http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Burkina-Faso/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Africa , Burkina Faso en-us Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:38:34 UTC Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:38:34 UTC 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 Burkina Faso the former Upper Volta which was linked to Ivory Coast at one point and still feels inextricably linked to. We arrived though BoboDioulasso from Mali on a long road journey which felt like we sere covering the whole country but was probably the fresh wind rather than the speed as we only covered little more than 200km in some 8 hours or so Trvelling took the whole day and we http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Burkina-Faso/Centre/Ouagadougou/blog-334207.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 some of you might know that I lived in burkina the first year of my life and that my parents lived there for a good number of years. few might know the faces or the names not even thorugh pictures. in burkina I stayed all the time with my family so this what is to say about it is just for my family. the pictures though Ill upload here cause its easier http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Burkina-Faso/Centre/Ouagadougou/blog-317616.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 Now that school is out Radhika and I decided to take a trip to Oursi a village in the Sahel region in northern Burkina Faso. This would be the place we tried to go last summer when we caught a ride on top of a truck and then got stranded in the middle of the desert overnight because the road was flooded out.This time we brought bikes so we wouldnrsquot have to rely on slow rickety trucks fo http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Burkina-Faso/Sahel/Gorom-Gorom/blog-286212.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 I spent my last few days in the village wandering to my favorite places saying goodbye and handing out gifts. People loved the soaps lotions and flashlights from the US thanks mom as well as all of the little things from my house that wonrsquot be making the trip home. The village fonctionnaires gave me lots of nice souvenir fabric and the villagers presented me with gifts too mounta http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Burkina-Faso/Hauts-Bassins/blog-284049.html As the school year wrapped up in Satiri the oldest students were preparing for national exams while the others were preparing for vacation. I finished my 3ieme curriculum early so I could spend a few weeks doing only exercises for the exam. At this point the majority of my students stopped coming to class. They either felt sufficiently prepared for the BEPC or had given up hope of passing it. http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Burkina-Faso/Hauts-Bassins/blog-283768.html Banfora in the southwest corner of Burkina Faso is unlike any terrain we have seen thus far. Large fields of irrigated sugar cane lakes waterfalls green fields and Drumhelleresque rock formations. The bus journey was uneventful except for the young man that I was sitting next to who spoke excellent english and was explaining the sugar cane crops to me. As we neared Banfora he told me he http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Burkina-Faso/Cascades/Banfora/blog-279386.html Back in Bandiagara after the Dogon trek. We needed a day to get caught up on laundry and repacking. We opted to sleep on the roof back at the Hotel Satimbe rather than the celllike room but it was different with the noise of a larger town and more lights. In the courtyard at the hotel we met Adele and AnneSpohie both from France. They are travelling separately on bikes but have hooked u http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Burkina-Faso/Sahel/Gorom-Gorom/blog-277507.html The month of April was hot. Very hot every day. There were a few nights when the wind picked up and it seemed to want to rain but we got nothing but dust storms. When I lay down to sleep at 11 pm outside of course the temperature is often around 94 degrees and there is no breeze. Ugh.The artificial lake that was dug in Satiri last year is long dried up. It is now a field of dry cracked cl http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Burkina-Faso/Hauts-Bassins/blog-272724.html 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 le http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Burkina-Faso/Centre/Ouagadougou/blog-272451.html As of today I have 26 days left to this placement in Burkina Faso. Oh my gosh Just writing this freaks me out totallyI 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 the http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Burkina-Faso/Centre/Ouagadougou/blog-268870.html Burkina Faso is the third poorest country in the world but I'm not sure what factors are used to determine this. While it seemed no poorer to us than other poor African countries we have been to for example Cameroon Uganda and Malawi we only spent time in the capital Ouagadougou and one night in Ouahigouya also a large town. Hence we did not see the real Burkina Faso nor did we get t http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Burkina-Faso/Centre/Ouagadougou/blog-261989.html 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 ba http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Burkina-Faso/blog-261950.html This week is spring break and the plan was to travel to Niamey Niger to visit Geoffrey and Christine former Guinea PCVs. I left Ouaga on Sunday with Dr. Jen former Guinea PCV now in Burkina Kyan former Guinea PCV now in Togo and Katie Kyanrsquos friend from the States making her way to Tanzania to do a fellowship. It took about 6 hours by bus to get to the border. Kyan fought the http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Burkina-Faso/Est/blog-260587.html March 8 was International Womenrsquos Day a huge fte in West Africa. For several weeks the villagers were planning a departmentwide celebration in Satiri. Everyone from a dozen villages was invited to an allday event.All of the planning and organization was done by village women who met each week at the Prefetrsquos house. Naturally there were a couple of important village men that cou http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Burkina-Faso/Hauts-Bassins/blog-257977.html Irsquove now been living in Satiri for over a year The second trimester of school just ended Irsquom on spring break and the weather keeps getting hotter. I had to stay put in the village for a couple of weeks at the end of February because of nationwide strikes and demonstrations. The people were protesting the high cost of living and in particular a new import tax. There were demon http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Burkina-Faso/Hauts-Bassins/blog-257974.html