A day in the life, addendum 1

So I'll admit that I was mostly worthless on Tuesday (besides an hour of class), but I promise I'm not like that every day!!!

Proof: it's only 1pm right now and I've already...

- planned most of Monday's 2 hour 6eme class

- taught 2.5 hrs of classes

- gone with my director, my homologue, and another teacher to visit my chief (which is why I only had 2.5, and not 3 hours of classes - I was literally summoned in the middle of one)

- discussed the new-baby gift to be given to my director and his wife by me, my homologue, and the English/French teacher

- chatted with my neighbor and agreed to charge her phone on my solar panel AND to go to church tonight

- added air to both bike tires

- moved my little bike bell to the right side of the handle bars so I can make it "ding a ling" with just my thumb

- FIXED my little bike bell, which included taking it apart and cleaning the tiny gears and rigging the whole thing with a bit of rubber (from the strap that holds things on the bac)k so it can be "ding-ed" without scraping along the handlebar

A day in the life

The other day, I was talking to one of my fellow volunteers, and she goes, "So....what do you do all day??"

As it turns out, she was feeling a bit worthless, so we chatted about how we'd just gotten here, and right now, getting to know people IS doing something, etc etc.

But then I figured people on the home front might also wonder what I do all day, so here's what I did yesterday!

I apologize in advance for the level of detail...as you'll see, I literally had nothing better to do. (Or at least, nothing that I wanted to do)

6:05 - snooze once, wake up, make first cup of coffee, check email/viber, realize I'm out of internet credit, transfer some and consider going into Tenko this weekend to get more

6:30 - second cup of coffee, start this log, turn on podcast ("how animal domestication works," by Stuff You Should Know)

6:50 - pause podcast to move chair into the shade.

Upon standing, look over courtyard wall and notice kids going to school (I live near the primary school); realize that I didn't go get water before school time as I had intended. Alas. Move chair, play podcast. Watch lizards eat ants while listening.

7:45 - brush teeth, get dressed, fill water bottle.

7:55 - wonder what I'm going to do until my class at 10. Enjoy breeze, look off into the distance for any hint of rain clouds. (No such luck)

8:00 - decide to read, but find myself wishing I hadn't finished The Count of Monte Cristo yesterday because I enjoyed it more than I'm enjoying book 2 of The Magicians.

8:05 - Set alarm so I don't end up being late for class. Listen to all ringtones and wonder who at apple makes up ringtones? Do they outsource that to a ringtone specialist? Whoever made the most recent ones is much better at it than whoever made the "classic" ones. Decide on "Uplift." Return to book.

9:20 - Alarm. Pack backpack, remove bike from shed (more on this upon the official presentation of my house), and realize I gave myself entirely too much time for this. Refill water bottle, put out solar panel, and have a little snack of PB&J (not a sandwich, just PB&J mixed together in a bowl).

9:40 - Depart for my school; notice that my back tire is a little low, decide to deal with it when I get back home. Immediately regret this decision when the bike ride there feels like it requires more effort than usual. Grudgingly admit to myself that if I hadn't seen that the tire was low, I probably wouldn't have noticed a difference. 

9:50 - Arrive; see my homologue!!! This is only the second time I've seen him since the day I arrived at site, so this is exciting! Chat with him, the English/French teacher, and the director for a while. Both other teachers have class at 10 too, so I figure at least I won't be the only one who's late.

10:?? - finally start class. Today is 5eme (about the equivalent of 7th grade)

11:00 - end class even though we haven't finished, because I'm nice like that. 

11:10 - almost home but see an SUV at the primary school. Oh look, it's the older French couple that I met last night at the Chief's fete for Tabaski! They (and whatever group they're with) are the people responsible for building the library in my village, but (as I have noticed) the library isn't getting much use. SO they came to do a training with the primary school teachers on how they can use it more. They shared with me some frustrations about the obstacles they face working with Burkinabe, who just don't do things the way we're used to.

11:15 - back home, change into my home clothes (tank top and shorts) and in light of how sweaty I am, add some oral rehydration salts (ORS) to my water bottle. 

