Halfway Mark!

I am currently at my mid-service conference and just realizing that somehow half of my 2 year service in the Peace Corps seems to have passed! Every day seems to be eternal, but the months are flying past, which doesn’t make any sense, I know, but that’s how it is. At any rate, I can hardly believe the things I’ve seen and done and I really can’t believe that now they all seem so normal… I was complaining the other day about having to use a toilet instead of the usual latrine. In my defense, however, toilets are often broken in this country so there’s that.

I am sorry to report that I have not been taking very many pictures, but I have a few that I’ll go ahead and put up. I completely forgot to take pictures at Coaching for Hope (a training that focuses on teaching HIV/AIDS awareness through soccer), though I was able to take a video of everyone singing and dancing but I know better than to try to upload a video with this slow internet connection. Anyways, here are the pictures that I do have. Enjoy!

Tō and sauce. This is what I eat every night in village. The white stuff is boiled corn paste and the sauce is made out of dried baobab leaves. At first, I hated tō, but I’m starting to like it. Granted, I have to douse it in an absurd amount of piment (dried crushed hot peppers), but still, it’s pretty good. Sometimes there is fish soup, which is called “naanjii” in Jula (“naan” being sauce and “jii” being water) which is just hot fish water, but I don’t know, I’ve been liking it lately. I willingly put it on my food, at any rate.

Also, this dish is supposed to be eaten with your hand. I’m not very good at it and it is a little too bien integrated to do every night, so they always give me my own little plate and a spoon. Once, one of the girls wanted to serve my bowl of tō and sauce for me and I watched as she submerged her entire hand into the bowl of tō and scooped out a handful for me and set it on the plate. Also: she hadn’t washed her hands. I was horrified but everyone else was totally unfazed. Why dirty a spoon when you have your hand right there and it’s already dirty?! Haha. I took a lot of Pepto almost immediately after eating.

This is me and the president of our agricultural group planting some trees. Things to know about the president: (1) I don’t think I’ve ever seen him wear anything but that booboo, (2) he is a master of making fencing with trash and thorny branches, (3) he thinks he can’t speak French (it’s not that bad, especially compared to my Jula) so he’s really quiet but he just wants to plant trees and (4) his wife is like three times his size and she is chock full of sass… She’s always making fun of me but, fair enough, I usually deserve it because I’m doing something stupid.

Working in the field with the plow! I took the trainees out to the fields and we all took turns plowing. Granted, we weren’t particularly good at it, but you can’t put a price on the entertainment that we were able to offer.

Here, we’re heading out to the river to see the hippos. Once again, these are the trainees that came to my site for “demystification” which is what they do to see what it is like to live in a village and be a PCV in Burkina. They had only been in Burkina for two weeks or something so it was really just an introduction to being a PCV, which is great because when you come into this country it’s really difficult to imagine what the next two years of your life will be like. For me, demyst was the first time that I was like “ok, yes, I can do this and…it’s going to be fun?” so it was nice to host PCTs. We also ate a lot of awesome food, visited a lot of officials that I had been meaning to visit anyways, and went to see hippos so I had no complaints.

So that is all I have for now, I’m going to make it a priority to take more pictures in the future… Hope everyone is doing well wherever they are and are enjoying my letters. I am certainly enjoying the letters from everyone who is writing :)