Hi everyone
Well not a whole lot has changed these past two weeks. We have been on Easter break for a week now, which is amazing. Tim and I have spent the entire last week just lazing about. We have caught up on some of the movies that were sent over to us. We are going to start watching West Wing this coming week :)
Tim and I took a little trip two weekends ago. We biked 40k to Dave's site and stayed a night there. We got to watch a soccer game between the teachers and kids at the school. It was a really interesting game. There was a man running around the field flicking a camel tail for good luck. It was so funny for us to see that, but weird at the same time. The man truly believes that flicking the tail at the field will send good gri-gri to the game. That night we make some pasta and sauteed veggie sauce by flashlight. That was such an interesting experience. The next morning we left Dave's and took our first bush taxi to Emma's site. The bush taxi was fun, but we got so dirty from it. There was a ton of dust in the air that weekend because of the wind. The sky was literally a haze of dust. Thus when we were riding in the bush taxi and they think it is better to keep the windows open to allow the dust to flow through the car, we were filthy by the end of the hour ride. It was really fun though. Emma's site is big. We were so impressed by everything we saw there. She even has a paved road in her village! The next day the three of us took a bush taxi to Kaya. This city is amazing. They have a leather market there. We are definitely going to have to visit there one more time before coming home. I really want one of their leather purses. Later that afternoon, we caught transport out to Mike's site. 10 other PCVs visited Mike's to kick back and chill. We went to a bar and had beer and chicken. The night at Mike's was absolute craziness, but it was fun too. The next morning, Tim and I headed back to Kaya and decided that we didn't want to wait four hour for transport so we started biking home. Along the way back home we stopped in at Rob's site and visited him for a half hour. We biked 40 of the 90k back to our village. It was a lot of fun and the road was so pretty. Tim did take in a little too much sun so he was a little sick later that night, but he was better the next morning.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Refraction Period
March 13, 2010
Hey there
Well this blog is not such a downer to be sure. Things have gotten a lot better in village. Tim and I are back into the swing of TIA. Sometimes it is very hard for us to live our lives here in Africa because we are Americans and the way of life is so completely different. Just to reassure everyone that yes we have our ups and downs and our descents to the Earth’s core, we value all the experiences we have had here.
Tim got to spend an extra week in Ouaga two weeks ago. He is undergoing some tests for a toe that has gone numb. More than likely he has a pinched nerve somewhere, but he needs to get some more tests done.
Tim is also acting as the liaison in-between the IT committee and bureau. He is really excited about getting to work closer with the administration. The IT committee is really doing an awesome job to develop a website for the BF volunteers. They have a public side up and working for everyone to look at. Burkina Public website They are also working on the background stuff for the volunteers. It gives them a chance to save their work and then it gets passed on for future volunteers to look at and use.
As of right now Becky is done with second trimester. Her kids are finally starting to behave again. The Vice Principal was pretty rough on them, but now they are starting to stop being rude. I think that a lot of the troubles that we were having had to do with the heat. The kids hate being in class and we aren’t much better at times. Now that it has heated up, I’ve had to close my lab. My computers were getting really hot and I was starting to worry that they would burn up. I have been telling the school that they needed to have the air conditioning fixed but they don’t want to spend the money to maintain the lab. It is really frustrating when you want to help, but they are fighting you every step of the way. So now I’m just hanging out and working on other projects around the house. Becky and I have been working on a way to make charcoal from field waste, biochar. We are hoping to get people to stop using wood charcoal. Thus far we have been able to get the charcoal made. Now we are working on a formula for how to compress the charcoal into briquettes. This is the hard part of the process. We need to thank Ryan Smith and Leslie Coleman for the idea and doing a lot of the work while they were PCVs in the Gambia.
Hey there
Well this blog is not such a downer to be sure. Things have gotten a lot better in village. Tim and I are back into the swing of TIA. Sometimes it is very hard for us to live our lives here in Africa because we are Americans and the way of life is so completely different. Just to reassure everyone that yes we have our ups and downs and our descents to the Earth’s core, we value all the experiences we have had here.
