Monday, June 11, 2007

Its not that we want to experience the culture: there is no culture. We want to experience a culture. Somehow this is hard to communicate: maybe they aren’t used to it. I don’t want to learn the traditional dances, or about the festival of masks. This is the stuff we use at home as filler. We accentuate it in visiting other places because the differences when we go to visit Alberta or California aren’t significant enough that they are interesting on their own otherwise. So we supplement whatever day-to-day, down-to-earth culture, with the museums and the festivals and the guided tours. Don’t get me wrong: I love that stuff, its interesting, and tells neat stories. But when there is more available, when the living culture is more than enough, more than huge, then that is what I have to go for.

Culture is how people live day-to-day. You don’t get that from museums or festivals or parks. It is the small, meaningless things, like the walk into town for groceries, or the chatting with strangers, or the laughter among friends. You get that from interactions with people. You get that from ongoing, sustained, continuing, simple interactions. This kind of culture isn’t easy. I don’t know how to speak the first languages. I can’t understand the politics. I’m not familiar with the foods. I don’t follow the religion. It’s work. It’s impossible. But I’m up to trying: I don’t want to feel cheated of that opportunity to put in the effort.

I hate that I’ve gotten attached to that idea: it would have been much easier if I hadn’t, if I had stuck with the initial broad project, if this place hadn’t stolen our hearts. Heart and Soul. That’s what Emily said. That we’d put it into whatever project. If it isn’t this one, she’s going to have to re-convince me, which won’t be nearly as easy as it was the first time.

I can completely justify this in what I’m seeing is a neat, logical way. I could begin with the easy one, we are paying for it. However, that isn’t really a fair justification, as we are here for more than that, we are asking for more than that. But there’s justification beyond that. We’re compromising, we’re making things work, we’re bending over backwards to be allowed to contribute. We continually ask what we can do, we are flexible, but we want it to be real. We understand that tourism is different, and that this is what they are seemingly more used to. Maybe that isn’t a fair statement either. But still, it shouldn’t be this hard. We’ve now had to apologize for being difficult, but append that with the statement that though we were sorry, we weren’t going to stop being difficult if we still hold any hope.

Beyond the logical, we just want to. I’ve already said it, Heart and Soul. Not normally one for a home, I’ve gotten attached to settling it, to a routine, so dramatically different from any previous one. I’ve gotten attached to seeing familiar faces, to wondering who will come up the road, to expecting ‘good morning’s from friends, to constant teasing, to awkward attempts at complicated conversations with second languages.

It’s a good thing its on paper: we may have to burn it.

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Emily says I should give this context, and she’s right as usual, so here it comes.

Since early on in planning internships, Emily and I have been planning to do different projects while in Burkina Faso. She was to be working with NGO’s, on capacity building programs with them. I was to be working in education (the plan of exactly what changed 6 or 7 times before I left) in speaking with different stakeholders in the education system about the challenges they were seeing, and what might be done to lessen these.

About a month before Emily and I left home, because of some confusion in wording of conversations, we emailed Daniel to clarify that he knew we expected to be together, that though Emily and I were doing separate projects, we needed to come home to the same house each evening. We clarified that this was an expectation that we ourselves held, that our parents held, and that RC wanted (good ol’ RC, always stepping in where we need them to) for safety concerns. The response was slightly confusing: we were told that of course we would be together, but also that we would be fine if we were apart, that it had been done before by individuals our age and that they had managed fine and that we need not worry about being separated. So, though it seemed like a slight backtrack, we assumed that it could be taken care of. No worries.

As we arrived in Ouaga, we were presented with two separate schedules that had been drawn up for us: Emily was to spend a lot of time in Leo (where most of the NGO’s were based), and I most of the time in Boura (the center of the school district). They said that they had heard the week before that we were actually supposed to be together, and that they were still unsure how to make this work out. Easy enough, we decided to start together on most of my schedule and compact Emily’s a bit to do together later in the summer. It was reiterated several times that the schedule was not written in stone, and would be as flexible as we needed it to be.

So, its now week 3, and Emily and I have been visiting schools in Boura and generally settling in. (see previous postings if you aren’t convinced that we love it here).

