Day 39

On Sunday, July 18th, we left the luxurious life of free wi-fi and air conditioning to get back into a smaller city and home-stays.  The new training site isn’t as charming Ouahigouya, but maybe I just haven’t warmed up to it yet.  We spent the first couple of nights dorm style, conveniently at the center, before moving back into home-stays.  This time around, we were put 2 to a home-stay, since finding 77 (yes, our numbers have dropped.  We’ve already lost 2) new home-stays in less then 2 weeks would be insane.  I’m impressed with finding 30-some homes for all of us.  The idea was to put an advanced French speaker with a beginner French speaker to help with the learning process, but as it turned out I was placed with Kathy, a delightful women from Texas, who is only a level above me.  It’s working out just find, however, as we can both help each other struggle through interactions with the family.

Our house is infinitely nicer then home-stays in village.  Like we hit the jack-pot.  I traded in my mud-oven for a modern, cement house with electricity and a porcelain toilet (with a seat and toilet paper!). Albeit, they don’t have indoor plumbing so we fill the tank with a bucket of water.  Still… I’ll take it!  Every evening after dinner we sit on a couch and watch the news from the satellite TV.  We even have electricity in our room!  Take it, bucket baths under florescent lights in a tile shower room does not compare to the bucket baths under the moonlight in my own private latrine, but I’m not going to complain about the move. I mean, if this place had running water it could pass for a house in Flint, and not one of the condemned ones!  Well, at least from the inside, not including the barn-yard animals that are crammed into courtyard.  If only our houses at site would be like this!  Which I know would never happen, so I’m soaking up the electricity and flush toilet while I have it.   

Our Pere came to claim us at the adoption ceremony and he is a jolly older gentleman who is constantly smiling and, thankfully since our French leaves much to be desired, he talks with his hands.  I instantly had a good feeling about this living situation after meeting him.  We didn’t meet our Mere until the next day, but she is much his equal.  There are three girls living in the house, I'm guessing between the age of 10 and early 20something, and we’re not quite sure who they belong to.  I know the family has 5 children and 3 of them are off working/at university (a doctor, a pharmacist, and a sociologist), so we’re not quite sure were the extra girl in the household comes in.  The eldest girl has a son, 11 month old Avrium, who is the cutest baby in all of Burkina Faso.  There is also a nephew, who lives is the shed-like building in the courtyard, in between the chicken house and the mutton pen.  All together, it makes for a cozy home, but is still slightly uncomfortable as Kathy and I feel like an imposition to the family, as we are essentially helpless in this lifestyle.  The eldest girl seems to be in charge of caring for the nasaras, since she does all our cooking and entertains all our crazy questions on life in BF.  Last weekend she even taught us how to make beesap, which is this delicious juice made from hibiscus flowers. 

Daily life has remained much the same, only now every morning we get up and eat breakfast at the table alone before the ~3ish K bike ride to the center and then after a full day of sessions (beaucoup de Francais), and perhaps a French tutoring session, we ride back to our home where we bucket bathe inside before eating dinner alone, doing homework, and going to bed.  My new nugget of knowledge is that riding a bike is a skirt is very, very hard.  Any length, from floor to just below the knee, will fly up above your knees while riding.  No matter how you sit or what you do.  After a month of living in West Africa and not seeing my knees or any thigh in that time, even a little knee action seems scandalous.  My first attempt in a full length skirt failed miserably.  Within the first 5 minutes of riding my skirt got caught in the back break, not even the chain, but the break, which resulted in a pretty good size tear in the back of my skirt.  Then my ride was completed by getting caught in the chain which stained my skirt with mud and grease.  To top off the experience, this happened first think in the morning so I had to wear my humiliation the whole rest of the day including when I met all the visitors that came to our house to see us. 

As for other news, last weekend we had our second language test and I placed into intermediate low!  I was please to jump from novice low to inter low in just 4 weeks, but it still wasn’t good enough to find out my local language.  I’m fine with keeping in French and not starting local language yet, God knows I need the French, but with knowing your local language comes knowing the region and culture your going to live in.  So it was a little disheartening to miss out on the excitement of everyone else (the inter-mids and higher) finding out their local lang and their culture and who their neighbors will be and the buzz that came with that.  Next Saturday we have another LPI test so hopefully this time I’ll place in inter-mid and finally join the group of privileged information, however this won’t be as exciting since we are scheduled to get site announcements on that Monday, August 9th, anyways.         

Generally speaking, I am doing well.  I can hardly believe we’re already been here over a month.  Training is going well and I’m learning a lot, but they are long days, 6 days a week, and even free time in host families feels like work battling the French and awkwardness of living in someone else's home.  We’re all tired and training is wearing on us, but only 4 weeks to go until swear-in and slowing down. We’re over the hump.  We’re all pretty excited to get to site and be on our own schedule, which may not include getting up at 6 am or eating fish sauce at every meal.

This weekend is both my family reunion in Michigan and my favorite ultimate tournament in NJ.  So my thoughts and heart is with all my friends playing beach ultimate in at wildwood and all my family lounging on the clear blue shore on Lake Michigan.  Oh, how I dream of joining you on the beach.