Moving to Site

I have now been living at my site for 9 days. It has been a little rough getting used to, but I'm going to make it. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to post the actual name of my village on the internet...but suffice it to say that I am about 100 km north of Ouagadougou, and a day's biking distance from the nearest large city of Kaya. I live in a tiny new 2-room house painted in blue, yellow, and green, and I am in my own courtyard with a baby mango tree. There is a latrine and shower area in a corner of the courtyard. Setting up the house has been fun. Thus far, I have a table, a low bench, a plastic chair, and a cot, and I just got a bookshelf today, but the paint is still wet so I can't load it up yet. I also have a gas stove and a car battery for charging the laptop that my friend lent me. Hopefully it can also be utilized for fanning and air circulation purposes once we get into hot season in a few months...

Training was good, but toward the end I was really looking forward to heading out to site. I really did not want to have to eat my host family's fish sauce anymore. But now that I'm here, there are a lot of things from training that I miss.

Things that I miss.

• Having (American) friends around all the time.
• My host family looking out for me, making sure I wake up on time, cooking all my meals, holding me to my daily schedule.
• Having stuff scheduled for me to do all the time. NONE of my time here is scheduled and it freaks me out a little bit.
• Knowing where everything in town is.
• Being able to communicate with people, whether in English or in French. Everyone here is rapid-firing Moore at me all the time, what?
• Not having to do dishes. So many dishes.
• Not being sick. I'm okay now, but last week I had some major gastrointestinal issues.
• Knowing who to trust. I feel very vulnerable here socially. There are 2 members of the parents' association that are assigned to look out for me right now, but I can't make them babysit me all the time. But there aren't that many people that I can communicate with in French, and sometimes things get awkward. I have gotten a lot of marriage proposals already.

Chicken outfits. The dresses are actually the same color, but the one on the left  is soaked through because it was pouring. Notice how none of the chickens on the tie have heads. Also notice how all of the fish on the shirt are upside down. Another lovely creation by a Burkinabe tailor.

Reasons for hope:

• Free phone calls among all volunteers.
• People are really excited even when I just do basic greetings in Moore.
• My house is really cute.
• There are 2 volunteers within a day's bike of me, and spending time with both of them has been immensely comforting.
• I feel good about French...whenever I can use it.
• I don't have to eat nasty fish sauce anymore.
• The 2 parents' association members who look out for me are wonderful.
• The internet here is way faster than it was at training. Plus, I now have unlimited monthly access. Wait, there goes my excuse for not posting here.
• Talking with people I might be working with (at the school and health center) makes me really excited about possibilities for work.
• Other teachers that I'll be working with will be back in town in a little over a week, so I'll actually have people to talk to.

September 15 is the day when all of the school staff meets and discusses things, and classes start sometime in October. Until then, floating free, kind of.