Ah, I’d better explain why we love it here. We are able to be fairly independent, we are doing interesting work, and we are getting to talk with a lot of people. All of this was non-existant in both Leo and Ouaga. Ouaga is a giant city, having the benefits of some ‘from home’ ammeneties, but mostly the problems of urban centers. We were isolated, cut off, and generally stuck on our own, unable to be independent or meet with people, unable to settle in: we would always be ‘new’ in Ouaga, because we would invariably always see people to whom we were new. This means that both we are unable to feel at home and non-new ourselves, and, as importantly, that we are unable to get beyond very basic, surface conversations with anyone. Leo presents challenges of another kind. Where we stay in Leo is far from town, and we have to rely on someone to drive us to and from anyplace we want to go. As well, Pascaline (our translator) grew up there, and so has family and friends to visit, which is good for her, but necessarily leaves us even more isolated. We’ve become quite attached to the independence we’ve been able to assume in Boura, and to the relationships forged because of this, and aren’t anxious to give it up.

Not wanting to leave Boura is one reason we are trying to modify our schedule, though there are others. Emily’s project, as explained here, has turned into more of a ‘sightseeing’ expedition: go see what these NGO’s are doing, and be amazed by what they accomplish. Which means that we ourselves are accomplishing nothing, except being foreigners (in French, they use the same word for this and ‘stranger’, which more aptly describes our predicament) coming in to inspect, supervise, and gawk. We don’t want to encourage any sense of us being there to ‘check up’ on them and their work: we are not managers, we have no expertise, and we can’t understand an organization from a few translated meetings. We don’t see what BoH can possibly gain from this (we both see a lot to lose, in perpetuating stereotypes), and are mystified as to why they would have us do this.

Thirdly, from what we have seen in the schools and the very real challenges they face (mostly in students not going to school or not going very far in school), and ongoing projects within BoH to assist with these challenges, we see real opportunity to put in some of the grunt work needed to expand on these to increase their contributions to the community. On encouragement from one of the people here, and from Daniel in Canada, we’ve dreamt up (and apparently become quite attached to) a project which would help children who aren’t going to school to further their learning and to show them opportunities available to them in their community. Emily and I drew up a plan that would have us finish the work with the schools before they are out for the summer in July, and do the report on them as planned, and use shortened versions of Emily’s NGO visits to understand resources available in the community to individuals. From there, we would devote all of July to expanding on a club for children, in running programming and testing how its impact can be furthered. Both wary of short-term projects, the idea of this would be as a test-run, or proof that such a concept can (or cannot) work with positive impact in the community, with the idea that BoH would then take on the resulting group as a permanent project.

We are quite thrilled with this project and it’s potential. We would get to stay in Boura, build significant relationships with a group of youth and build leadership (how RC) and self-confidence ideas in them. We would be starting a project which would have long-term impact, long-term duration, and a lot of support from the Canadian head (which is where (unfortunately) all funding comes from at this time) (they’re working on changing that). It’s enormous.
And it’s recognized as such. Except that so far, people in charge of us (our schedule) aren’t seeing on the same page as us. They are trying to take Emily and I’s two very different schedules and cram everything into one common schedule. Life doesn’t work that way, or at least it doesn’t work well that way. We had two separate things: now we are being asked to do two things at once. We could do it, but not well. Never mind that one of the projects is ineffective on its own, it would cramp the other enough that both end up being ineffective. It is hard to be enthusiastic about. On top of that, it seems that, they are quite attached to the idea of us visiting as much of the country as possible, in as short amount of time as possible. They’ve got us travelling all over the place (a very expensive prospect, and not an effective use of time), spending a few days in Bobo-Diasolou doing tourist-y stuff, a few days visiting a small village in the north, and a lot of visits to Ouagadougou, where we are apparently supposed to visit the American Recreation Center (it has a pool and movies) and feel ‘at home’. Its so hard to explain that we aren’t here to feel ‘at home’, but that we are quite content to feel ‘at home in Boura.’

So, we have a final chance to convince BoH on either Thursday or Friday: wish us luck, wish us tears if that will help convince them, wish us good health until then, and wish us … I have no idea. Just make it happen, I’m not sure if we’re ready for alternatives.