11:30 - my homologue arrives to visit! A bit earlier than expected...he had said that he had class from 10-12. Hmm. Whatever. Throw on a skirt over my shorts. I show him my solar panel and we discuss furniture. He's very impressed by my calendar.

11:45 - He leaves, and as enjoyable as the visit was, I'm not entirely sure that he understood what I want as far as furniture...so I guess I'll find out at some point. Drink ORS/water while updating this log

11:55 - Wait impatiently for the kids at the primary school to go home for lunch/break time so I won't have an audience at the pump. Consider going before everyone is gone so that they'll pump for me. Organize things in my house to kill time.

12:10 - I hear a moto! It's my director, seeing if my homologue was still here. Alas, he is not. Director continues his running joke about me cooking for him by asking what I've cooked. He leaves and I listen to a class at the primary school singing something. Super cute. Note some dark clouds but I don't think it's going to rain any time soon. In case you were wondering, I have become a pretty good rain predictor. Not as good as a Burkinabe, but maybe I'll get there someday.

12:20 - excitement at the primary school is dying down, so I decide that I'll go at 12:30 to get water. Generally just sit in my chair, drink water and think about random things for a bit.

Look over and see that my vitamin and doxy blister packs (both come in sheets of ten) are off by two. That will never do; I resolve to fix that today and tomorrow.

Survey my "pantry" area and decide on tuna salad for lunch.

12:30 - put skirt on, lock door, and go get water. It takes a bit longer than usual bc some of my neighbors were there at the same time.

12:55 - get back, see a missed call from Chris, so I call him back - he was in Ouaga getting an MRI of his knee but nothing is torn! So he's very excited to be going back to site tomorrow.

1:00 - make lunch -- "make lunch" implies that I did something beyond cutting up an onion and a tomato and opening a can of tuna and a jar of mayo and mixing things together with some spices; I did not.

Fill water bottle, grab chair, phones, and kindle, and move outside.

1:10 - eat lunch

1:16 - finish lunch and realize that I eat way too quickly. Considering how slowly I do other things simply because there's no reason to rush, one would think I would take my time to eat. Maybe I'm just too good of a cook, and the food I make is too delicious not to scarf down. HA. I'm sure that's it.

1:18 - turn on data to check the news. Wait for it to load. While waiting, move solar panel to its afternoon position and then sit and look at the lizards and think about things.

Decide to burn some trash this afternoon.

Swat some flies away from my person.

Wonder if my arm jiggles when I write on the chalkboard. Decide to do start doing some tricep dips to mitigate, just in case - but not today. Maybe tomorrow.

Again notice a dead branch currently caught by other branches in the tree. Remind myself not to sit in the shade under that part of the tree until it falls.

1:30 - news still hasn't loaded so I decide to give up for now and read a bit.

1:40 - news has loaded!!!! Take this intermission to refill water bottle before going back to the book

2:30 - kindle battery dies, so I bring solar panel inside and switch the set up from charging the battery via the sun to charging devices via the battery. 

Decide to be somewhat productive, and continue the task of cleaning my nasty walls, which I started this weekend.

2:35 - put on some muzak for the project and get to scrubbin

3:30 - I'm about 2/3 done with my big room, and I decide that's enough for today.

Wash dishes from lunch and determine that it's sufficiently hot/still to burn trash easily.

Fill up bath bucket and the second bucket that I'll use to refill my water filter before I go to bed.

3:40 - burn trash

4:15 - clouds are starting to look more legit, so maybe there's hope for rain yet!! I've finished burning my trash and even tore up half of the giant box that my solar panel came in to use as future kindling - not a bad thirty minutes. Back to the book.

4:20 - the ants are persistent today!! They keep crawling onto my feet and making me crazy, but luckily I find a way to curl up in my little chair so my feet don't touch the ground. Always feels good to outsmart insects.

5:05 - the kiddos have been released from school and are joyfully expressing their approval of the hour.    The clouds haven't brought rain yet but they did bring cooler air and nice breezes, so I'm not complaining. And  I see more in the direction from which the rain likes to come, so I'm hopeful.

