December Blog

*Sorry for the delay in posting blogs. The Internet has been a little unreliable.

The first trimester of school is officially finished and we are glad to have reached Christmas break. We have been busy grading the last of our tests and checking with student s that we wrote down their grades correctly. I have had a half of my student ask for exceptions since they didn’t reach the required 50% to continue in my class. It was ridiculous. I gave them a chance for extra credit every Friday for a month and only about 10 took it. All you needed to do was watched a movie and write a little summary of it. So, there are no exceptions, pardons, or extra points in my class. Becky’s students seemed to get the idea that they needed to study. One Friday, there were more than 40 students from Becky’s classes that wanted to watch the movie. Unfortunately I had to turn a few away because I ran out of space in my lab. I hope that the movie night is that popular again, because it is nice to see success.
We just got through Christmas, which was fun and hard at the same time. We missed home a lot, but the people in Boulsa were great. A couple of our neighbors gave us chickens to cook. There was one that was ready to be cooked and another that was still alive. The live one was a bit of an adventure. Becky was the one who answered the door and as soon as the neighbor left, she started to yell for me to come and grab it. Of course neither of us knows how clean a chicken, so Mr. Rooster got to relax outside for a night while we waited to ask Nathanial to clean him for us. He ended up tasting pretty good.

Christmas in village was interesting. Everyone gets dressed up for Church then go visit their neighbors. The kids were very cute in their Christmas best. The girls had on matching dress and the boys were wearing three piece suits. The town was very busy and there have been a couple of huge market days.
We spent a couple of busy days in Ouaga trying to get work done for the Peace Corps. I don’t know how successful it was but we did try. I have spent the last two weeks fighting a never ending battle with my lab. Most people would have thrown in the towel by now as a plea for mercy. Hopefully things will smooth out soon or I think that Becky may put me down.

New Years in village was uneventful other than having to listen to the neighborhood bars blast music the entire night. I thought that going to bed at 1 was ok, but not here. When I got up at 5am they were still going strong.

This year’s cold season has been much cooler than last year. At night it is getting down to the low 70’s and we are cuddled together under our blanket. During the day it is only getting to the mid 80’s and is wonderful. Taking a shower is interesting. The water may be warm but then we are freezing right afterward. It seems like the cold season might last longer than last years as well. By now it was starting to heat back up. Hopefully this hot season won’t be as bad as last years, but on the bright side, there is A/C in my lab now.

School is starting back up now and we are looking forward to the second trimester. Becky has a test scheduled for next week and I am looking forward to teaching practicals so that the kids will stop complaining about theory. Typing practice here we come.

Our trip to Egypt is all planned out and we are getting excited for the trip. It will be nice to get to see the ancient wonders and to have something other than rice and sauce be reliably on the menu.

We’re starting to look forward to our COS (close of service). It is nice to think about home but the time here has flown by. It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were just getting to Boulsa and starting to teach. We still have a lot of stuff that we would like to get done before we head home. But with only 4 months of teaching left it really puts into perspective how much time we have left.

Surreal has been doing well. She seems to think that it gets cold at night, so decides to climb in bed with us. This is a nightly battle since she tries to take up the center half of the bed with Becky and me on either side of her. We thought sleeping in bed with Desi was bad. Surreal has taken bed hog to a whole new level.
Hope you all had a great holiday season and can’t wait to spend it with you next year.

Pictures to come later--2 weeks