It has been over a month since my last entry and I think that an update on my activities is appropriate. More time elapses between each successive blog entry which should lead one to believe that I am busy! It is definitely the case. School The school year started in early October with expected delays. Teachers and students were sent to other schools, kids from other regions were sent to Koudougou, and as a result the administration was a mess as were the class rosters. I didn’t get to even talk with the Censeur (his job includes making the timetables and [View Full Entry]

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16 September I am beginning to sense the start of the school year approaching; my help has been requested for introducing newly recruited students into the computer database! An arduous task to say the least - there are at least 250 of them. Alain and I are also preparing to reformat all the computers in the lab, reinstall windows and some software, and get them up and running with different usernames for admin, teachers and students. At the same time I am still (!) trying to settle into my house. I don’t like knowing that several unfinished projects are going on [View Full Entry]

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Beef jerkey - yum Reeses Pieces - deserves its own bullet point, they're that good. Candy - Any dry candies (reeses pieces m&m's, reeses pieces peanut butter cups (get the hint yet?), oreos, etc) Trail mix - home made is probably the cheapest way to get lots of it, and you add what you want. Lots of nuts, raisins, m&m’s. the zip lock bags are also useful. Cheese - The dried parmesan stuff that keeps forever Pop tarts - great for bfast Chocolate - yes even though it will come somewhat melted its hard to find here and expensive Chicken and [View Full Entry]

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This is to all my fans - I know you have nothing better to do than continually hit your browsers’ refresh button until my next blog post appears and for that I am deeply grateful. It’s you guys who keep me typing away in the mosquito infested, hot and humid West African rainy season. But seriously, I really appreciate the fact that many of you have inquired about my next post, and of course, any and all comments left on my blog. I will buy you each a drink when I’m back. Also I misled you. I am currently in an [View Full Entry]

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(this is an old post that didn't make it online on time) Spent the night at Brian’s again on Saturday and saw even more shooting stars - broke my record again for best looking meteor. This time Brian saw it first and even as he was making noise to express his excitement I had already caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye. I turned to watch it and it lasted so long that we both had enough time to go “WOOOAAAHHHHH DUUUUDE” and it was still streaking across the sky. It must have lasted almost 2 [View Full Entry]

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6.8.08 In my last entry, I mentioned that Brad and I rode through torrential downpour to get lunch one day last week. I would like to emphasize that getting soaked to the bone and wearing damp clothes for the rest of the afternoon hardly fazed us; we even welcomed feeling cold for a while. We get wet almost every day, or at least I do, but it tends to be because of the heat which leads to the production of disgustingly large quantities of sweat. Being cold and wet is so much better. One of the sessions that we have each [View Full Entry]

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Today (Tuesday) I taught my first real class in Burkina. The computer lab is still not ready, so I had to make do with a classroom of 85 kids, a blackboard and colored chalk. Due to logistical problems with the computer lab, we will all spend Tuesday lecturing in the classroom for an hour and the other three days of class a week with each section in the lab. I split my 85 kids into 3 sections and started class at the beginning of computer training - how does one use a mouse. We were all somewhat naïve in thinking that [View Full Entry]

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Greetings! More great and wonderful things took place over the past couple days that I am pleased to share here with you. Thursday last week we ate large portions of slow cooked brick oven roasted pork and it was beyond amazing. Robert tallied up the number of people who wanted to eat pork for lunch and pre-ordered it at a restaurant that does this sort of thing. We arrived around 1pm with a mob 15 deep to feast on much needed flavorful protein. Everyone got served a large portion of roast pork chunks with some Dijon mustard and powdered piment which [View Full Entry]

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Great things happened this week! I got my first package and it was amazing. It’s funny to think that receiving a Science Illustrated magazine, a book, and some gum and mints would make my week. There aren’t any magazines here that I have seen so far, and the local newspapers are very basic and are not put together the same way as they are in the US or Europe. The amount of TV you watch here depends on your host family, and at my place we end up watching a lot of local news and soap operas from Cote D’Ivoire. What [View Full Entry]

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KOUDOUGOU This week was counterpart workshop and site visit. On Monday we were introduced to our counterparts and started the three day workshop. My CP’s name is Alain and he’s originally from Bobo, in the south. He lives in Koudougou now, and is a Physics teacher as well as the person who runs the IT room. I am basically going to take over his IT job so that he can spend his time teaching Physics and editing a workbook of Physics and Chemistry exercises that he put together and plans to sell. I’ll be teaching professors as well as a couple [View Full Entry]

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