Refill water bottle and consider a snack. Since it'll be dark and mosquito-y soon regardless of any potential rain, I decide to postpone the snack until I'm in the house for the evening.

5:20 - CHECK ME OUT!!!! It's getting all nice and blustery!! New prediction: if it doesn't blow right past, it's gonna raaaaaain!!!!!

5:30 - the wind keeps blowing my door shut, so I'm taking that as a sign to move inside. And hey, since I'm here now, it may as well be snack time.

Make a little something I like to call village pudding. Will explain more another time, but basically it's chocolate and that's all that matters.

Hear rain start as I'm mixing. WOOHOO!

5:35 - eat village pudding and relish in the sounds of rain upon my tin roof

5:45 - return to book (which, by the way, has recently gotten more interesting)

7:05 - it stopped raining at some unknown point and I go outside to go to the latrine and notice that the full moon overhead looks positively werewolfian.

7:15 - chat w Chris a bit on his way from happy hour back to the transit house** for delivery pizza** and cards against humanity. My stomach calls out for pizza, even though I'm not actually hungry at all, so I keep reading to distract myself.

**NOTE: yes, there is in fact delivery pizza in Ouaga!!!!

And the transit house is a dorm-like house in Ouaga (property of Peace Corps Burkina Faso) that we can stay at for cheaper than a hotel - and for free if we're there for Peace Corps business!

8:45 - sad but true: about to fall asleep reading. Decide to turn off the alarm for the morning.**

Muster up the energy to take a bath and get to bed.

Fill a pot with water from bath bucket, and while it's heating up a bit, fill water filter.

Take a nice little bucket bath

**NOTE: apparently my internal clock is too good - even without the alarm, I only slept ten extra minutes.

9:00 - unplug light, and hop in bed with absolutely zero shame that I'm going to bed at 9pm

Money Matters

I figured I'd share some average (Non-Ouaga) prices with y'all because I think it's really interesting!! 

525 F CFA = $1 (last I checked)

10 cfa - text messages within Burkina

100 cfa - international text messages

1,500-2,500 cfa - 1 pagne (colorful fabric to get clothes made)

1500 cfa - tailoring for a shirt

2000 cfa - tailoring for a skirt

2500 cfa - tailoring for a dress

500 cfa - Coke/Fanta (glass bottle)

650 cfa - Brakina (one of the cheapest beers)

1000 cfa - 1L box of wine -- bottles of wine are more like 3000+

1200 cfa - 1L box of sangria

**these are those weird coated paper /cardboard boxes that you see of soy/almond milk

50 cfa - sachet of water (about 16oz)

150-300 cfa - cafe au lait

FOOD

750 cfa - package of laughing cow cheese (aka "la vache qui rit," literally "the cow who laughs" hahahahah - as you can see or may already know, French doesn't use present participles/gerunds/gerundives the way English does, so I often find literal translations hilarious)

800 cfa - can of tuna

100 cfa - 1 egg

350-500 cfa - omelet

400-500 cfa - rice with sauce

500-600 cfa - couscous with sauce

700-1000 cfa - plate of fries

1300 cfa - 200g can of oatmeal (lasts me about 2-3 weeks)

5750 cfa - 900g of powdered milk (also lasts me about 2-3 weeks)

1000 cfa - enough peanut butter to fill a JIF container

FRUIT - I think this very much depends on where you're doing the buying, but in Tenkodogo:

100 cfa - 1 banana

200 cfa - 1 red apple

250 cfa - 1 green apple

VEGETABLES - I think this is where prices vary the most depending on your negotiation skills. Vendors will make little piles of items, and usually each pile will be the same price.

For example, each little pyramid of 3-5 small tomatoes may be 50 cfa, but you can exchange tomatoes to make your own pile if you think another tomato is better/more ripe/not mushy. And you can also be like, okay I want three piles for 125 cfa and kind of demand a deal that way.

