Stahhh-ge

Hello Family, Friends, Admirers, and Friendly Neighborhood Stalkers!

How are y'all?! I miss you! Everything's is pretty great here though - just a little hot.
We arrived in BF last Friday (June 6), and it's hard to believe we've been here over a week already. We landed in the capital city, Ouagadougou (Ouaga for short), and stayed at a convent there until Wednesday morning. Obviously the convent has no affiliation with the Peace Corps - I think they're just available for groups who need food/housing/conference rooms.

It was nice and spread out, and definitely helped to ease us into being in-country - they had showers, toilets, fans in the "dorm" rooms and "dining hall," and an air conditioned conference room. While there we ventured out to the marche once, and to a restaurant for ice cream (!) another time. Saturday was a bunch of administrative type things (setting up bank accounts, getting phones, etc.) and medical/language placement interviews, but Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday we followed what is now our typical schedule:

8-10: session
[break]
10:30-12:30: session
[lunch]
2-3:30: session
[break]
3:45-5:15: session
done!

More on sessions/training later!

Our training group is preeeeeetty awesome - there's 31 of us, from all over the country, ages ranging from 22-34. Our training group is only Education sector; Health and Community/Youth Development (I think) volunteers come in October or something. One of the best things about Ouaga was that the convent had these great gazebos, and it turns out that a bunch of people in our group are incredibly talented. Y'all know I'm not counting myself in that number - these people are super cool and musical and artistic and wonderful dancers. We discussed having a talent show at some point and I'm like ummmmm I don't have a talent. I'd have nothing to do on stage but convert oxygen into carbon dioxide! Name that movie!!!

SIDE NOTE about the title of this post: training is called "stage" the French word for training, not the English stage for a play, etc. So "our training group" is also called "our stage" - spelled phonetically in the title of this post. :)

We left Ouaga on Wednesday after lunch, and walked off of the buses straight to the ceremony for our adoption into our host families. I was mildly terrified to leave the group to live with people I can hardly communicate with, but it turns out it was all for nothing. I may be biased, but I think I definitely have one of the best (if not THE best) host fams - they're so adorable and so so sweet. At the ceremony was my host mom and her sister, and my youngest host sister. After the ceremony (complete with dancing), we piled my bags onto their two motos, and I hopped on my bike (with my 30+ pound backpack) and we rode home. It felt like a lifetime, but after having made the same trip twice a day for the past five days, I can admit that it's really not that bad.

About the language barrier: I said I didn't much care about the age(s) of my sibling(s), but said if there was a choice I'd prefer a younger one. I figured it wouldn't matter so much that I didn't know French because I could just play with a little one, and BOY WAS I RIGHT!!! I played with my little sister all that first evening (or two), and being able to do interact with the family even though I don't know French made me feel a lot less awkward - and I think it also helped them be able to tell that I wanted to interact with them even though I couldn't really communicate much. Thank Je-Zeus for small blessings!

When my host dad got home, he did the official introductions, and later I got him to spell out everyone's names so I could pronounce them correctly. As it turns out, I have five siblings! The two oldest boys are at university (Mohamed and Aboubacar), but they'll be home at the end of the month. The next boy is Idybapon - I think he's about 14 or so, but honestly I have no idea. The only thing he's said to me besides 'bonjour' and 'bonsoir' is "I'm going to dance" - although I'll admit that was pretty awesome. Next is Basadequoa, who is 8. She and I are basically best friends, even though we didn't meet until Friday. Friday and Saturday afternoons, when I sat in the courtyard reading/writing in my journal/doing my homework, she'd sit next to me and write in her notebook or play with stuffed animals. Ranea is the youngest (about 2) and she's also very sweet - always wants to play!

I'm at an internet cafe right now and I told my host mom I'd be home by 7, so I'm kind of running out of time - so more on training and my host family in a few days! Love and miss you all!

xo, chlo