Sick as a dog

Well we all knew it was coming... and now it's here: my first aggressive intenstial bacterial infection. And let me tell you, these last 24 hours have been hell on earth. Yesterday afternoon I started feeling fevery and weak and so I went home and took a nap, woke up, checked my temp: 102.

Patrice, my LCF (Language/Culture Facillitator) came over for dinner and we had chicken and french fries and it was delicious. I already knew I was getting sick so why not eat food that tastes good. What's a little more diarrhea, right?

Went to bed at 8:30 and woke up at 10:30 and the stomach sickness started. Nausea, diarrhea etc etc. Didn't want to have to march past my family with the toilet paper so I just held it in as best I could (dumb I know). Woke up later and couldn't hold it anymore but by then the rain had started pouring and pouring so I couldn't go out without probably having a lengthy conversation about going out in the rain with the family so I opted for my bath bucket and a pringles can. Did I mention the Peace Corps steals your dignity? lol

Dragged myself into training this morning but only could make it half a day before crashing in the med unit. I slept through my interview with Seb about my site and when I woke up at 4:30 my fever was up to 103.3. I knew i needed to find some IBuprofen fast, but go figure, there isn't any on hand here. I can't ever remember having a fever that high. Usually at home when I run a fever it's 100 or something. So the driver took me to my house (which I didn't mind because of the AC in the car) and I found my med kit (has everything under the sun you might need medically w/o a prescription) and my MIF kit (stool sample preparation kit) and went back to training. I scarfed down some Ibuprofen and submitted my MIF kit to the lab, got the results back, and here I am just a few hours later with the knowledge that I have a bacterial infection, probably E. coli and have to take some Cipro (hardcore antibiotic) for a few days.

The Cipro will clear stuff up real soon I hope. My family is really sweet; they wanted to know if they could come visit me at ECLA tonight (I'm staying at our training site in the med unit tonight). It'll all be fine soon, so don't worry; antibiotics are magic. I've never had a fever that high though - I was really starting to feel insane. Scary stuff.

And Hi to Lara's family and Julia's awesome mom and Andrea's awesome mom any any other PC trainee family out there! : )

Alright time for more pictutres. Everyday I am in hours of class, lately language class, and instead of sitting inside a classroom, my class (three of us) bikes out somewhere in the town and has class there. Often we go to the outside of a cyber café and these little birds like to hang out there in pairs. The male is a bright red and the female is green and red. They're the most common birds I see around here other than hundreds of vultures but I don't yet have their species name - but I'll look it up soon in my bird book! So here's a male.

This is a picture of a lot of my host family. On the left is my 11 yr old sister Toma (TOH-mah) and then my mom Ami (AH-me) and her yongest son Nayeme (nah-YEEME) and Ami's aunt (I think) who was in town for a visit and then Abbas (ah-BAS) my 14 year old brother. This is a shot of most of the living room - the only indoor space that they spend any time in, and a great deal of the size of the house. There on the table is my normal breakfast: bread and powdered milk or tea. There in the background you can see the stove they use - it's similar to a camping gas stove. A lot of the cooking is done outside though because it gets really really hot in that room when that stove is on.

The other night a whole lot of family showed up all of a sudden and started cooking a lot. I was supposed to go out that night with the volunteers so I wasn't around for most of it but when I woke up the next morning there was a lot of cooked things and a lot of Zom-Kom (this cold sweet drink that is kind of fruity, kind of tea-y, and has a lot of millet flour in it. I'm not yet used to it's taste or the fact that there is flour in what I'm drinking but maybe I will be soon. Millet makes its way into a lot of things here like little cooked grains of it are put in yogurt type stuff, for example. But anyway that morning I was told that someone had died 33 days ago. I'm pretty sure it was 33 days ago. It was an old man in the family - not the direct family - but in the larger, African family - and that took place before I got there but the family is Muslim so there are several death-processing events. There's the immediate one and then there's usually something a week later and then if it's a man 33 days after the death (or 44 for a woman) and then usually something 100 days after the death. This could be slightly off since these sort of details are hard to get in fast french that you're not really expected to be fully understanding anyway - which is a shame since the culture is really interesting. Anyway that morning on my way out of the courtyard and into the street, I was accompanied by my mom who was escorting me past all the men that had gathered along the street on mats because of the occasion. The food was an offering I think and also something nice to do for the direct family. Death here for older people is not a sad thing, persay. It is only a tragedy when the person is still young. This was an elder person though.

