is quite a big update for now. We'll keep everyone posted on any new developments.
We also got the information on our other flights. Basically we fly from Philadelphia to Paris in 8 hours. We have a two hour wait until we hop a flight from Paris to Ouagadougou which is another 8 hour flight. So when everything is said and done, Tim and I leave Philly at 6:40 p.m. on June 10 and finally arrive in Burkina Faso at 4:40 p.m. June 11. All I can say is I think there is going to be some jet lag going on =)
Other than receiving our staging info Tim and I have been pretty busy getting all our stuff in order. We both have about 20 hours left to complete on Rosetta Stone. All I can say is that there is one girl in our cluster who has completed 82 hours...she must have no life, because we are struggling to complete the 40 hours. Oh I also found out that we have to learn some basics in Moore, just some general greetings and other things that we will need when we first arrive in Ouagadougou.
On a final note our going away parties are coming up. The one that Denny and Rose are giving is this coming Saturday. I'm pretty darn excited about this. Tim is planning on have bags and possibly some cribbage games going. I can't wait to play some cribbage with the family and I know Tim can't wait to have me as his Lucky partner. Then we have another party the following week on Sunday. This one is at Ron and Ida's. I'm trying to get a volleyball net for that party as well as a wicked beer/pop pong tournament going.
Well I think that is quite a big update for now. We'll keep everyone posted on any new developments.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Why hello everyone!
It is mine and Tim's greatest wish to keep everyone updated as often as possible while we are over in Africa. Since most of you know me rather well you now how anal I am about things, thus you get the first posting. Tim and I are currently still working. Tim is subbing at the area schools and then he golfs. I am still at CAT, at least for the next six weeks! We are both realizing how little time we have left in the good old USA. Now we are making plans to visit with as many people as possible. Both of our families are having parties for us in May (YAY!), so hopefully we'll get to see everyone.
Well we haven't gotten any additional news from the PC yet. So right now its just a waiting game for our staging info. However, I am getting to do a lot of shopping! Which in turn means that Tim is either really happy because he gets new shoes or really sad because of all the bags he has to carry :)
It is mine and Tim's greatest wish to keep everyone updated as often as possible while we are over in Africa. Since most of you know me rather well you now how anal I am about things, thus you get the first posting. Tim and I are currently still working. Tim is subbing at the area schools and then he golfs. I am still at CAT, at least for the next six weeks! We are both realizing how little time we have left in the good old USA. Now we are making plans to visit with as many people as possible. Both of our families are having parties for us in May (YAY!), so hopefully we'll get to see everyone.
Well we haven't gotten any additional news from the PC yet. So right now its just a waiting game for our staging info. However, I am getting to do a lot of shopping! Which in turn means that Tim is either really happy because he gets new shoes or really sad because of all the bags he has to carry :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