I often go to my village marché with my neighbor, Rosalie, who has turned out to be an incredible negotiator. Clearly she knows exactly how much things should cost, and what she can get away with in terms of adding more items for the same cost.

For example: the last time I went with her, I got 10 (small) onions and 14 (small-med) tomatoes for 225 cfa!!! That's about 43 cents!!! Hoping to include a picture of that purchase with this post because it absolutely blew my mind.

HOUSEHOLD ITEMS

100 cfa - one fork/knife/spoon

200 cfa - Brillo-type sponge

750 cfa - 18L bucket

50 cfa - single use packet of powder laundry detergent

250 cfa - bar of laundry/multi use soap

250 cfa - roll of toilet paper

12,500 cfa - my gas stove

18,000 cfa - the cot that is serving as my temporary bed (woven plastic-y cords on a metal frame)

77,500 cfa - solar panel, battery, cord, inverter, 1m fluoro light (awesome deal)

Some FAQs

What's your water source?

There are a couple water pumps in my village, and I live pretty close to one of them!!! And by "close" I mean, it takes about three minutes to walk there, and about five to walk back with water. Not bad! 

I have this big, yellow, plastic container called a bidon (bih-DOH-n, rhymes with "phone"), which I take to the pump and fill with approximately 25 L of water. Then I strap it onto the back of my bike with a rubber strap, and ever-so-carefully walk it back to my house! 

I think I mentioned in my post about site visit that my neighbors make dolo (a beer of sorts made from red sorghum); well as you might guess, making dolo requires a loooot of water. So really, most of the times that I go to the pump, some of the neighbor kids are there pumping a water into 10 or so bidons, and if they're there, they pump it for me. :)

Depending on which/how many kids are there, sometimes they also insist on walking my bike/water back to my house for me. The last time this happened, I told the boy who started to walk my bike back that I could take it, and he just really quietly says, "Non."

Hahaha ooookay fine by me!

Round trip usually only takes 15 min, and I usually need water every other day or so.

Do you have to sterilize your water?

You bet I do, but it's super easy! Peace Corps gives us water filters, so I just have to pour water in the top, let that water pass through the two filters, and put bleach (two drops per liter) in the bottom.

**Some day I promise I'll post pictures!

How do you cook?

I have a gas tank and a little gas stove with three burners. The awesome PC driver, Moussa, who dropped me off at my site, set up my  tank/stove and demonstrated its use. He then made me try it so he could make sure I did it correctly, which I very much appreciated. So basically, Moussa is the reason I can eat at site.

PS Can you tell that I adore Moussa?? He also called each of us after our first nights at site to make sure we were doing okay. Angel. 😍

How do you bathe?

I pour water from my bidon into a bucket, and use a little plastic cup to take water from the bucket to rinse with.

Sometimes I heat some of the water (as much fits in one of my cooking pots) and then pour it back in the bucket - and man does it feel gooooood!

Sometimes when I want to spoil myself, I use this pressure shower thing, which was super cool care package gift from my sister. Basically you put the water in this little tank, hit the seal, and then push this little foot pedal to pressurize it. There's a little hose that connects to a sprayer - almost like one you'd see at a kitchen sink. You just keep pressing the foot pedal to add pressure! 

It makes washing my hair a LOT easier so I definitely use it for that, but I don't use it every day because quite frankly, I'm pretty good at bucket baths. Its reeeeally nice to be able to close my eyes and pretend I'm taking a shower, though!! I seem to use it in spurts - I'll use it every day for a bit, and then one day I'll forget to fill it up before it gets dark so I'll just do a bucket, and then I get on a bucket kick for a while, and so on. 

How often do you wash your hair?

To this I say...don't ask questions you don't want to know the answer to.

How do you wash your clothes?

I have three buckets. I fill each one 1/2-3/4 full, and put three light articles of clothing in the leftmost bucket. I take a bar of laundry soap, and scrub it on key areas of the first garment (collars and under sleeves for shirts, waistband and pockets and hems of pants/skirts).

