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Nathalie Vallee
I am a fourth year student in International Development Studies at the University of Toronto Scarborough. I am leaving in September 2007 on my co-op placement in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso for a duration of 8-12 months. Follow my adventures!nat_vallee
"Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes" (Unknown)
Travel Blog Posts
May 3rd 2008
It's been pretty weird in my life lately, sort of balancing between different kinds of feelings and not really knowing what to do with all of it. I guess you reach a point in this experience where you don't know what you want anymore. I think I'm there now. I don't want to leave, but I can't wait to get to Toronto at the same time. Pretty weird. I don't feel like I'm actually realizing that I'm leaving. It will probably hit me in the last couple days and when I'll have a little good-bye party and take the plane. The African notion of time is still in me and I still feel like I have lots of time left, since here we take one day at a time. I pretty much finished work. I went ... read more
April 22nd 2008
As of today, I have 26 days left to this placement in Burkina Faso. Oh my gosh!!! Just writing this freaks me out totally! I am sad of going back for sure.. and I guess it will hit me even more once I start packing of selling my things. For now.. I'm actually excited to go back to Canada and to my fresh cool May weather. I am not jockeing guys, it is HOT!!! Just to give you an idea... I have a thermomether in my living room and it is up to 38 degrees in the house, that means.. in the shade.. The weather network says it's 42 degrees in Ouagadougou but under the sun.... it for sure is more than that. Another WUSC volunteer told me he has a thermometer outside his house, ... read more
April 1st 2008
Hello everyone!! Sorry for the lack of communication again. I know I'm pretty bad at this sometimes.. So.. updates from me.. Well.. mommy came to visit in March. It was a really nice time. She got used to Africa pretty quick and was actually better at adapting then I thought. It was also a cool experience in the sense that she speaks french. When Dee came.. there was some sort of a communication barrier and it was not as easy to meet people, but with Mommy, we got some nice conversations and interesting encounters done.. of which.. I rather not speak about :P ahah. But anyway.. She came with plenty of gifts, not only for myself. Bringing Dieubeni and Djeneba all sort of things, mainly school stuff and some books to learn english. They were both ... read more
March 4th 2008
It was Sunday morning, around 4h30 AM, I was stupidly going back home after a night out in the clubs, things I have been doing about every weekend lately. My girl friend and I splitted up at the bar and as usual, said that we would send each other a message to make sure we were home safe. That night, I didnt send my friend a text message. I suposed the thieves have been spying on me or looking at my movements in the past week and maybe notice that white girl on her moto out late every saturday. I was driving on Kwame-Khumah, this big European street where you almost feel like you are in Toronto. Then, arrived at some point, I turn right on this somewhat not too safe road to go towards my ... read more
The wind is blowing and the heat is coming!
Published: February 25th 2008Africa » Burkina Faso » Centre » OuagadougouFebruary 25th 2008
As February is getting to an end, the winds started blowing!! I thought the winds were on when Dee was here, but I was surely mistaken. Tornadoes of dust form sometimes in the middle of the street and the wind blows so hard that it makes my moped move sometimes. What is weird though, is that it only blows during the day and at night, it's calm. I suspect the sun and the heat have something to do with that. I'm sure my dear Stacey would have some weather scientific reason for this! ahah At least the nights are still cool for now, but the heat will come and the sweat will be pouring out of the pores! I dont want this to happen, at all even. The weather was so nice this past little while. ... read more
February 5th 2008
Alright!! Trying to catch up the blog entries and I seem pretty good with it for now anyway! My dear girlfriend was visiting me in Burkina for 2 weeks and man did that visit feel good. Being 4 months away from each other, really, it changes a lot of things and make you forget a lot too. We had a nice time back together and really I can't wait to be back home with her. But aside from the little love story there.. I was really surprised to have my baby in Africa. It was her first travel experience and man, she rocked it! I was pretty afraid of hearing all those judgements and comments about the culture and I was expecting to have arguments, but really, it did not happen at all. She was the ... read more
Mali trip part 2: New Year's and Mopti
Published: February 5th 2008Africa » Mali » Dogon Country » Mopti
January 18th 2008
So… here it goes and continues… about a month later! Sorry.. I’m trying to catch up on the lack of communication here! So.. after the whole Dogon Country thing.. we decided to take a relaxing day off in Bandiagara at a hotel a bit out of town. We had the biggest pile of laundry ever to wash! Good thing for us.. we met a Ghanian Burkinabe woman.. who was all excited to meet us and did it for us! Hurray! The room was nice.. and the meals were good. That night.. we had African tea with the manager of the hotel and a guy Courtney met while reading in the hammock. The next day, on December 31st.. we were on our way to Sevare, a town right before Mopti. We were recommended to go there by ... read more
Mali trip part 1 : The Dogon Country
Published: January 16th 2008Africa » Mali » Dogon Country » Bandiagara
January 15th 2008
Alright.. as Courtney and I took about 600 pictures during the whole trip and there are just so many of them, I decided to divide the Mali trip in Half so that I could put as many pictures as possible for you to see and also, so I wont get pissed off with the slow connection and just go a crappy job. Cause yeah, really, just to post this blog entry takes me a whole afternoon. So much for working enh! But what can you do! So this entry follow the Christmas one. We left on December 26th, had a hard time finding a bus that would get us to Mali and that would depart ASAP. We ended up taking a bunch of cabs around the city to different bus station and finally got to this ... read more
January 11th 2008
The start of the holidays started on Saturday the 22nd, when the girls from Ghana arrived, Courtney and Renee, 2 other WUSC volunteers. It was so much fun to have them here and to actually be able to celebrate the holidays with people you know and like. I showed them town a little bit. We got to eat amazing food and spend a good evening at the Gondwana Restaurant, where we had amazing shrimp fondue as an appetizer. Really, in a sense, I felt like good food for me is not a problem I am dealing with. There are a bunch of really good restaurant in town and I can always get something nice to eat whenever I want. It seemed like the girls were having issues with that and were missing the good North American ... read more
December 21st 2007
So, yeah I have bad news. I hurt myself the other day. To make the story short, I was putting up Christmas lights on top of the wall surrounding my yard. This wall has little peaks on top of it, meant to hurt any thiefs. The chair I was on broke and thus while I fell, those peaks totally disfigured 2 fingers. It's only on the floor that I realized I was hurt when I noticed the blood pissing from my hand. I put really thigh bandages around my hand and Djeneba drove me to the clinic I work at. It wasnt pretty. They did more than 10 stiches on my hand with the only needle they had available, a round maternity needle, when the nurse would have wished he had triangular needles. I got lucky ... read more
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