June 8th

So, updates on everything. The past few days have been busy. On Friday, we had an amazing meeting with parents at the school BoH is running here. There are 100 students at the school, and, on notice of two days, we had over 60 parents turn out to talk with us about the challenges they have with school and education, and the solutions they see as most likely. We were astounted: two days notice, very high attendance (we anticipated about 10 or 15 parents), and amazing ideas. We’ve been incredibly impressed at the value placed on education here by so many people. It is unquestionably recognized as important (and after a solid debate on the subject, Emily and I have agreed that education is, for these people, not at all a luxury but a necessity). Also impressive is that school is not valued so much for hard skills, in learning to read and write and do some math, but rather that they see it as the way their children will learn to think critically, to challenge ideas, and learn to learn. I guess I’ve never been the parent of a 7-year-old, but I can’t help but wonder how many parents at home have that clarity of vision about the purpose of education. (Maybe I’m not giving enough credit, and that could just be because I wasn’t conscious enough at age 7 to understand why I was learning stuff at school, and to understand what I was actually learning at that time). Still, its an attitude that should certainly be encouraged.

The market here in Boura is every 6 days, so last week it was Saturday, and this week it is Friday. Clever that people can keep that straight.

Yesterday we were ‘taught’ some African dancing. Before they would teach us we had to share Canadian dance, so we (please remember that Kristina can’t dance) pulled off a terrible attempt at Irish dancing, with spinning and step-type feet movements. We tried to explain that people in Canada don’t actually dance like that, not sure if it was understood, but they all found it quite hilarious and did their best to dance with us too. I’m sure we looked much more ridiculous when we tried to imitate the African dances, but the effort was well appreciated, and having people fall to the ground laughing is rarely a bad thing, particularly when we are laughing too.

We’ve continued with the school interviews, having completed BoH’s school earlier this week, and today finished with Boura Public. We’ve got some interesting ideas, from people we’ve talked with, and are trying to see if we can make something work to apply some of what we are learning during our time here. Have to see how that works out, but we’re both pretty excited about that possibility, and also that it would mean spending more time in Boura, which truly seems like the best place for us, and the best use of our time. We were both nervous about the amount of time we were initially to spend travelling, hoping from place to place, and see this possibility as an interesting alternative.

We’ve decided we’re coming back some day. And we sing. And we feed babies (?). And we talk. Lots of talking. And, we baked, attempting to make banana bread, except it ended up as mango banana bread, and it was good.

I’m starting to feel distinctly less white (I’ve never felt white, except that people stare), in that either people are getting used to us and not staring so much, or that we are just getting better at ignoring the staring. We’ve had some interesting conversations about us and what we are actually able to do here, both amongst ourselves and with local people, and come to the conclusion that we aren’t useless, which is nice. Still having a hard time understanding realities here, and that is compounded by the fact that people here don’t seem to understand them either. We have little idea how many school aged children are actually in school, with estimates ranging from 20 to 70 percent. We have no idea how excluded from education girls are (and yes, I hate saying that, but I’m learning), if it is getting better or worse, and if it is primarily because of money or culture. Its tricky, much of the information presented seems to be from a long time ago, and current realities are not really known, making it hard to say if current initiatives are helping at all (if they should be continued) or if different approaches are needed… its tricky. I know that at home problems are frequently studied to death, but here a study could be very helpful to getting something done.

Well that sums up a lot, but doesn’t cover even the surface still. I need to get better at this, but it’s a start.

June 4th

So, I’ve been rather negligent in my blog posting, but HI HI HI!!!

Internet here is iffy, as in hard to access and of dubious reliability, so that is difficult. So, Boura is still good. Its absolutely beautiful, and because of location and people around us, we are able to get out and talk to people here a lot more: we’ll wander over to the orphanage or the school, or walking into town isn’t too far either, which is spectacular, and means we get to talk with people here a lot more. It was important, and we really needed that.

We’ve been slowly going at our project, talked with some teachers today, and it was really frustrating. Hard to communicate the information we are looking for, hard to confirm understandings when it has to be double-translated (to get to us in the first place, and then whatever we say translated back). French is good, and very important and useful, Emily is struggling with following that a lot, and I’m struggling with how much I can help her with that or not. Its sometimes hard for me to try and keep her having a good idea of what is going on, while still struggling to follow stuff on my own. Its coming though. Yes, but with the school project, we’re having a hard time communicating the sort of information we want, things that will help us make the school stronger. Also hard to ask any kind of tough questions (even positive tough questions, like what is going well) because culturally we have no concept of what is going on. Hard being out of the loop on the Burkina school system, and also of school systems in general, and ALSO on the culture. We are very concerned about the image we inevitably project as white foreign people in Africa, that we are either here to check up on stuff (as in, we are here to report on what is going wrong, why Africa is ‘messed up’), or to point out all the ways we are better, and impose American culture here (the last thing anyplace needs).