After each key area is washed, scrub soap indiscriminately over entire garment and scrub fabric together. Rinse, wring out, and move to middle bucket. Repeat with garments 2 and 3. Add three more garments to left bucket before doing another all-over scrub of each in the middle bucket. Rinse, wring out, and move to bucket on the right.

Continue until all clothes are in the rightmost bucket. Dump soapy water from middle and left buckets, rinse them out, and fill middle bucket 1/2way. Take item from bucket on the right, rinse and wring out REALLY well, and wring out in middle bucket. Add a couple more if you want. Rinse and wring out items from middle bucket, and dump in (empty) bucket on the left, until all pieces of clothing have been rinsed and wrung out a final time. Turn items inside out and pin on clothes line.

NOTE: as you may have noticed, it takes a good amount of water to do laundry - almost a whole bidon. I'm not a big fan of going to get water, so needless to say, after a couple weeks at site I was OVERJOYED to see my neighbors washing their clothes AT the pump!!!!! And then just hanging up at their houses! Talk about a game changer!

How long of a bike ride is it to Tenkodogo?

Tenkodogo is my regional capital, so it's a pretty sizable town/city - and it's only like 35 min away!!!! I mapped it, and it's only about 8.something km. It's a dirt road for probably 7m, and a paved road for 1+. 

Going into Tenkodogo on the dirt road, there are two slight downhills (one steeper and one more gradual) and one slight gradual uphill.

On the paved road, there's a crest, I would say, and it's closer to my dirt road than to Tenko.

All that said, it probably takes 30-35 min to get into town, and more like 35+ to get to my village - so not bad at all!!

I'm pretty sure that every time I make the trip I do it a minute or so faster, so it's probably going to become my personal speed challenge. I mean, I kind of figure that I'm going to be drenched in sweat upon my arrival no matter what, so I may as well get there faster, and with more of a biking-created breeze!

Let there be light

Solar panels.

Glorious, god-sent solar panels.

I would like to share with all of you my epic journey to solar power...

Monday, Aug 18: day before Swear-In

We're discussing the logistics of Affectation (the delivery of 30 new volunteers to their respective sites). Among this is the fact that we now have access to our Peace Corps bank accounts, and our Affectation money has been deposited. 100mille for old sites, 200 for new ones (like mine), who are literally moving into empty houses.

A big question on everyone's mind: much are solar panels???

There are a fair few of us who have new sites without electricity, and who are therefore very interested in this information.

One of our kind PCVFs hops on the phone to ask a fellow PCV friend who is knowledgable about such things. She writes down all sorts of information about sizes of panels and what each size can power/charge. Among her notes, I see "Tenkodogo region: David will help."

HOLY MOLY! I'm in the Tenkodogo region! I don't know who this David character is but I want him to help me!!! "Pst. Pssssst. What's this about Tenkodogo region? That's me!" Apparently, solar panels are cheaper in regional capitals than they are in Ouaga (no surprise there, everything is expensive in Ouaga), so if we*** were willing to wait a couple weeks, this David character would help us buy solar panels in Tenkodogo! 

SOLD! All I really need to charge is my phone and my kindle, and I have this magical apparatus called an Anker battery (which is just an external battery that charges anything that can connect via USB - worth it's weight in gold), so I can totally make it a couple weeks!

***who's "we"? There are three new volunteers in the Tenkodogo region, but Kelby has electricity. Rude. So "we" is me and Diana, whose site is actually only like 6km from mine.

Thursday, Aug 28

I meet Diana in Tenkodogo for the day. I forget why, but it seemed urgent at the time. Maybe to charge devices? Who knows, that seems a little early in the story to be needing power. Hmm. Whatever.

She has opened lines of communication with David. He is working camps right now but will be back at site around Sept 4. HO BOY. That's a week away! Okay. Deep breaths. No big deal. Maybe he can do that first weekend that he's back, the 6th?

Wednesday, September 10

I meet Diana in Tenkodogo and apparently the bike tour is passing through, and who's doing it but our new friend David? We go meet them at a reeeeeally nice hotel (caught in a torrential downpour on the way), and find out that David got a 50W solar panel, battery, and inverter for 102,000 cfa, and that was the best price he's ever heard of. The only thing he'd do differently is buy a bigger battery, because his solar panel was too powerful for the battery and it ended up dying. Good to know.