Here's a couple shots of the inside of my room. I don't know for sure but I think that I might have the only bed in the house. Everyone sleeps outside, either on matressess or little thatch mats. So this room is pretty cush. You can see such features as my big white water filter, my green mosquito net, and some African pagnes (wraps) hanging around. You can also see that I al very privilaged to have a standing fan. That is a real treat here. But it's necessary for that room - because as you can see with the size of the window - it would quickly become a clay oven in there w/o air movement.

there in the foreground. On the right you can see a couple metal doors and those go to the latrine and the shower area (bucket bath). On the left you can see a little door which goes in a little house which is what all the houses are like here in my courtyard. There are 3 orMost of the time is spent outside in the courtyard though which is pictured here. This is a shot from the front door on my way out in the morning. That's my sweet Peace Corps mountain bike 4 of them - all belonging to this family - surrounding this courtyard. I don't really understand the center yet - because it looks like either something was/is/or will be being built there. That door that i referred to is actually a tomb, it seems, for my mom's late parents. She says we'll go in there someday. The houses are hard to count though - it's hard - it all kind of resembles a maze. And yes - that there on the left is a sateillite dish - my family has enough money to have TV and there the dish is, smack dab in the middle of this African courtyard. I really haver grown to like the bucket baths though - especially when you take them around dusk. Around that time of day, if the water hasnn't been out in the sun all day, you can almost feel nice and cool. This courtyard is on a side street right off of the main drag of Ouahigouya so this is a downtown place. And the next picture is a pic of the side street just down the block from my house. This is a pretty typical side street. The road goes from busy and paved to dirt and lined with trash and animals in less than 2 blocks. No the trash doesn't smell good. Yes I should ideally be greeting every person I meet on the street. Even if most of what I hear down these roads is "NASSAARRA". On one hand I think it's great that I have to do so much greeting because it kind of makes me think that just walking by people without even looking at them in the States is kind of wierd, but at the same time the whole greeting routine and frequency of greeting is hard to get used to for someone like me once you've done it for the 50th time in one day. That's abnormal since I'm in class so much but on the weekends it's not that far off. I'm at least comfortable with the greeting process in Mooré now. Goes something like: Good morning, how are you / good / how's your family / good / how's your work / good / etc etc. This can be abbreviated for perfect strangers or you might go through the whole thing with someone you don't know at all.

There are a lot of animal noises here. It's worse/louder/more noticable in the villages but there are a fair number of donkeys, chickens, sheep, goats, bulls in the couple blocks around me. Here's a random picture of one bull on my street. I'm not used to being able to just walk by a bull. They're all lightly tied up like this one and all seem pretty low energy. I heard there's a camel in one of the villages and I told my host mom I wanted to ride one and so she said she'd take me to go see him sometime.

The swimming pool here is amazing. It's a real pool! And the water isn't too hot. It's a little pricy but it's totally worth it.

Anyway - those are all the pics for now. Feel free to ask any questions since things that might be self apparent to me might not be to you.

Thank you for the care package offers and phone calls and emails and messages. There is no way to explain exactly why or how these three weeks have felt like a year to me and to everyone here, but they have and there is also no way to explain how nice it is to hear from you all. Ciao for now.

Cell Phone!

I bought a cellphone today with the spare money I had left over from the states. For 30,000 CFA which is somewhere around 50 USD.

My number is : 011 226 76 79 3367

Those are all the numbers you would need to dial to call me from the states.

