Being a Burkinabe

We arrived in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, last Saturday and were greeted by a bunch of the PC staff. It was nice to be taken care of again, after being in travel since Tuesday afternoon. We spent the night at a hotel/hostel called SIL in Ouaga. That night we went to Doug, the Country Director’s house for dinner, where we had pizza (yes there is pizza in BK), spaghetti, and wonderful fruit salad. The next day we filled out paperwork and had the intro language test and then we travelled to Ouahigouya, where our training will take place. Ouahigouya is a city about 2 hours north (driving) of Ouaga. At Ouahi, we were greeted by a bunch of people singing and dancing. After finding our rooms, we had dinner and a dancing troup entertainined us- I even got to dance with them (and you know how well I dance). We also brought the rain that night and we all ended up dancing in the rain. The rain felt very good after the long past few days of travelling and the heat, of which I’m still getting used to (I think it will take quite awhile to acclimate). After dancing in the rain, I even felt cold- I think it will be that last time I’ll be cold in a long time. Right now, it’s the beginning of rainy season here in Burkina, so it’s cooler that it will be in the February-May. So we’re really lucky to have gotten here when it’s not so hot, however to me, it feels very hot and I’m sweating a ton while I’m just sitting here.

The past few days have been spent taking classes and learning more about Burkina. Last night we got adopted in our host families. Mine consists of only a mom and dad- some other trainees have up to 30 people living in one courtyard (area of houses). My host parents are very nice and made sure everything was okay with me, however there is a bit of a language barrier, as I am not that good at French and speak very little Moore- one of the local languages. So last night was pretty funny, eating dinner with my host mom and dad and trying to communicate through French, Moore, and a little bit of English. Last night a bunch of people came over to meet me and talk to my host parents. It was interesting (and apparently very funny to them) to try to speak to all the visitors. Everyone thinks it’s hilarious when I talk (or try to talk). I got pretty lucky with my host placement, as my host family’s house is very close (about a 10 minute bike ride from training), and I even have running water and electricity! So that means that I have a shower- which is a rarity here in Burkina, but I still have to use the latrine that is outside the house. A latrine is really just a hole in the ground and is a pleasure to use, haha, especially with the bugs that scatter when I go to the toilet in middle of the night with my headlamp.

But overall, I’m having a great time here. I know it’s only been a week since staging in the US, but it feels like several months at least- I guess because so much has happened and I’m ready for even more to happen!