Tim got to spend an extra week in Ouaga two weeks ago. He is undergoing some tests for a toe that has gone numb. More than likely he has a pinched nerve somewhere, but he needs to get some more tests done.
Tim is also acting as the liaison in-between the IT committee and bureau. He is really excited about getting to work closer with the administration. The IT committee is really doing an awesome job to develop a website for the BF volunteers. They have a public side up and working for everyone to look at. Burkina Public website They are also working on the background stuff for the volunteers. It gives them a chance to save their work and then it gets passed on for future volunteers to look at and use.
As of right now Becky is done with second trimester. Her kids are finally starting to behave again. The Vice Principal was pretty rough on them, but now they are starting to stop being rude. I think that a lot of the troubles that we were having had to do with the heat. The kids hate being in class and we aren’t much better at times. Now that it has heated up, I’ve had to close my lab. My computers were getting really hot and I was starting to worry that they would burn up. I have been telling the school that they needed to have the air conditioning fixed but they don’t want to spend the money to maintain the lab. It is really frustrating when you want to help, but they are fighting you every step of the way. So now I’m just hanging out and working on other projects around the house. Becky and I have been working on a way to make charcoal from field waste, biochar. We are hoping to get people to stop using wood charcoal. Thus far we have been able to get the charcoal made. Now we are working on a formula for how to compress the charcoal into briquettes. This is the hard part of the process. We need to thank Ryan Smith and Leslie Coleman for the idea and doing a lot of the work while they were PCVs in the Gambia.
The Descent
15 Feb 2010
Hello everyone
February was a pretty hectic month for both Tim and I. School is now near the end of the second trimester so everyone is super busy. The kids have been something this past month, and I’m not sure what that something is.
Most of the family knows that I had a rough month teaching in Feb. The kids were just being horrible. They were not respecting me or the other students in the class. Many of them were being super disruptive during class. They refused to listen to anything that I said during class etc… Well I found out what my limit was one morning and I literally walked out of class and had to go take a break. I went to the teacher’s room to just take a moment to try and collect myself and the kids followed me there. They were demanding forgiveness for upsetting me. Oh it was so not what I needed. I finally had to explain to them that I am an American and right now I am so frustrated with the class that they just need to give me time to sit and calm down. That worked, thank god. After that, the other teacher sitting in the room greeted me and asked me how my day was going. So the wrong question to ask… I told him exactly how my day was going. By the end of my venting session I was looking into the face of one terrified Burkinabé. His only comment was ‘Wow, you Americans like to talk about your feelings.’ After that I went and talked with the Vice Principal of the school and laid out everything that had been going on in front of him. I told him there is no way I can continue to teach here with them acting like this. Having kids laugh at you for punishing them is not a helpful way to manage a classroom. I do give props to the man he completely understood everything I told him and my feelings on it. He told me that Peter, the volunteer before us, had many of the same problems, but the second year is much easier. He told me that he would go and talk to my two classes.
The day kept on getting worse after school too. I stopped by Tim’s room and told him that I need to get away for site. Luckily we had planned a trip to Ouaga that weekend. He was supportive of my need to go to Ouaga. After that I went to the marché. That was where things hit bottom. My best friend in village was being absolutely obnoxious. She wouldn’t lay off on how Tim and I are going to need to take her to the States with us because it would look good if we were friends and I didn’t do that. She continued on how we need to obtain the visa and passport for her and buy the plane tickets. I tried to tell her its not possible blah blah blah. We are volunteers thus we do not earn a salary. She was not satisfied with any of those answers. Then she invited me to a fete that was going on that weekend. I politely declined saying that Tim and I were going to Ouaga. She demanded to know why. I explained that I really need to have a nice long conversation with my family and it was easier to do that in Ouaga. Well was the wrong answer because then she started telling me that I was such a baby and needed my mother to suck on boob… I tried to tell her to stop, but she wouldn’t listen and then the other veggie ladies started to join in and I finally had to just walk away.
