Leaving the comfort zone

Today was our last full day in Ouaga, and tomorrow we move in with our host families in a village not too far from here. My arms are full of shots, and I'm preparing myself for a crash course in Mooré tomorrow morning before we leave to meet the families.

Thus far, our stay in Burkina has been entirely limited to the hotel compound. It has high walls so you can't see anything of the outside world, and besides the heat and humidity and Burkinabè Peace Corps staff members who have come to give us prep talks, we may as well have been still in the US. I'm glad that the Peace Corps has slowly eased us into life here; the food has still been pretty American, which I know I will miss greatly by this time next week (or tomorrow), and we mostly only interact with each other.


Today was the first time that we really left and saw a real part of Burkina. This afternoon we walked from the compound to a street market, which was way huger than I would have imagined. The experience was incredibly overwhelming, between the smells and the noise and people staring at us. It was comforting that the current PCV (Peace Corps volunteer) who accompanied us seemed completely relaxed and had no trouble bargaining with the street vendors in French and Mooré, in spite of the conspicuousness of our large group of foreigners. Maybe I'll reach that point in a year...

We'll be living with the host families for the full 3 months of pre-service training, through late August. I know nothing about the family I'll be moving in with, except I asked that they be non-smokers, nor how far from other trainees/the training center I'll be. I am really nervous about meeting them. It sounds like the host families have been pretty well prepped for taking us in and respecting our space. At least one of the host family members is required to be fluent in French, so I will have some mode of communication, but still, there will be many challenges to overcome. We had a presentation today to let us know what to expect, which showed me how well the Peace Corps has prepared this all, but also really freaked me out. I guess this is where the real adventure begins.




Note - I hear that the internet access at our training site is extremely limited, and I also don't know about the availability of a power supply to charge my laptop. So we'll see how frequently I post. I'll keep it up as much as I can anyway, and I would love to hear from you!