Once again; it's free for me to receive calls; really expensive for me to call out, but you should all be able to find calling cards that end up being about 11 or 12 cents per minute from the states. When you're looking up rates or whatever keep in mind that you're calling a cell; sometimes the rates are different. I have no idea what your local phone company would charge you w/o a calling card but I can assure you that the calling card is much much cheaper.

I've heard that there's a calling card on callingcards.com that is 11 c per minute but I don't have any verification that it's a good deal yet (you know like no hidden fees etc).

You can call me at anytime but the times I am for sure not in class are:
Sunday: anytime
Saturday: anytime after 8 am EST
M-F: anytime after 1:30 pm EST

In general I go to bed before 7 EST but you can call anyway I'm sure I'd love to hear from you and please let me know about what calling cards work so i can know for the future.

Ciao!

First pictures!

Alright - here come the first pictures. You might be thinking, " What's all this writing?" .... well you see, one of the most interesting hours we've had so far was the morning after our first night with our host families. For us science and math teachers this was the first time we left the group and got scattered across Ouahigouya and for the girls ed and empowerment people they got spread out into villages that are a 30-45 min bike ride away . There are three sheets here detailing the group's contributions to answering three questions, and they are, in order of their appearance, "What was challenging or embarassing for you?" "What was your first culture shock?" and "What do you like/enjoy in your homestay so far?" These are worth it; click on the image and no they're not rotated right and yes the handwriting's all over the place but they're in high enough resolution to read and they'll make you laugh or smile or maybe fear for my health but you should at least read them - particularly the first one. It was a hard night but it's over and we're all for the most part doing better.

The next pic (the one with the red dirt) is a snapshot from a little movie i took w/ my camera as we were driving out of Ouagadougou. This isn't where I am now and it was out the side of a crammed bus, but it's a pretty accurate representation of what most of what I've seen of Burkina looks like. Most of the time there are fewer trees and here in town there are more kiosk/shop things but that's what not downtown looks like. I'll put up some pics of Ouahigouya soon. The pic next to it is the hostel place we stayed at in Ouagadougou - it's a resort compared to village life.

One of the first things we did here in Ouahigouya was to go see the cheif. We brought him a live white rooster (I was picked to offer it to the cheif) and some cola nuts which are a sign of peace here I think. In turn he answered our questions and said we could stay here in and work and thanked us for being here and said we could consider ourselves Burkinabé. It is considered good luck to get the cheif's blessing. Here is a picture of the cheif on his throne with the rooster I gave him there next to his son.

We are all starting our third week in this country and we should all be proud. There's no doubt about it - the Peace Corps is for real and not for everyone. I think it's getting easier. Maybe? Maybe it's just not quite as hot.

We found a great place in town to get egg sandwiches. For 350 CFA - that's less than a dollar. They taste good and it mean's I'm eating protein. Yay.

Thank you all for the comments and questions - I miss you all.

Dust Storm

Last night I had my first dust storm. The winds picked up as it was getting dark, like they often do when it is threatening rain. My host mom took me for a walk to see her friend down the road. The two women I met there were very sweet and my mom and they had what seemed like Mooré girl talk for a few minutes and then one of the women asked me what women did in the United States. I told her that for the most part they did what men did and that it was becomming more like that everyday but that there were still some housewives.

We left and everything was kind of glowing reddish brown as the dust started to pick up and the light continued to fade. Already it was painful to not cover my face. We got back home as the wind really picked up and soon all the kids ran in the house and even one from another family and we sat there and listened to the wind. Dust seemed to pour through the front door. They gave me some foul smelling goo to put up my nose. My skin was shades darker from the dust. Then the electricity cut out. The wind door down the thatch roof that partially covers they courtyard.

The baby slept but my younger sister and brother and their friend played hand clapping games to wait it out. They taught me some too. It was remarkable that they were not afraid. Then the rain started and it was so loud on the tin roof that you couldn't hear yourself think. I headed to bed and fell asleep right away; it was after 10 - way past my bedtime.

I just had a great sandwich for lunch. I probably wouldnt have said that about the same sandwich in the US but it was the first lunch i've had here that I liked.

