A Few Photographs

Siad: my favorite little boy ever!

I think he's going to be walking soon!

My 4e class

girls at Thanksgiving

Cooking stuffing

Chicken being grilled

Ryan holding the chickens before they were killed...and eaten

On a taxi brousse eating brochettes, what could be better?

Times in Tougouri

chicken on my pepper plants

"Sahel apples" I've recently found at site

It's so hot even the candles are melting...and it's not even hot season!

Tuesday November 10, 2009
Why, when writing guide books, do the authors only mention the rare animals one might encounter only at a reserve or park when visiting a country? There is no mention of the animals one sees on a daily basis. And here, in Burkina, one sees (and hears) many animals everyday. Not only are there cats running around (as mentioned in an earlier blog) but there are dogs, donkeys, goats, chickens, and a variety of other farm-type animals. Now the donkeys here do not do much running around, as they are either pulling a cart or shackled so they cannot get away. I really don’t like seeing people throw rocks at shackled donkeys to go faster, because obviously they can’t- they are shackled! Also, someone lied about the braying noise donkeys make or maybe donkeys just make different noises in Africa. When they bray, they sound (and look) as if someone is yanking out their vocal cords. It is a very unpleasant noise, but other than that donkeys here are very mild mannered. Chickens, on the other hand, I do not like. I particularly detest the chickens in my courtyard. At first there was only one, who had its nest in my shower area and pooped on my porch. I must admit that I stole some of its eggs and ate them, but wasn’t fast enough in taking all of them, so now there are chicks running around. The chicks are so cute for about a day and then they also started pooping on my porch. I guess I should be glad that they do eat insects, but recently they have decided to site right where I planted some new pepper plants. And because I am not always at home to shoo them away, I now have no more pepper plants. I’m just glad I don’t also have goats or cows in my courtyard to eat what plants the chickens decide to not sit on. Also, the roosters are constantly crowing, whether it’s 10am or 10pm. I think their internal clocks are messed up, especially when they start going off at 2am, when it’s definitely not dawn yet and I still want to get a few hours of sleep!

African Cats

Wednesday November 4, 2009

Normally when one says “African cats” they are referring to large predator animals such as the lion, cheetah, or lynx. These animals do live in Burkina, though not as many as in the savanna of eastern or southern Africa. However, when I say “African cats” I am not referring to the lion, but to the house cat, which is much more common here. And I seem to have bad luck with these African cats. First off, Eloise (my cat) had kittens in September, one of which I gave to another volunteer, Kait, and the other I gave to a student here in Tougouri. However, this second kitten did not want to leave its home, my house. Even after giving it to the student, it kept returning to my house, somehow knowing where it came from, and would meow all night long, waking up the whole courtyard. During one of these times in the middle of the night, I spent 30 minutes chasing it around the courtyard by moonlight trying to catch it. Once I caught it, I put it inside my house thinking that it was hungry and would be quite once inside. But no, it just continued to meow and almost seemed to get louder if that was at all possible. So the next day I had a student bring it out in the bush far away so it wouldn’t come back and disrupt sleeping in the middle of the night. I might be uncaring to just have it sent away like that, but at least I didn’t give it to someone to eat. And it turns out that that student just brought it to his village 12km away. So one problem solved!

Now I’m having another problem with another cat. I think Eloise is in heat and her “boyfriend” knows it, because this strange other cat has been showing up at all hours this week, trying to approach Eloise. I woke up last night to a loud hissing near my head, which turned out to be this other cat hissing at Eloise. So I wake up and hiss back at this cat and it leaves me alone, at least for the time being. Then later this morning I got home from teaching and the strange cat is in my house! It had figured out how to use the window flaps Eloise uses to get in and out of the house. This will not do. As I come it, this other cat gets scared, as it should, and goes to leave my house by the flaps, in the process breaking a ceramic mug I had just bought. I’m just hoping this cat will not show up again tonight or more might get broken than just a mug!

Mefloquine Dreams

My new "roads" in Tougouri looking towards school from my house

and towards center of "town"

Thursday October 29, 2009

I can’t say I’ve had many adverse side effects from taking mefloquine (preventative anti-malarial medicine) on a daily basis. However I become a slight insomniac the day and the day after I take Mefloquine and have had a few vivid dreams. My first Mefloquine dream worth noting is one I had at my host families’ house during stage about a month in. At this time, I was sleeping inside (because not allowed to sleep outside where it was cooler..long story), so sleeping inside I would wear as few of clothes as possible and sleep with the door shut. So this night I’m only wearing shorts and a sports bra (not culturally appropriate to be out of my room). I wake up in the middle of the night, scared for my life, thinking that there are tons of spiders coming out of my pillow. I jump out of bed and run outside, where my host mom finds me jumping around, almost hyperventilating. She calms me down, not before bringing me a pagne to wrap around myself, enough for me to tell her that there are spiders all over my room. She goes to my room, discovers no spiders whatsoever and comes back outside. By that time, I’m more calm and have realized that the spiders were probably a dream. So I try to explain this to her, while not knowing the word for « dream » at the time and end up telling her that malaria medicine did this to me. I’m sure my dream just made her think that Americans are just crazy.

I haven’t had any other really scary Mefloquine dreams, though a few others have involved spiders as well. In another dream I was headmaster of a private school where everyone wore these very elaborate green uniforms. Unfortunatly it wasn’t Hogwarts…

Last night I dreamed that I was back in the U.S. on vacation and forgot (don’t know how) to go to the grocery store. This was horrifying at the time so my family stopped at a store on the way to the airport to come back to Burkina. Rushing through the grocery store I couldn’t find the things I wanted and had to hurry to make the plane. I woke up crying. Even though I woke up crying, I’ll take grocery store mishaps over spiders erupting from my pillow any day (or night). I wonder what my next dream will be about…

Things that make me laugh :

1. Being told that by widening and flattening the paths into “roads,” Tougouri will be “a big town like Ouaga”
2. When sitting cross-legged, being asked if I’m doing “Tai Chi.” How people here know about Tai Chi, I don’t know.
3. Titling a section a section on a test “What Am I” followed by various descriptions of plant parts that students are supposed to identify by name and I get many responses of “I am a young boy/girl named…” before they read what comes next.
4. Having to explain multiple times that I am not cooking with dirt when I was seen putting dirt into a pot to make a dutch oven
5. Hearing “bye-bye” from little kids all the time, even when I’m just arriving some place, because that’s what you say to the white person