I learn that Diana's boyfriend, Galen, is planning to come visit on 16th. Is it okay if we do it then?

I understand why she wants to make it one trip - I'm an easy 8-9km from Tenkodogo, but she's more like 14. Why bike there and back an extra time if can help it?

Sure, I can wait another week. I've already had to work up the courage to ask the hooligans down at the bibliotheque to charge my phone once, I can do it again.

Sunday, August 14

THE END IS IN SIGHT!!!! In just two short days I will have POWER! Look at me go!!!

Find out that my sister has gotten engaged. Um YEAH we can chat four 2 hrs on viber!!! And then I can totally talk to my parents for an hour on my dumb phone!! I'll be in Tenko Tuesday and I can charge there and then I'll have POWER!

Oh wait...that beep 30 min ago was a text message...from Diana...David's girlfriend is sick and he wants to go visit her while she's in the infirmary in Ouaga and wants to see if we can move solar panels to Thursday?  Of course that's okay...

I guess I'm going to Tenko by myself (actually this was awesome, I basically had a mini vacation in 24hrs away from site. But that's separate.)

Thursday, August 18

I wake up around 4am to the sounds of rain. Normally I love when it rains, but not so much when I was planning to be biking down a 6k of dirt road in 2 hours...

6am. Still raining. I had told David I'd be in Tenkodogo early (I like to leave before it gets hot), so I warn him that I'm not going to be leaving as planned.

We decide to revisit the timing after the rain.

10am. Still overcast but it has stopped raining. We had both wanted to hang at a hotel w internet before the big shopping, and my road is plenty muddy, just no more water coming from above to rinse me off as I go.

We decide to delay another day.

Friday, August 19

ITS HERE! THE DAY HAS COME!!! I leave  late enough to pass by the bank right when it opens. Still takes 45 min because it's the bank, and it's Burkina.

Get an omelet, meet David at the internet hotel. We hang until Diana says goodbye to Galen and meets us.

SOLAR PANEL TIME!!!!!

We find a store (only our second stop) which is run by a real straight shooter. He is awesome. Not only did they actually measure out our 6m of cord, he also gave David the real price for the inverter - and maybe other things too. 

Total? 88,000 each. WHAT??? That's with the bigger battery and still a ton cheaper than David spent? THIS IS AWESOME!

The negotiations begin. Store owner drops down to 150,000 total (for both of ours) right away, but will not budge beyond that. David advises us to instead look around for other things to try and add into the package. I suggest lights. Each is 3,500, but with everything else, the total comes out to 155,000 -- 77,500 each. I had mentally prepared myself to drop a hundred mille today, so I'm thrilled.

Can we leave this stuff here will we go eat lunch, and get it on the way home?

Cool, thanks.

I get home. Remove everything to make sure it survived the trip. What's that??? I know what mouse snacks look like, and I am fairly certain a mouse made a snack of this cord. UGHHHH.

I have to go back and get him to give me a new length of cord. Joy.

Saturday, September 20

7:30am. Leave my house. I don't know when this man opens shop but I don't want to wait for him.

8am. Omelet. Same place as yesterday, just as delicious and cheap.

8:20.am Arrive at store, explain problem. Store owner obviously remembers the white girl who spent $150 here yesterday, and sees the very clear evidence of a mouse. Calls child helper over to cut new cord, we have a nice chat.

8:30am. Then onto the paved road, pedal, nothing happens. Pull over. Chain has come off the sprocket. Hi, can you help me? Thank you so much!!! Back on my way, and that was only mildly embarassing.

8:32am. Pedaling. Gearing up for the bike ride. Again, nothing happens. Bike is coasting. Look down, this time the chain is broken. AH! That's new.

I look around and see that I'm right by my breakfast spot! We're friends by now (I are there yesterday too), so I figure he can point me to someone who can fix my bike.