Thank you for all of your messages and emails - they are worth gold - for those of you who think it would be better to let me settle in first before blabbing in my direction - think again. I welcome all the emails and everything - the more the better - it can really turn your day around - even if you're just telling me about that delicious iced coffee you got today or anything. I can dowload everything on flash drives and read it at my leisure, even though I have to pay for internet.

I will be getting a cellphone - probably this weekend. I'll let you know the number when I do. It is super expensive for me to call out but free for me to receive calls. SO that means that if you want to talk to me or if you think i want to talk to you, please try to figure out a cheap international calling card situation. I know that PINGO (pingo.com) has calling card options to BF but not sure if its the cheapest. I dont have a lot of time or money to hang out on google and figure out the best option so help me out if you can. PINGO is also sposed to have some sort of PC discount but I havent asked. You should be able to get some sort of generic calling card i think too. Should come out to about 11 c per minute. Enough of that for now.

Training is really hard. Its strange though because - at least for me - it's everything other than what we're actually being taught that is hard. I meaning they're going pretty slow and very thoroughly through how to teach, we're getting lessons on health and safety, and language classes are, well, language classes. I'm in the top French group for the teachers which is reassuring but at the same time scary since I don't feel that i can speak that well.

The heat is really hard. The rain is late this year - but it keeps threatening every day. I sleep outside now and fall asleep listening to the 2 old women in the family chatting either to each other or no one in particular. Its about as stereotypical as it gets - old women missing half their teeth, speaking in a tongue i dont know yet; topless with breasts stretched down to their waists and their bottom half covered in a pagne or two. Still though sleeping outside i wake up drenched in sweat at 5 or 5:30 when the sun comes up.

Last night my mom here took me for a walk (I think she is proud she has a nassara) and we walked down the road and in the street there was a large gathering of people. I learned that there is not much water left for my neighborhood, so they are rationing it out till the rains come. Imagine if your concern wasn't over having clean water but having water at all.

The food is hard too. I like about 25 percent of what I've eaten here, but I've learned to eat dinner without tasting it if I need to and maybe i'll grow to like things. It's hard to convince yourself to like liver or sheep or goat or stomach when you see all the animals eating from the trash that lines the streets of the city here.

But my family is great. They are just so nice I can't even tell you. The kids do all the work here. You just say waka to someone younger than you and they come over and do whatever you want. Thats for your family. I could say that to any kid on the street though and they would do whatever i wanted. It strange to be able to call my family wealthy - I mean they are - but they really have nothing. They have some clothes and a 4 room house about as big as 3 tinycollege dorm rooms and then one larger one that serves as the kitchen and the dining room and the living room. There is a lock on my door (thank you Peace Corps) and there's a 14 inch TV in the main room and a small fridge. A gas powered camping stove and some chairs. The dust that is outside is inside too, and my little sister taught me how to use the little straw brooms to clean my room and tomorrow my mom will show me how to make To (TOE) which is this corn or millet tasteless play-dough textured thing that everyone eats and if you're not in the city you eat with every meal.

I've started feeling sick a lot. I knew it was coming. But today is a good day.

My mother here gave me a pagne and a top to match and i went to training the other day wearing them and it felt great. I'll send pics soon. It was so sweet of her. Everyone said it looked great. It felt great to be nassara but to blend in too. The hoards of kids screaming nassara as I bike home had to look twice. I got a flat tire on my bike already but so have many others. I also learned how to fix it : )

Peace out for now.

Hello!

Alright I'm here. I emailed a few of you last week to prove i hadn't yet died and now I have a few mintes to post here until my hunger wins out or I have to go back to class.

Last week we spent a couple days in Ouagadougou (the capital) and now we have arrived in Ouahigouya (big "city" in the north) where we will stay until swear-in at the end of August. We have been sorted into 5 groups: 4 groups of us going to surrounding villages (these are the girls' education and empowerment folk) and the 5th group, the science and math teachers, who will stay in the city here in Ouahigouya. For the GEE flk this means they're living village life now and face a 30 - 45 min bike ride into the centre for class whereas we are all with in 10 min of here and live with more wealthy families.