So that’s what we’re stuck on right now. Hopefully we’ll get around it somehow, work something out, but for now its frustrating and difficult.

Lets quote Emily for a second. “Life sucks, but its beautiful, and I’m a smoker.” (the last one isn’t true). That gives no idea of the wonderful and difficult conversations we’ve had, but I wanted to include it anyways.

Well, just to keep you up to speed, we went to church again yesterday, and it was much less dramatic than last time, which I appreciated. We’ve had a lot of fun singing with people and wading in the ‘barrage’ (the water held in by the dam here) and playing with kids and gardening and visiting people’s houses and wandering. Its good, and we both love it. Got my first sunburn on Saturday (not bad at all, just minor), and my first bug bite two minutes ago. We’ve ridden motorcycles and sat on donkeys and chased goats, and are generally wonderful. Trying to think up some Canadian songs or stories to share here, having a hard time finding Irish-type songs that aren’t about drinking or church-type songs that aren’t slow and somber. (so any suggestions would be appreciated).

So, overall message is healthy, mostly happy, and loving life.

Its now Sunday, June 03, 2007

Boura is still wonderful. We were commenting today how much it looks like home: the red soil, the water of the barrage (a dam that holds in a lake, and is used to irrigate rice fields here, as well as other crops), the green green green everywheres, the wind, and the decent temperatures the past two days (as in, down to 26 at night, which is pleasant).

We had been told about goats before we came, but not about donkeys. Donkeys are everywhere. AND (this is important)… Who needs a watch when you have a donkey? Yes, its true (kind of, at least). Story has it that donkeys will brey (or whatever the word for donkey noises is) every hour, on the hour. (Donkey noises need another story, namely that it sounds like the rustiest and squeakiest gate you’ve ever heard being pulled open and shut repeatedly… almost a terrible noise, except that we find it hilarious). And its almost true: we’ve been listening, and every time we hear them, we check the time. Our donkey isn’t so accurate, but it will reliably be either 10 minutes to the hour, or 10 minutes after, which is kind of impressive.

We have yet to get a single mosquito bite: we were promised some a few nights ago, and did put on bug spray, but there were none around, and we haven’t put on any since. We are insisting that we be taken some place with mosquitos soon, as we are starting to a) think everyone is lying about the existance of them, and b) worry that there being no mosquitos can’t be good news considering a food chain relies pretty heavily on them.

The past few days in Boura have been spent doing random things around the BoH area here. We’ve fed and washed babies at the orphanage, helped with planting in the garden a bit, wandered on my own and gawked at the beautifulness of it, played in the ‘sprinkler’ that results when the water pump is turned on to water the garden, and just generally chatted with folks, which is really fun. Friday we sat in on a grade one class at the school run by BoH here, which was interesting. I had forgot how we must have learned to read, it was neat to see that again. That afternoon we talked with Pascaline and Jonas and Joshua (who work for BoH and have been our main contact people so far) trying to further work out what they are actually looking for in terms of our project work here. Though its taken some time, we think we’ve got it mostly worked out: we’ve got two main projects. The first is to look at schools in the province, and figure out if BoH can do anything (beyond what it already is) to help with schooling here. Right now, they are sponsoring some students to go to school, are running a private school (with very minimal fees, as compared to public school fees), and are also supporting schools in helping provide lunches for kids and with school supplies. The second is a little less clear, and involves working with NGO’s, and seems to be so that BoH can understand what they are doing and how they might work together. It seems like interesting work, and we’re both looking forward to it a lot!

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Welcome to Boura!

Day two here, and Emily and I have both fallen in love with it; it is exactly what we needed to find after Ouaga and Leo.

Boura is green and alive and friendly. We are officially successes in the eyes of John Valk, having now tasted the local beer (and not the local water). We’ve seen eggplants and bananas and rice (and the neatest irrigation system for the rice).

