Recent goings-on

I'm overdue for a post about the new school year; in the meantime, here are a few recent pictures. The explanation behind the last 3 is that I offered to my 8th-grade math students to take their pictures, an offer that was met with overwhelming enthusiasm. I need to print out $70 worth of photos the next time I go in to Ouaga. Here they are:

Before prayers on Tabaski with Alimata; color matching was unintentional

My favorite of the student portraits

with my posse

with another one of my posses

Unrelatedly, today was a partial solar eclipse over Burkina Faso. There were all kinds of announcements about it over the radio, and the information was wildly misinterpreted in different ways by all my Burkinabe friends who listened to it. Most of them assumed that it would get really dark during the eclipse (it didn't) and that uninformed villagers would think that it was the apocalypse (they didn't). The radio also warned about not looking straight at the sun to avoid harmful rays, which they interpreted to mean that all sunlight during the eclipse would cause blindness and other strange effects. Their advice was to go into my house the whole time and close my shutters. When I drove through Ouaga at noon, there was maybe 1/4 of the normal traffic and street vendors out, and my usual 7-day-a-week bush taxi took the day off. The funny thing is that solar eclipses are, for the most part, really pretty boring. I got to observe it in the shadows, anyway, and someone on the other bush taxi had a pair of special eclipse viewing glasses, so I could observe it directly. It will be the last time I see one of those in awhile. At least it cut back on the traffic.

A final note- we met the fundraising goal for my library last week, meaning that I'll be able to start the project next week. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who helped us out!! Every dollar is a lot of money in Burkina Faso, and my community members and I are really grateful for each of them. (In case you're curious, by the way, I'll get a list of the names of everyone who donated, but I'll never see the amount that any individual donated.) You are all the best, and I am so lucky to have friends and family at home who are so supportive and generous. Thank you!