http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/vincentinafrica/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from vincentinafrica en-us Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:16:42 +0000 Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:16:42 +0000 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.SchoolThe school year started in early October with expected delays. Teachers and students were sent to other schools kids from other regions were sent to Koudougo http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Burkina-Faso/Centre-Ouest/Koudougou/blog-344310.html 16 SeptemberI 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 user http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Burkina-Faso/Centre-Ouest/Koudougou/blog-327074.html This is to all my fans I know you have nothing better to do than continually hit your browsersrsquo refresh button until my next blog post appears and for that I am deeply grateful. Itrsquos 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 c http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Burkina-Faso/Centre-Ouest/Koudougou/blog-323972.html this is an old post that didn't make it online on timeSpent the night at Brianrsquos 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Burkina-Faso/Nord/Ouahigouya/blog-321619.html 6.8.08In 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 pro http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Burkina-Faso/Nord/Ouahigouya/blog-311181.html Beef jerkey yumReeses Pieces deserves its own bullet point they're that good.Candy Any dry candies reeses pieces mm's reeses pieces peanut butter cups get the hint yet oreos etcTrail mix home made is probably the cheapest way to get lots of it and you add what you want. Lots of nuts raisins mmrsquos. the zip lock bags are also useful.Cheese The dried parmesan stuff that http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Burkina-Faso/Centre-Ouest/Koudougou/blog-306638.html 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 a http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Burkina-Faso/Nord/Ouahigouya/blog-306637.html GreetingsMore 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 preordered it at a restaurant that does this sort of thing. We arrived around 1pm with a mob 1 http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Burkina-Faso/Nord/Ouahigouya/blog-306635.html Great things happened this weekI got my first package and it was amazing. Itrsquos funny to think that receiving a Science Illustrated magazine a book and some gum and mints would make my week. There arenrsquot 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 wat http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Burkina-Faso/Nord/Ouahigouya/blog-304064.html KOUDOUGOUThis week was counterpart workshop and site visit. On Monday we were introduced to our counterparts and started the three day workshop. My CPrsquos name is Alain and hersquos 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 t http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Burkina-Faso/Centre-Ouest/blog-301927.html ACCIDENTI saw my first African accident scene today. After language class on my way to lunch I took the main road back towards our training center. Up ahead I saw a large group of people on the left side of the road sort of hanging out chatting some were leaning up against a wall and just looking around and there were a lot of bikes and motos parked around them. On the right side where the http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Burkina-Faso/Nord/Ouahigouya/blog-301922.html Village Saturday I met up with Brian a GEE girls education and empowerment trainee who lives just outside of town about 5km into the bush in a small village. He Brad another IT trainee and I rode out to stay the night in Brianrsquos village. Brad and I live in town have class around town eat in town and basically had no reason to have left yet so we wanted to check out what http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Burkina-Faso/Nord/Ouahigouya/blog-297611.html After trying to write chronological blog posts covering the last week like I did when I was in the army I decided to sum everything up under topic headings. It should give you an idea of what itrsquos like being here. There are definitely some things I have already become accustomed to and wonrsquot remember to include here but they might crop up during other entries. Internet access is u http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Burkina-Faso/Nord/Ouahigouya/blog-292861.html We left Philadelphia at 1730 on Tuesday 10th 2008 on a 7 hour flight to Paris. The flight for Ouagadougou didn't leave until 1610 and since quite a few of the trainees hadn't slept people were crashing. Brian and I played an indoor game of urban disc golf with the mini's and wandered around the terminal. I layed down and tried to sleep for a bit with no luck. At some point I rolled over and http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Burkina-Faso/Centre/Ouagadougou/blog-286841.html My new address at siteROUX VincentBP 73 KoudougouProvince du BoulkiemdeBurkina Faso West AfricaIf you send things by USPS write AIRMAIL and PAR AVION on the envelope or package. Use RED pen to write on the package superstitions are powerful. Padded envelopes are a better way to send smaller items and may be cheaper if you stuff multiple envelopes with the same stuff you would have put in o http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Burkina-Faso/Nord/Ouahigouya/blog-285390.html So I arrived this morning in Philadelphia PA for my Peace Corps staging event. I got in at around 11am and soon found some similarly lost looking young people with way too much luggage for domestic travel my fellow Peace Corps Trainees PST's peace corps loves acronyms. We all hopped in a shuttle to the hotel checked in ate some lunch and went to register for training. Staging consi http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Pennsylvania/Philadelphia/University-City/blog-285243.html