Haha, I clearly didn’t get all that far with writing that day.

Tuesday May 29, 2007

Its been a while since posting. We are now in Leo, having arrived from Ouagadougou (Ouaga) yesterday Monday.

So that is a story. Sunday, we went to church with Tatania. It was an Evangelical service, celebrating the Pentacost. Now, I am sorely lacking in my knowledge of all religions, so I explained what I could of the French to Emily, and she explained back to me what she could of the service. It ended up being a good trade, mostly. Overall though, much explaining couldn’t be done, as we couldn’t talk a whole lot. I had mixed feelings about the morning. The singing and spirit in the building was incredible and wonderful, though I had a difficult time with some of the more intensely religious aspects. Still, a very interesting experience, and we hope to continue attending religious (community) gatherings as we move around. We both agree that is important and valuable.

As the service ended, before we could even get up to move out, a lady began speaking to us. She introduced herself as Dorothy, a missionary from Saskatchewan, who had heard, through the embassy, that we were arriving, and was very excited to meet us. She had been in Ouaga for a few days, and was headed back to Leo the next day. Turns out, so were we. She offered to drive us down, and after some details being worked out with Tatania, that is exactly what we did.

(The rest of Sunday included a walk around where we were staying and taking pictures of children, Emily having a potentially ‘catastrophic’ episode because of the simple act of kneeling to play with some children, which we believe she escaped, with great poise, creativity, and just plain luck, and the end result of gaining some towels, but I’ll let here tell that story if she chooses J, and some good chats about everything).

On Monday, we drove down from Ouaga to Leo, on a beautifully paved road, in a car with air conditioning, in the company of Dorothy and Pascal. It was an uneventful trip, pleasant and relaxing, and gave us the opportunity to ask some ‘foreign people trying to be okay in Burkina’ questions, which was good, and had proved difficult on some other occasions where we attempted. Driving is a bit of an experience. With cars sharing the road with massive trucks (which sometimes break down), motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians, and animals, the horn is involved frequently enough in driving that it is something I could actually envision wearing out in cars here. Seriously, its used more driving on a straight highway than one would have to use the turn signals and breaks together when driving in downtown Charlottetown. (For those unfamiliar, Charlottetown has a lot of stop signs, lights, and oddly placed intersections, as old parts of towns do). Honk at some goats, swerve across the road to avoid the donkey-pulled cart, squeeze between the oncoming truck and the ‘moto’ (motorcycle) on the shoulder, HONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNKK to warn the cyclists we are coming and that they have to stop swerving.

I should also mention, anything can be carried on a bike. Children strapped across the back, loads of wood and lumber, metal pipes balanced and sticking out perpendicular to the bike so it becomes a 3 meter wide load… incredible, and, as Emily keeps saying, “Beaucoup de talent!”

So that was driving. We then went to Dorothy’s house, which is a story all on its own, but which I won’t tell here. Three guesses why? (Correct answer is that I don’t know how to tell it).

Dorothy then took us up to where we are staying (a funeral altered plans somewhat), a little ways outside of Leo proper. We are at what we understand is usually a trades school, though they are currently on vacation. It is clearly a well-off area. Biggest difference between here and Ouaga is the greenery. Ouaga was very dry and dusty, with but a few green garden areas. Here, we have trees all over the place, gardens and flowers, and actual grass growing in some places. Its quite spectacular. We were outside playing with some children, ages maybe 4 to 6, for much of the afternoon here, tossing Frisbees, and digging. At one point, I convinced them that they needed to give us a tour, and Em and I wandered around the yard, pointed at trees and plants, and asked what they were. So, now (and Linden will be pleased to know), we have been introduced to a mango tree (with mangoes on it, they hang down from the trees on stems about 30 cm long, and look almost like they were added to the tree like Christmas decorations), and ‘calités’ (sp?), which are shea fruits (apparently, one can eat the fruit, and the nuts are used for oil, which is used to make shea butter) (apologies if shea isn’t the right spelling, someone will correct it). At first I was convinced they were baby mangoes, but no. A whole bunch of other stuff too, we had them point out ‘les poules’ (chickens) and ‘le coq’ (the rooster, which, importantly, crows regularly).

