happy thanksgiv... tabaski!

Hooraaaay Tabaski! I don't know why it's not a more universal holiday. I mean, it's based on the story where Abraham takes Isaac up to the mountain to sacrifice him, and God provides a goat instead at the last minute, so you celebrate by killing a goat and partying and eating a ton. I'm pretty sure the story's the same in Judaism and Christianity as well as Islam, so I wish everyone would get on board and sacrifice some goats.
I think I particularly appreciated Tabaski because it fell the day after Thanksgiving this year, and I didn't do much to celebrate Thanksgiving. I was in Ouaga last weekend for a meeting, and I didn't want to leave village two weekends in a row, so I hung out at home and ate American care-package food (instant mashed potatoes: very home-y.) So yesterday made up for the lack of family time- I was able to celebrate Tabaski with a few different families. And I probably ate two entire chickens over the course of the day.

Life here is pretty routine these days. I gave my second test in each of my classes, so only one more this trimester. Which... is kind of crazy. I have less than a month left of teaching this trimester, and the next two trimesters are shorter than this one. My Peace Corps boss, Seb, is coming to visit me at site this week, so this weekend is mostly cleaning and getting my house fixed up. Because, as you might expect, it's kind of a disaster.
I also have been realizing I need to get my butt moving on secondary projects. My director wants me to lead sports clubs, and that'll probably get started soon, and I have been tutoring English two hours a week, but I want to get going on teaching life skills lessons at my school. I think this week would be a good time to get started, since World AIDS Day is... Tuesday? And my school will have activities for that. Honestly, I've been feeling pretty inadequate as a volunteer lately. I've been at site for about three months now and I'm pretty much adjusted, so I've kind of been coasting, with my job as a teacher as my justification for not doing other things. But now: action time! Life skills! English club! Building a library! (Okay, we'll see about that one.) Girls' club! Math club! I'm going to do it all. Because I'm Motivated.

presents!!!

Can I just say an amazingly huge THANK YOU to everyone who has mailed me things lately? My friend went to Ouaga this past weekend and brought me back my mail, and I've been smiling for three days straight. I had frosting for my birthday, chocolate for several meals, disgustingly fake and completely delicious orange mac and cheese for dinner tonight, and vogue. And beautiful cards my grandma painted and a letter written on birch bark that are now decorating my walls. Seriously, I'm so grateful.

daily routine

I've been asked what my daily schedule is like, and honestly, it's pretty boring. The most exciting things in my life are chasing the neighbors' chickens (and the occasional turkey) out of my garden, biking through herds of giant cows, having good conversations, inventing science experiments for class (I'm really excited about my new one: heating up iodine water purification tablets to see the purple gas!), and chasing bats out of my house. But I can try to give a general idea, so here goes.

Wednesdays are my busy days, so I'll describe one of those to make me seem super-productive and purposeful. I wake up around 5 (I naturally wake up before 6 pretty much always, but at 5 I need an alarm) and eventually roll out of my canopy bed- ah, mosquito net. Throw on a pagne, put some water on to boil for tea, use the latrine, come back inside and make the tea. Sit out on the porch for a while drinking my tea and reading, taking advantage of the cool air. 6ish, it's time to figure out what to wear- long skirt/pants, button-up shirt, whatever's moderately clean. 6:15 I head out on the bike, going slowly and playing “how little can I sweat” on the 6km trip to school.
Get there 6:45, sit outside the school office, greet the school watchman, chat with other teachers as they arrive. A student raises the flag at 10 of, another student rings the bell (old metal wheel) at 5 of, head into class once I think all the students are there so I don't have to lock students out for being late. Teach math for 2 hours, teach physics for 2 hours. Finally done teaching at 11!
The CEG (middle school) is pretty close to Bagre village, so if it's a market day I'll bike that extra 2km and stop by, chat, buy some eggs, then bike back to Bagre town where I live. The smaller market in town has better tomatoes, so I stop in there to pick up stuff for lunch then go home to eat. After that it's siesta time!! I'll take a bucket bath either before or after siesta, depending how sweaty I am. I like taking my bath when it's hot out, because then I feel like I'm at a water park. Not sure why.
So after siesta/bath I do household-y things, sweeping, washing dishes, putting things in piles on my desk. At 4 or 5 I work on lesson plans, sitting outside because my house is still hot from the afternoon. Someone might stop by and chat, then it gets dark and the mosquitos come out. So, time for dinner and maybe some more lesson planning, then usually head out to someone's house to hang out. Chat for an hour or so, then (because I'm ultra lame) head back hopefully before 9 to go to bed. Oh, and feel kind of guilty because people like to walk you home here to make sure you get there safe, so I know when I leave they have to get up and walk to my house too.

