goat

(Warning: if you're a vegetarian, or very concerned about the welfare of goats, or have never been to a butcher shop, you might not want to look too far in this post. Just saying.)

I have said this before, but Tabaski is my favorite holiday here. (Although there's apparently a fete in December for the king of this region that is held here in Tema. I'm told it's the best party of all. I'm stoked.) Goat sacrifices, bags of popcorn, and the fabulous fonctionnaire tradition of going from house to house, eating chicken and drinking at each stop.
The fete this year was very fun and... authentic. I saw my village pray together outdoors (too many people to fit in the mosque), I watched my host dad sacrifice a goat, and then I was gifted an entire leg of this goat, with miscellaneous organs, to somehow cook and eat.

Village prayer time.

My awesome host mom (my dad's First wife) running the family boutique.

Left: A host aunt. She speaks a little french, so we hang out. Right: My host dad's second wife. After I took this picture she ran around showing it to all the other women to show how pretty she looked.
Anndddd... here's the goat. This is the after picture. I did not take a "before" picture, nor did I take a "during" picture. I don't know if this is gruesome or not- after seeing it every day at the market, I'm pretty well desensitized to, well, most things. And yes, I ate one of those legs. In a stew. It was delicious.

bikestravaganza

Ew. I am extremely gross right now. A hazard of bush taxi travel and really greasy bike chains that come off the gears. I smell like sweat and petrol and my hands are black. Good thing this keyboard is too!
I'm in Tenkodogo after having accidentally done a couple days of the bike tour. I had been planning on doing part of it, and then for a while I wasn't sure I would want to leave site this month, but then things calmed down in Bagré just as the bike tour happened to come through Tenkodogo. Sooo... I came up here on Tuesday, rode with everyone to Koupela (~50km) on Wednesday, then got talked into riding to Fada N'Gourma ("Fada") on Thursday, which was another 80-some km. It was surprisingly not that painful, and the weather was lovely, and I got to eat more chicken than I have in probably the past year. I had a great time and I'm kind of sad I'm not doing more of the tour, but I'm also kind of glad I don't have to get up at 4:30 tomorrow morning. No, really glad. But if you want to follow what my hard-core friends are doing, Rachel is updating the bike tour blog every day! (The link should be a couple of posts down.)
Today I'm planning to do some grocery shopping (eggs, lentils, tuna, bread... the luxuries of my life) and then head back to Bagré to celebrate the end of Ramadan. Happily, this will involve copious amounts of food, since everyone's been fasting for the past month. Bonne fete!!

happy anniversary

(the Chief of Koupela being carried back to his courtyard after the horse race)

Saturday marked my stage's six-month anniversary of being in Burkina, and I got to spend it feeling very culturally adventurous at the annual festival for the chief of Koupela. My Prefet invited me, since he's from a village just next to Koupela. He also had a wedding to go to, so he left me in the care of the chief's brother and sister to get a tour of the compound and festivities.


The festival is held every December, on whatever Saturday coincides with the big market of Koupela, and lasts for about three days. There's traditional dancing, demonstrations, parades, horse races, and lots of eating and drinking. We were there for only the very beginning of the fete but I still got to see some very cool things. The sister showed me around their family's compound, the graves of her father and grandfather (the previous chiefs- there was also a ceremony unveiling a statue of the grandfather in the center of town that morning,) and explained things I would never have known otherwise. (Example: we walked by a pile of feathers on the ground and she steered us around the spot because that's where they performed the chicken sacrifice that morning.)


Chiefs (in french it's chef, but that doesn't transfer in english) don't have the same power they used to, but they still have a very important position in society. They're extremely highly respected- in attendance at this celebration were all of the important government and business figures of the region. And the chef still has power to pronounce judgments on certain things and make decisions, it's just subordinate now to the national government. I got to eat at the lunch reception held for the chief and a number of these officials- the old man sitting next to me pointed out who was who, which was very helpful.


So all in all, a completely fascinating day, and at the end of it I got to feel even more legit by bringing home, on the taxi brousse, the two roosters the Prefet's friend gave me as a gift. Happy 6 months to us!!

happy america

Okay, quick post today. Mostly because we have SITE ANNOUNCEMENT tomorrow, which means I find out where I'm going to live for the next two years, so I'll probably have significantly more to tell then. I can't even think about anything else right now. I want it to be tomorrow, like, right now.

Oh, but I can talk about this past weekend, and that grand American holiday, the fourth of July. On which date (as I explained to my host parents) we declared our independence from the tyrannical King George of England and his exploitative taxation policies. In... 1775? I'm pretty sure that's wrong. 1776? Well, the general idea is right. I'm teaching science.

But we, as stageaires (PC trainees), celebrated in grand fashion. Sans fireworks, but with hamburgers and pasta salad and Brakina (a local beer.) And hand-crafted pin the ___ on the ___ games, including my personal favorite, pin the Peace Corps Love on the Obama. It is currently hanging on my wall.

Okay, last information. Packages cost me like nothing to receive, so feel free to send them! I would be particularly grateful for: chocolate, drink mixes, candy, chocolate candy, any candy, granola bars, trail mixes, anything, chocolate. They can be sent to that one address I gave, and from there will eventually get to me.
And if you want to call, you can do so during my lunch, 12:30-2:00, or anytime after school (5:15-10.) And I'm pretty sure the time difference is 4 hours ahead of EST- I think we're on GMT here.

MORE INFORMATION TO COME. VERY SOON. MAYBE NOT TOMORROW, BUT DEFINITELY WITHIN SEVERAL DAYS.