Ah, and a question. We keep seeing goats, except some of them are apparently sheep, so I guess I need to look closer; I should probably see the difference easily, but am not yet (when the fact that we were calling some of them the wrong thing was announced).

We were also impressed by ‘les ânes’ (donkeys), though that diminished significantly overnight as they made horrible screaming noises and woke us up.

That’s another story. Slept for the first time without air conditioning, and still survived. We have power here from 6 to 10pm, which is when it gets dark, and ends at a good time to go to bed. Still, may aim for bed at 9pm, giving us an hour when we can have the fan going while we fall asleep, which might help a bit. We aren’t convinced the temperatures are as high here as Ouaga, where it went up well past 40 Celsius one day (40 degrees was what it was at 4pm), but it is much more humid.

We are now with Pascaline (not to be confused with Pascal), who we believe will be with us for the rest of our stay. She is translating for us, which is only okay for the French, but will be excellent to have for when we need to communicate in Sissali (the main language in Boura). I’m really looking forward to going to Boura and starting work. Today was spent stopping in to visit with the different NGOs and schools we will come visit again properly in here later on in the summer, and is getting me thinking about what we’ll be doing. We are still hoping for some clarification or confirmation of what BoH is looking for from us, not entirely sure if we’ll get that though.

Gah, its hot.

Other news? We’ve seen still very few mosquitos, and have yet to sleep under nets or put on bug spray. We were saying yesterday it would be funny (and more than a little terrifying) if we didn’t see any while we were here, but so far we haven’t, which is curious. Its still hot, though we are aware that we are getting better at the heat, slowly. We will get to cook for ourselves in Boura, which should be interesting. Mangoes are the greatest thing ever. I carried a butter knife (with serated edges) in my hand luggage on the way here, though they nearly took away my carabeener from my camera case. (I know, that’s a while ago, life happens). If I’m helping Emily with French (which she is picking up increadibly fast; also, she is the only person I know who actually study a dictionary, and is also learning from reading it!), she is returning the favor by teaching me music from the collection on her computer. Tomorrow marks the one week mark, hard to imagine. Hard to imagine the 9 to come. Oranges here aren’t orange, but more lemon coloured, and very tasty.

That’s enough news for now.

Tourists to start

So, yesterday was interesting. We were definitely treated as tourists, and taken out to see the sight of Ouagadougou . This was in and of itself an odd experience. We went to visit the Canadian embassy, which more or less makes sense, as the idea was that we could then register with them, which we did. Then we went to visit the American embassy, or, more precisely, the Rec center of the American embassy. We were shown a pool and a gym and tennis courts and a library and a video collection…it was awkward, I'm not sure what we were supposed to get from that, except that there are some people living here with a lot of money. We then went to see an artisans village, again clearly for tourists, where they had beautiful leather, cloth, wood, and metal works. Looked around there for a good while; interesting but again awkward.

Then we were taken to see Ouaga2000, which is the part of town with giant houses, and where the president either lives or works (more likely both) in the hugest building ever. Enormous. Tatania, who was with us in the car, said that we should take pictures, but the driver responded immediately that we couldn't, as he didn't want to get shot today. So that says something. Ouaga2000 was not a large area, but there were clearly large amounts of money there, with giant houses behind walls. These houses would be enormous at home, but put in the context of the other houses in the city, are completely impossible.

Then we bought some water and phone cards (I've got a phone number now, which for reference sake I'll write here: country code 226, then 76393899), it should receive text messages, and I'll learn how to send them). (and a p.s. for home: I'll phone and hang up after 1 ring, and then if you're around you can call me back. so be slow at answering the phone.)

30 degrees feels almost the same as 40, as in, both are very hot. It was up to 41 yesterday afternoon at 3:30, which seemed insane, I can't imagine what it must have been earlier around noon! Fortunately, it seems that Tatiana and the driver both found it to be a little bit hot as well (probably relative to our 27 degrees).