And that's a typical day! On days that I don't have classes, things that occupy my time are doing laundry, gardening, biking, sewing, various home improvements, writing letters, lesson planning, going to the marche, reading, baking... so many options. And sometimes I'm bad and antisocial and watch movies. But sometimes I'm good! I just started tutoring a group in English, and set up a time for students to come to my house to practice English conversation... which may turn into a club, we'll see.
So I keep busy enough, and there are new activities in the works, so I'm enjoying my low-key schedule while I can.

shopping a la burkina

I went on a pagne shopping spree last weekend, to get some material for household-y things. The green with butterflies is a dress, the blue with yellow flowers I made into cushion covers for my wooden porch chairs, and the orange I think will turn into curtains. I really am turning into a lover of patterns- shocking, for someone who could formerly make a weeks worth of outfits with a palette of only black and grey.

happy hallowe... all saint's day

I have come to the conclusion that it is fall. It's kind of hard to tell here, particularly with the bewildering profusion of watermelons in village this week, but there are indications. First: it's harvest time for my garden! Liz the fabulous did all the work in planting and cultivating everything, and all I had to do was pull things off plants. I got a good little crop of peanuts, and have been slowly working away at the bissap with occasional help from neighborhood children. So, harvesting! Very autumnal, right? Second: I heated water for my bucket bath today. The weather this morning was cold- I got to wear my sweatshirt!- meaning in the 70's. I guess I'm getting habituated, huh? And it hasn't gotten above 90 degrees all day. People were whipping out their parkas and winter hats this morning, and I even got to wear a scarf to school. Okay, a summer scarf, but I had given up my (admittedly ridiculous) tendancy to wear scarves in 90-some-odd degree weather at site, so I'm a happy camper when I feel like I can justify it. Third: October is almost over, and that's the falliest month to me. Although I can't make it to any Halloween parties being thrown by Peace Corps kids I'm planning on celebrating in my own fashion by carving out some gourds and probably weirding out the neighbors.

Oh Turtle.

Okay, this is really sad, and I'm going to talk about it briefly and generally. I mentioned my sick dog once before- and I've avoided mentioning her since, because I kind of knew what was going to have to happen. She got sicker and sicker, and yesterday, finally, I had her put down. This is the extremely abbreviated version- there was much more agonizing involved, emergency texts to my mother to PLEASE CALL ME I NEED DOG ADVICE and hours of impossible conversations in a culture where humane treatment of animals is a luxury at best and the vet's main job is to inspect animals for slaughter. So this has been the hardest part of my service so far, having to make ethical pet decisions (which is a new responsibility for me) in a remote village in Burkina Faso. And about a dog that someone else loved for years before I inherited her, and to whom I felt accountable. But Turtle was a very good dog, and I'm glad I had her, even though it's been rough and I've sort of jumped ahead in cultural adjustment to the stage where the novelty has worn off and I already hit that point of "why can't things just be EASY, everything's so DIFFICULT here."
So that's the end of my dog story. And I still have my fabulous cat Jack who eats lizards and meows like a goat and loves to sleep on my lap.

magicland

Danny, the neighbor kid, took me out (by bike- I decided requesting a donkey cart ride was a little high-maintenance of me) to his family's rice fields. They're beautiful. It's the tail end of the rainy season, so the rice is fully grown and still bright green.



Oh yeah, and since I live in the magical part of Burkina, there are ponds of waterlilies around the rice fields. Obviously.