This means I've got it good. My family is a group of about 30 people who all live in a few tiny houses surrounding a small courtyard. In the house I'm living in there's a mom, dad, and 3 kids. There's electricity, a fridge that keeps things moderately cold, and a TV. The house is clay, I use a pit latrine, take 2 or 3 bucket baths a day (as is the custom), and eat using only my right hand. Let me emphasize, this family is very rich. Most of the volunteers in the villages simply didnt sleep last night because the temperatures in the mud huts are unbearable. Everyone is waiting for the rains to start to calm this ridiculous heat.

I have never felt heat like this. 100 degrees in the shade during most middle of the days. I drink about 6 liters of water every day and i'm still thirsty. I bet if it were physically comfortable, and the water was cool and not room temperture (i.e. HOT) I would drink 10.

My French is getting much better already. I'm not really afraid of the teaching in French part any more.

I haven't gotten sick yet but i know it's coming. I'm no good at latrines yet.

If you love me and want to send me things to make my life happier, you could send me any of the following:

Granola bars (no yogurt coating or chocolate or things that would melt) In particular I like the simple versions of the Nature's Valley ones. Breakfast here is simply a piece of a baguette and some tea or milk from powdered milk so I'm craving grains.

PRE-SWEETENED powder for drinks. I'm not living on my own so I don't have a personal sugar supply yet so anything really - what I have now is lemon though so as long as theres the choice; I'd prefer berry or cherry or grape or whatever and what ever brand. Just not the Koolaid packets that aren't presweetened, yet.

My blue Nalgene (this is to the parents). Needless to say, I'm drinking way more here than at home so I could use the bottle.

Cheez Doodles. I'll love you forever. The crunchy kind. They're light I promise.

The postage gets much cheaper the heavier the package (you can look it up at usps.com i think) and it'll take like 3 weeks to get here but it will be much appreciated. In fact I'll appreciate anything you send I'm sure. I'm not desparate yet but I may be in 3 weeks. Thank you in advance! Address is on Blog.

Got to run for now but I am fine and will write more soon and maybe even some pics. The Burkinabé are the nicest people i have ever met.

Ok tomorrow i'm gone for REAL

Alright I've completed Staging. Today was a long but completely tolerable and even enjoyable day of bonding, team building, and loads of education about Peace Corps policy. We looked at case studies, learned about the myriad of ways in which we will all be harassed, learned of our flight arrangements and even laughed a lot. I mailed off my driver's license home and mailed off my loan deferment forms to Cornell and the government. I went to CVS and bought envelopes, a thing of shampoo, granola bars, an accordian folder and some stickies. I got some take-out chinese food and a coke.

Going is not so hard anymore. When I got here and I was late and I was rushing to the ballroom and the bellhop showed me to the doors in which my staging was starting I really had to push myself to walk in. I took about 5 seconds of him wondering why I wasn't going in and me wondering why I wasn't going in before I flipped a switch somewhere and walked in. And since then it's been really overwhelming but at least I know the 28 other people I'll be doing it with and I had no idea how relieving that would be. Unlike other meet-so-and-so-group situations, there's no one here I don't like. Not one bit. There's not even any judgments I've incorrectly made about anyone in a negative way. We're all - well - great. No, we don't know each other THAT well, but I sure haven't felt that close to 28 total strangers after 30 hours before. No one's playing tough either.

There's been some nerve-wracking unanswered questions about baggage. Tomorrow goes something like: get up at 5, eat, check out at 6, go to clinic at 7, get shots, hang there so we don't puke because of the massive shots, get back on bus, drive to NYC, go into airport, fly to Charles de Gaulle en Paris. Then next day goes something like: 8 hour layover in airport, fly to Burkina at like 4 pm, get to Burkina around 8 pm local time. At the airport, we identify our luggage and then let go of all but what we need for 2 days. We'll be staying in Ouagadougou (Oh-ah-ga-DOO-goo) for two days in a place with showers! The rest of our stuff will be going to where we'll be training, Ouahigouya (why-ee-GOO-ya). We'll see it when we get there and then repack our bags so that we only bring one bag to our host family where we'll be for three months. That's my best understanding, but there is some confusion about when exactly we will and when exactly we won't have access to our stuff and just how strict that one bag rule is.