I can't decide if it is actually humid here or not. It feels humid, hot and sticky, but outside is dry and dusty. We are told that it will likely rain sometime while we are here in Ouaga (as it is the wet season, not that I could tell otherwise), not clear if the rain is something that lasts for a few hours or a full day, but we will find out. We constantly feel as if we put on clothes right after swimming; we are always wet and appreciate even the slightest breezes enough to talk about them all as special events. My dad wrote a very helpful comment in an email; which I am pasting here: "When I have been uncomfortbly hot, I have coped by simply relaxing and accepting the heat-humidity. I say to myself, 'Yes its hot, but that is just my brain's interpretation of signals from my skin. It is really not hot enoough to bedisabling, since other people can accept these temperatures." All I can say to that is that maybe Dan will appreciate the biology side, and that I am hot regardless, maybe that is a self)control I lack. But it will be fine.

We've been rather isolated so far, sticking with Tatania. Not sure how appropriate it is for us to go wandering around here on our own, it seems like it would be fine safety wise but culturally we aren't sure. Also, we are hoping that we can convince the lady cooking for us that we want to learn to cook, which would be fun if it works out.

Ps to Ghana crew: welcome to heat! Hope you are managing it better than we are.

Ps to Vietnam: how hot is it there?

(can you tell that weather is on the brain?)

Ps to Bhutan, what on earth are you up to over there?

Ps to Ecuador, I'm sure our heat is nothing compared to yours, so hopefully you won't read this until we are better adjusted and can stop complaining J

Ps to Slovenia, have you explored a castle yet? Cause I think you should

Ps to Scotland, how's Amanda?

Ps to Italy, Bridget, how is farming?

Ps to Ottawa, Bryn, how is that working, and how long until we don't feel like we are roasting? (we are optimistic that it won't last forever, so if it will, don't tell us)

Later on the same day:

I have been reduced to two finger typing on this different keyboard, so apologies for spelling mistakes. We did get to help in the kitchen a bit with lunch today, which was good, and interesting. Conversations with Abbas were very limited between her limited knowledge of French, my limited knowlegde of cooking in French and in Arfrica, and trying to help Emily understand what I could. Weùve been trying to work through newspaper articles, which leads us to realize that we should have made definitive efforts to be more up to date on recent political events in France and Africa, as we are sometimes struggling to put things in context.

Talked again with Daniel; and are sorting out the details of our schedule for the comming weeks, which is a bit complicated right now because of transportation and Em and I wanting to stick together especially at the beginning. We will however work it out, I am sure.

Off to grab some water, take care!

Hello from Burkina!

Wow. So, right now, it is 31 degrees in our air conditioned room, and I have never in my life been so hot while doing nothing. Hoping I'll get used to it quickly.

Met Emily at the airport yesterday afternoon, she actually caught me just randomly, and held up her half of the agreement to "just meet randomly in a Paris airport and discover we are going to the same place"… perfectly calm, she says "Hey dude, what are you doing here?" I was caught completely off guard, and couldn't do the calm greeting thing, but I don't think that's too much of a problem.

The flight down went smoothly. Em and I were a few seats apart, so we couldn't do much talking, though we did a lot of catching up at the airport. We exchanged occasional panicked, excited, nervous, and unbelieving glances over the course of the 5 hour flight, and shivered in the air conditioning of the plane. Landing in the airport, at 7:30 local time, it was dark as mightnight and hot hot hot. The pilot announced it was 34 degrees, which didn't sound all that high (as in, compared to what I was worried about, like mid-40s), so walking off the plane I assumed the immediate blast of heat was coming from the plane engine. HA, no. 30 degrees is hot. This will be an interesting summer even just for that. After a slight hassle with passports (Emily got through fine, but they didn't like mine as much, oddly), we stepped out to be greeted by a man from BoH (Bridges of Hope) (the organization we are working with). He helped us get our bags, rushed us through customs (which consisted of a person looking at the outside of your bag and then deciding if he wanted to go through it or not, thankfully neither of us had to go through that), and led us through chaos to meet Tatania, another person from BoH. By chaos, I guess it really wasn't, it was just a lot of people wanting to 'help' us with our bags or be a taxi (for untold fees). We then loaded up into a SUV/Jeep thing, and drove through Ouagadougou to our present lodgings.