On the way home I started to lose it. Once I turned the corner that lead to our house I just started crying. I cried for over three hours that day it was horrible. Tim and Surreal were super helpful and supportive.
Unfortunately, the story doesn’t stop here either. That afternoon, I went back to school to “help” Tim and to just get away from our neighborhood kids. Well Tim had finally hit his limit too. His kids are also super disrespectful and refuse to listen to him. He walked 3 kids over to the Vice Principal’s office and had a chat. One kid did run away on the walk over to the office.
Thank god Tim and I left for Ouaga the next morning. We were both very much in need of a break. Tim participated in a softball tournament that weekend. The PC team did really well. They almost one a trophy! Check out the pictures
The break from village was really nice. After that, I did much better dealing my classes.
Hello everyone
February was a pretty hectic month for both Tim and I. School is now near the end of the second trimester so everyone is super busy. The kids have been something this past month, and I’m not sure what that something is.
Most of the family knows that I had a rough month teaching in Feb. The kids were just being horrible. They were not respecting me or the other students in the class. Many of them were being super disruptive during class. They refused to listen to anything that I said during class etc… Well I found out what my limit was one morning and I literally walked out of class and had to go take a break. I went to the teacher’s room to just take a moment to try and collect myself and the kids followed me there. They were demanding forgiveness for upsetting me. Oh it was so not what I needed. I finally had to explain to them that I am an American and right now I am so frustrated with the class that they just need to give me time to sit and calm down. That worked, thank god. After that, the other teacher sitting in the room greeted me and asked me how my day was going. So the wrong question to ask… I told him exactly how my day was going. By the end of my venting session I was looking into the face of one terrified Burkinabé. His only comment was ‘Wow, you Americans like to talk about your feelings.’ After that I went and talked with the Vice Principal of the school and laid out everything that had been going on in front of him. I told him there is no way I can continue to teach here with them acting like this. Having kids laugh at you for punishing them is not a helpful way to manage a classroom. I do give props to the man he completely understood everything I told him and my feelings on it. He told me that Peter, the volunteer before us, had many of the same problems, but the second year is much easier. He told me that he would go and talk to my two classes.
The day kept on getting worse after school too. I stopped by Tim’s room and told him that I need to get away for site. Luckily we had planned a trip to Ouaga that weekend. He was supportive of my need to go to Ouaga. After that I went to the marché. That was where things hit bottom. My best friend in village was being absolutely obnoxious. She wouldn’t lay off on how Tim and I are going to need to take her to the States with us because it would look good if we were friends and I didn’t do that. She continued on how we need to obtain the visa and passport for her and buy the plane tickets. I tried to tell her its not possible blah blah blah. We are volunteers thus we do not earn a salary. She was not satisfied with any of those answers. Then she invited me to a fete that was going on that weekend. I politely declined saying that Tim and I were going to Ouaga. She demanded to know why. I explained that I really need to have a nice long conversation with my family and it was easier to do that in Ouaga. Well was the wrong answer because then she started telling me that I was such a baby and needed my mother to suck on boob… I tried to tell her to stop, but she wouldn’t listen and then the other veggie ladies started to join in and I finally had to just walk away.
On the way home I started to lose it. Once I turned the corner that lead to our house I just started crying. I cried for over three hours that day it was horrible. Tim and Surreal were super helpful and supportive.
Unfortunately, the story doesn’t stop here either. That afternoon, I went back to school to “help” Tim and to just get away from our neighborhood kids. Well Tim had finally hit his limit too. His kids are also super disrespectful and refuse to listen to him. He walked 3 kids over to the Vice Principal’s office and had a chat. One kid did run away on the walk over to the office.
Thank god Tim and I left for Ouaga the next morning. We were both very much in need of a break. Tim participated in a softball tournament that weekend. The PC team did really well. They almost one a trophy! Check out the pictures
The break from village was really nice. After that, I did much better dealing my classes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
