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