We aren't sure if we've seen downtown yet, but if we have, it is nothing like a city of several million at home. What we saw was more like continual suburbs; small one-room houses of earth and metal and wood, people everywheres, and bikes and motorcycles and cars. The roads, though we were told they are paved, are about equivalent to PEI dirt roads in the early summer, very bumpy and rough. Though it was clear that you are supposed to drive on the right side of the road, that is free to change if there is a bump ahead and you are bigger than the oncoming traffic. All buildings were about the same size, be they stores or houses (or the gas station, Shell), being the one room standard, if it was a store with whatever good piled up (shoes nailed to the wall, shirts tacked up, fruit piled high).

We have been teased continually since arrival by Tatania and Daniel's brother, which is quite welcome, about everything from the weather (we were promised snow soon enough), the heat (told that the difference between white and black people is that white people haven't been properly cooked yet, as in, were not put in the oven before being born, and told that we were going to cook in Africa), ghosts (we don't have to worry about them, so long as they don't say our name?), language, and the president (who will soon pop out of the TV to say hello and welcome us to Burkina Faso).

Yes, I did just say TV. We are living like royalty; we've got electricity running air conditioning, lights, running water, a lady is cooking wonderful food for us, we are eating the best fruit that exists anywheres, windows with screens (and bars), we have a fridge, our beds are some kind of crazy soft foam, our door has a lock, there is someone who guarded the house last night, we have access to internet next door… it is hard to take in and hard to accept. We stay here until around Monday, at which time we move to Leo for a few days before starting our projects from Boura. Phones are in the works, Emily is uploading a video tour of the house right now, and now I'm going out the door to visit the Embassy. (?)

Side note, I'm typing on Emily's computer, but keyboards here have the ! where the . usually is, which I think says something right there.

3pm, Thursday the 24^th of May.

Europe

I'm not writing details now; but as they come out, any Europe stories will be comments here: It was a lot of fun; and a very nice break before internship.

Details

So you've now either read the first post and wondered why it ended so suddently, skipped the first post because it was too gushy, or skipped the first post because you already knew what it had to say. And so I present the second part.

On May 10th, I leave Charlottetown, PEI, for Paris, France. From there, I somehow get to Frankfurt, Germany, where I will meet up with Katie, Linden, Graham, Chelsea, and Josie, who will be getting off a very early flight. The six of us will then spend just under two weeks as tourist, visiting Frankfurt, London, and Paris. On May 23rd, I meet up with Emily, who will be coming from visiting Dublin, and we fly together from Paris to Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.

Burkina Faso is located in Western Africa, bordering Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Benin, and Togo. It is landlocked, and has three main rivers running through it, the Mouhoun, Nakambé, and Nazinon. Former known as Upper Volta, the country was a French colony until 1960. Currently operating as a Parliamentary Republic, Burkina Faso is lead by President Blaise Compaoré, who has been re-elected every election since he first took head of the country in 1987 after a coup d'état. Current law states that he will not be eligible to run again in 2010, when the next election is scheduled to occur, because of his repeat holding of the position. The official language of the Burkinabé (inhabitants of Burkina Faso) is French, though tribal languages are also common. The literacy rate in the country is very low, and the country has a strong arts scene, hosting prominent international craft and film festivals. Ninety percent of the population relies on subsistence agriculture, with most of this being in cotton, peanuts, shea nuts, sesame, sorghum, millet, corn, rice, and raising livestock. The country is considered to be very stable, safe, and welcoming.

Emily and I will be working with an organization called Bridges of Hope for 10 weeks, based in the Boura region, near the Ghanaian border (Google Maps has it, if anyone is curious: search 'Boura, Burkina Faso'). Both of us will be doing assesments of local organizations to determine what Bridges of Hope can do to further their work. Emily will be working with small local businesses and organizations, and I with local schools. Bridges of Hope is an organization based out of Lethbridge, Alberta. Emily learned of the organization at a conference in Ottawa, and decided to set it up as an RC internship. RC requires international placements to be in pairs, so I am unbelievably excited to be travelling and spending this summer with Emily. On its website, Bridges of Hope describes its vision: " To enhance the capability and productivity of indigenous organizations, leadership, and people who are committed to poverty relief and community empowerment." The organization describes its guiding principles as being based in dignity, respect, and capacity building.

I'm going to make a point to direct you to Emily's blog, she has also been writing some background information, and we should both end up providing different views of similar experiences, which I guess will be interesting. I'm also going to point out that I have listed links to the blogs of my classmates' travels, on the side of the page.