8:35am. The kindly maker of my omelets looks dismayed on my behalf, and directs me just down the street. This other man fixes my bike in approximately 7 minutes. 

I think of mechanics in the US. I think of Burkinabe retailers. I fear that he is not only going to give me the Nasara price, but the Nasara+Woman price.

I put my game face on, and ask, "combien? Un cadeau?" He doesn't appreciate my joke about it being a gift, but only charges me 100 cfa, so I'll take it.

9:15am. IM HOME! Broken bike chain and all, less than 2 hours.

2:00pm. My homologue sends some of the hooligans (read: teenage boys) to help me cut wires/connect/etc.

6:30pm. My house is illuminated.......it feels like another world.

It felt like a life time with the plans changing so often, but I only had to live without a source of power for 30 days. And as silly as it sounds, knowing that I was getting a solar panel, but not having it, and living life on the floor because I have no furniture - all of that has kind of made me feel like this isn't really my house, I'm just camping out here for a while. But I have a solar panel now! And my homologue is back from vacation and he told me to "just make a list" of what furniture I wanted and he'd help me get it!

(We got some ridiculous prices -- definitely Nasara+Woman prices -- and a lot of people who did not understand what we wanted when Diana and I tried to make headway on this a couple weeks ago)

Anyway. Sitting here looking at my house with something other than a flashlight, and planning out what furniture I want to get made and where I want to put it, and what color do I want to paint the walls to cover all the dirt? ...it's finally starting to feel like MY house. And you know, it feels pretty damn good.

Viber

Alright dudes, I have phone-ternet these days! If you have (or get) viber, we can teeeeext!!!!!!

+226 67 58 18 60

Flies

Okay. This may be sad, but it's true. I know what would make me ET. ET stands for early termination, and it basically means quitting. Let's run through some things that could (but probably won't) push me over the limit:

Ebola? I only eat meat that is very clearly chicken, so no chance of accidentally eating bat. And I certainly don't spend time w any sick people, so even if at some point there are cases in Burkina (there haven't been any so far), I'm unlikely to come into contact w it.

Malaria? I take my doxy (my chosen malaria prophylaxis) pretty well so even if I were to get malaria, it wouldn't be that bad.

No electricity? I'm getting a solar panel today actually, but a month without power really hasn't been too bad.

No running water? I only have to go to the pump about every 2-3 days, and its not far anyway. And! if any of the neighbor kids are there, they insist on pumping it for me - and sometimes also on walking it back to my house for me!

No furniture? I don't like living my life on the floor, but luckily my homologue is back in town and I think he'll be able to help me find someone to make me some. (My earlier inquiries have not been successful.)

Language barrier? You'd be surprised at the depth of conversations I've had with some women who don't know French. Ursula was right, don't underestimate the power of body language! Haha

Cultural differences? Is it frustrating that people passing by the pump while I'm doing my laundry there will stop stare at me for a while, and sometimes, give me 'pointers' on how I should be scrubbing? Yes. This is when I take deep breaths and tell myself, "She means well. She means well. She means well."
Once I even asked a girl if she was going to watch me wash ALL my clothes. She laughed and didn't take the hint, so after a few more minutes (she'd already been there, staring at me, for 15), I sat down and told her that if she was going to just sit and look at me, I was going to just sit and look at her too. We both laughed and finally she left. Sheesh.

All that...I think I can handle it. The thing I sometimes don't think I can handle...the flies. I don't remember them being this bad during site visit, and they're definitely worse outside my courtyard so I think it might be because of all the grass and weeds surrounding the corn fields.

When I leave my courtyard (especially earlier in the morning), flies gravitate towards me and land and hang out. Seriously, there will be about ten on my person, and another three or four buzzing about driving me insane. At first I thought they must be attracted to my soap or the soap I use to wash my clothes, but yesterday I saw them swarm and settle on the neighbor kid who had insisted on walking my water back to my house for me.

I don't know why they bother me so much but they really do drive me nuts. So there's that update! Next time a fly is harassing you (although I don't remember there being such obnoxiously persistent flies - and with such a pack mentality! - in America), you can think of me!