The small things that make me smile here in Burkina:

• Walking down the street and having little kids scream “Cindy!” or “Youmanli!” (my Gulmance name) instead of “La blanche!” or the Gulmancema equivalent, “U bonpienu!”
• Enjoying an ice cold sachet of water in 100+ degree heat (Bottles of water aren't common here. Usually, you'll find water in sealed plastic bags of 500 ml).
• On a similar note, finding that juice boxes are in stock and cold at the local alimentation, or grocery store.
• Sleeping through an entire night, not being woken by donkeys braying, calls to prayer, or the immense heat.
• Rain and overcast days.
• Baby animals! Animals have free reign of the land and wander wherever they please. Baby goats are especially cute and currently very plentiful.
• Having internet access that lasts longer than 5 minutes without losing signal.
• Making babies laugh and smile instead of cry.

The Future and Food

Starting off SW's birthday celebrations at the pool! Not sure why I'm the only one standing. Force of habit from generally being one of the shortest ones in the group, I guess.

The Fada bros got matching mohawks. But rejected my suggestion to shave FADA into the sides.

The only photo marginally related to IST (in service training), where we were split into regions and received a week of language instruction. As an in-the-field class session, SW, LC and I had our futures told by a sand reader. We asked questions, he drew lines in the sand and interpreted them. My future career has to do with steel or metal in some way, and it will make me rich. Woo!

Delicious donuts and birthday cake with guava filling! Unfortunately, this is not standard Burkinabe fare. Other food included in SW's "chicken crawl" birthday celebration: frites royale, fries with scrambled eggs, tomatoes, and onion, and poulet du chef, the chef's special breaded chicken, aka the KFC of Burkina.

A quick photo update

until I get around to writing an actual blog entry!

A group of Italians came to work with a primary school for 10 days. The theme of the camp was "Pinocchio", and focused on arts and creativity. For the closing ceremony, the students wrote, directed, and made puppets for short plays in the local language. Thus, I couldn't really understand everything that was going on, but the audience seemed to enjoy the puppet shows!

 Photos from my trip to Namounou. The big marche (market) day there is Sunday, so a few friends and I decided to head over and check it out.

 The view from the top of the hill! Namounou is located in a basin surrounded by hills, with only 2 exits. The hills weren't that high, but in a land where almost everything is flat, even a little elevation is a big deal.

 Drinking some dolo, the local beer made from millet, with my travel companions.

Grabbing a long lunch before catching the truck back home. Notice the deliberate word choice. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of our transport.

A daily "work" schedule

I've been at site for about 1.5 months now!I guess the time really does fly by here, as older volunteers have told us. This is a job that generally doesn't come with a lot of structure, so you have to make your own routine.  I've kind of settled into a basic schedule for each day now:

7 am: Wake up, heat up water for a bucket bath (though it'll soon be hot season so heating up water won't be necessary!), take my bucket bath and have some breakfast.

8:30 am: Leave the house and make my usual rounds in the village. This includes greeting various people in one of 4 languages (French, Moore, Gulmancema, Hausa). The salutations generally go something like this:

“Duan guam!” - Good morning, or literally, 'How did your bed sleep?' in Gulmancema

“Laafia” - It's going well, literally 'Health'

“A tuona te?” - And your work?

“Laafia”

“A dempo te?” - And your family?

“Laafia”

“A bila te?” - And your children?

“Laafia”

“Tu wari te?” - And the cold? Here, 60 degree weather means time to bust out the winter jacket.

“Laafia”

“Ka lam pugani!” - See you later!

“Too!” - Ok! Pronounced “toe”

And generally I'll causer, or chat, with various people during my morning walk. I even had a routine set up for some days! Mondays, I go help peel and cut veggies at a restaurant near my house, then go to the CSPS, a health clinic, and help out with the baby weighings. The CSPS tracks the weight of babies and their mothers, and gives special formula to the babies who are malnourished. Wednesdays, I go watch trials at the Ministry of Justice. Granted, I usually can't understand what's going on, but it's interesting nonetheless.

12 pm: Lunchtime! Depending on the day, I'll go home and eat leftovers from the last night's dinner, or go to a restaurant in town.

1 pm: Siesta time. Most offices are closed from 12:30 – 3 pm for the repos, or rest period. It's too bad this idea hasn't caught on in the US yet. If I'm really tired, I'll nap, but otherwise I'll read, clean a bit, or just enjoy some quiet time in my house.

3 pm: Round 2 of walking throughout the community. The area where I live conveniently lends itself to literally walking in circles. In the morning, I generally make one loop through all the shops to greet people and chat, and then make another loop (sometimes mixing it up and going in the opposite direction) in the afternoon.

5/5:30 pm: I end my tour of the village each night as a yogurt/juice stand. One of my friends owns the stand, and another makes ciceena, small fried cakes made with bean flour, and fried patates, sweet potatoes that aren't too sweet. I'll usually have a few snacks there before heading home.

6:30 pm: Arrive home. I generally chill for a bit, or chat with my neighbor, before starting dinner. In a combination of laziness and foresight, I try to go to the market 2 times a week to get the veggies I'll need for the week's meals.

9 pm: I've agreed to teach my neighbor to read and write French, which is an interesting feat, considering my own lack of French skills. But in the evenings, I'll often go over the alphabet with her, and teach her how to write some basic words. It's definitely been a lesson in patience and communication.

10/11 pm: Bedtime! I'm usually really tired by 10 or so. I can't imagine staying up until 2 am or so like I used to do in college. Maybe I'm just getting old.

And then the next day, it starts all over again. That's basically what I do with my time here! There's no real office for my association in my town, so I don't quite have a 9-5 job, as some other volunteers do. These first 3 months especially are for getting integrated into the community and figuring out potential projects. So far, I have some ideas, and we'll see how they play out in the next few months! 

Life at site photos

Me with my neighbor's 1 year old son! He's very cute and has way more energy than me.

My neighbor! Not the mother of the boy, but a relative who lives with her and watches her son, and helps out with housework.

The view from my front porch. I live in a celebetariam (that might not be the right spelling), which is 5 connected houses sharing a courtyard, as you can kind of see from the above photo. Notice the goat in the photo. It doesn't belong to anyone in the courtyard. Yeah, goats, sheep, pigs, and other animals just sort of wander wherever they please.

New address!

So, I finally made it over to the post office to open up my Boite Postale (PO box). My new address is:

Cindy Guo
BP 27
Diapaga, Burkina Faso

And hopefully things sent to that address will get here! lol. The address'll also be under the "send me mail" tab for future reference.

Some holiday pics

LC's house. about 2x the size of mine.

SW with the present the CC gave each of us new PCVs! It was filled with candy. Mmm.

Hanging out at JG's house and eating our X-mas eve tuna salad.

The taco spread for Christmas brunch.