New Year 2012

Hello friends and family,

First of all, happy new year! I hope 2012 has been treating all of you well. My new year has been going well so far. As all of you probably know, I was in America for the month of December. It was great seeing all of my friends and family. Thank you all for the wonderful visit! We will have to do it again soon.

I arrived back in Burkina two days before the New Year and celebrated with several PCVs who came up to Kaya for the event. We made Mexican at my house and then headed to a dance club (if you can call if that) to dance until midnight. Overall, I’d say it was a success.

The following week I started work again at Save the Children. Before I left for vacation in America, I stopped working full time at the Save office or on the mobile team. I am now at two CSPSs (health clinics) in Kaya working with the malnourished children at those health clinics. And I am enjoying it so much more! When I was on the mobile team, I was supervising health clinic staff instead of actually working with the children myself. So since November I have been getting hands-on experience, which I find much more interesting (and good for fulfilling grad school pre-reqs). And on the days where not many women come to the clinics, I get to help out with vaccinations and pre-natal consultations. Woot woot!

In addition to working at the CSPSs I am working on Camp G²LOW here in Kaya. We have partnered with the local Ministry of Youth office and are working closely together during the planning process. So far, things are moving along smoothly. And as always, we are looking for donations, so please go here to learn more about Camp G²LOW and to place a donation.

Trent (my Kaya sitemate) and I recently got funds from PC to do a World AIDS Day project. We know we are a little late- World AIDS Day was December 1, but better late than never! We are planning to do a mural at Trent’s school he teaches at and are currently looking for another place in town for a second mural.

Last weekend I went up to Tougouri for my first visit since I left last summer. I planned on going for just Saturday, but ended up spending the night because there were just too many people to visit! Everyone was so happy to see me. Some were a little confused, because they thought I had gone back to America last summer, but here I was, riding around on my bike like I had never left. I also had the pleasure of sitting in on the Youth Club at the high school I taught at during my time in Tougouri. The Youth Club was started by Zangre, a counterpart who helped out with Camp G²LOW last year, and students who were camp participants last year. It was great to see something that I had helped start actually being continued after I left!

So that’s about all for the moment. Hope everything is going well with everyone stateside and I hope to hear from you all soon!

Now here are a few pictures of my new house in Kaya. I’m still decorating, or stopped decorating I guess, so if you have any great ideas, please let me know! There are a lot of blank walls…