There is both phone and internet in Ouahigouya. I'll be able to call home on Thursday night, but not before then.

But for now, I feel like the leaving has already happened, and now I just have to put up with two long flights and an 8 hour lay over in the airport, like I had when I went to Kenya. I'm not really scared anymore, just REALLY anxious.

Here's some pictures of things that happened right before I left. There's a gull at Watch Hill. And there's the living room table before I left. And one last shot of my mom's driveway/house and the bridge going up in downtown Mystic.

Love you all - talk to you on the other side!

I'm still alive and actually only in Philly

Well I got to Staging in one piece. I was one of the late ones due to complications with my shuttle and my flight getting in pretty close to registration, but all in all it was fine. My stuff is carry-able. In fact, I did much better than some others. There are some of those duffel bags here - you know - the kind you could fit into no problem. No I'd not like to carry my crap very far, but it could be done if need be.

There are just shy of 30 of us here. That's more than I expected. We're having our Staging at a hotel here in Philly and in just a few minutes we're going to venture out in search of a good philly cheese steak and a beer. Yep, continuing on the trend of enjoying foods I won't have for a while. And I should mention my very wonderful Katherine made me an excellent hamburger at 9 this morning that I wolfed down as I packed the last stuff and was the only thing I've had to eat today.

Thank you everyone for your notes and pictures and well-wishings and good-lucks. It really means a lot to me. That's all for now-

Time to go

Well I leave tomorrow morning (later this morning really) at around noon out of Providence. These last couple days have been really surreal and have gone by in a flash. Went to the beach at Watch Hill, ate clam fritters, had hotdogs and Mike's, played Pictionary, and got together the stuff I had been putting off getting. And It's as if I'm going through all the right motions and actions of someone leaving for Africa for two years but at the same time I feel a real emotional disconnect from the whole concept. I know what I needed to do, I've done most of it, and now I'm leaving - but it doesn't register yet. It was like when we visited Kenya, it took me a few days to really look around and believe I was in Africa - zebra and giraffee everywhere and everything. I've been packing up and leaving for a while since I was 15 for boarding school, and though this will be longer, much farther from home, and well THE PEACE CORPS - I feel like my brain's still regarding it as another year of school or something.

My bags are packed and they are heavy. I know practically nothing about backpacking - but I know that my backpack is amazing. I have 4 bags, really: a really big backpack, a normal backpack, and a messenger bag and a tiny messenger bag as carry on. Total checked baggage weight is probably between 70-80 lbs which my brother says is nothing considering the circumstances (he does know about backpacking)- but it still seems like a lot. The big bag is the most comfortable, despite its 48 lbs. We'll see how it goes.

So I'm up late taking care of lose ends I shoud have taken care of by now such as insurance, paperwork, finding my immunization records, loan deferrment stuff, and this blog entry.

FYI, my cell phone will be no longer working as of about 3 tomorrow. Sprint agreed to put me on a military suspention thingy which is pretty neat: you pay nothing for the time you're gone and then when you get back, when you're ready, you can pick up your number again, and have a cell phone again.

Katherine's still here which has been great, and Tiana came down from Boston this evening, after moving herself, and we all hung out with my parents. Now it seems like everyone, including the cat, is asleep and snoring, so after I print a couple papers, I'll do the same.

I get really nervous about leaving for a long time. Not that I've really ever had that much practice with it, but I start thinking about all the worst things - such as the fact that my parents and all my pets are rather senior. But really there's nothing to do and it's not something to put your life on hold about so you just gotta get goin.

I'll be in the States until the morning of the 5th, and then we'll fly to Paris, and then down to Burkina. If the hotel we're in isn't a shack on the side of the road, I'll have wireless at the hotel we'll be at, so I'll post more once I've actually ventured out of Connecticut.

Peace.