Far off Places: Happy Holidays from Burkina Faso

This is a photo from my swear in ceremony with the Burkinabe flag!!!

I know it might seem that I am up to date on this blog; but I am actually about a month behind due to the fact that we have been in our final month of training, and there is so many fun and interesting things I have been taking part in. I presently have about 6 blog entries with pictures waiting to be written. The last time you heard from me I was eating Tô for the first time in country.

Right now it is actually 7:30am on Christmas day and I have already received two text messages from other volunteers asking when we can start celebrating Christmas//Brittany’s Birthday (another volunteer’s birthday). Needless to say it makes me feel like I am home in Harrisburg and it is one of my adoring siblings bugging me to get up so we can go downstairs and open presents.

Tomorrow the big adventure begins, all of our wings are clipped. All 32 of us separate after 9 weeks of training, i.e. seeing each other everyday, and we head out into the ‘wild” country side of Burkina to live alone for the next two years. It is so rare that an entire group of trainees make it through staging. 32 trainees flew in with me on October 16^th 2008 and the same 32 trainees swore in with me on December 19, 2008. It is really is incredible! I am not going to sugar coat it but living in Burkina Faso is “hard” in relative terms and I am so proud of my fellow volunteers that we all made it through what some volunteers call the hardest part of service: Staging!!

Last week I moved out of my host family and back into my OWN ROOM (everyone else had to share a room with 3-4 other people) at ECLA. I had lived with my host family for an incredible 2 months of highs and lows. It feels weird to have my privacy again. Even though I do not live their anymore I have still stopped by to say hi practically everyday since moving out. It is funny to see how the house “actually” works when they have no American living with them. The room I lived in is actually the room my host dad lives in, and his room is for all of the out of town guests that stop by his courtyard. It is will so nice not to have to share a bathroom with the entire market anymore.

I promise to write in full detail in the months to come about the rest of the month of December and the finishing of stage, but I just want to fill you all in on a couple logistical problems of my future village.

Along with last week being the final week of training and swear in, it was also the first time we would all meet our counterparts. A counterpart is a PCVs colleague, first “friend” in village, and main point of interaction for anything in the next two years. Normally a counterpart is an important person within the community like the head of the Health clinic or an artisan’s association. Many times PCV find other people within the community to partner up with over their two years depending on the relationship between the counterpart and the PCV. My counterpart, Lagou, is an agent of ASUDEC and he is very thorough and highly motivated. I will have a lot of work to do in the next two years, I cannot wait!

Through my broken French and his patience with me we created an action plan for the next 3 months called my “etude.” For the next three months I will just “be” in my community, see how things work and find out where things are. It will be a very nice change from the 6 days a week grueling training schedule of stage. The only sad part of my village is that there is no internet within biking distance of my town. Therefore, I will have to take transport to another regional capital, which is a pain because that is time (1-2 hours) and money. To that end I do not know when I will be on the internet again, and I want to apologize that my blogging might not be as frequent.

This may be my last post for a month but know I will be working on them and when I finally do get to the internet you all will have so many posts to read!! Lucky you! Therefore, the fastest way to reach me is through letters and post! I will have a mail box in my village so please send everything to that address from now on. Sadly if you send it to the other address it will sit in the Peace Corps office in Ouaga for a month or two until I can make it up to retrieve my packages or letters. I have heard from other volunteers that it normally takes 2-3 weeks to receive things when you have a post box at your site. Sadly, I have not received any packages for Christmas, hopefully Peace Corps will be nice and bring all my mail when they drop by my site with all my bags in a couple days. So if you did send mail or packages to the other address I will get them, but only when Peace Corps brings them to me. Patience, for me because I cannot wait to get packages and letters. Tootles (mom) was great in the fact that she showed me all of my Christmas presents via her skype camera. Last night she was just tempting me with wrapped bundles of American goodness, she said everything was food products, yippee!! I will celebrate Christmas on January 25^th versus today.

Do not feel bad for me because us volunteers are creating a Christmas day here with secret santas and white elephant activities. Last night we sat under the pavilion and watched elf, it was weird watching a film outside on Christmas Eve because I am used to it being so cold.

2:30pm December 25, 2008: So today has turned into a very memorable unconventional Christmas! We all got together this morning and partook in Secret Santa’s and White Elephant festivities. For white elephant, I ended up with a white tie that Matthew wore to swear in. His host mom made it for him and he had no need for it. I was one of the last numbers and could have had my choice of many great/nasty gifts. Instead of trading I decided to keep the tie and wear it as a belt. Matthew was shocked to say the least. I brought toilet paper and tes bags and it was a highly saught after gift and was traded 5 times before it found its owner in Josh.

I exchanged gifts with a couple of the other volunteers and was really shocked and so happy with my presents!! It is amazing how well people can know you by the end of 9 weeks together day in and day out. I got two calabashes from Lynette with my name painted on them. Brittany got me a beautiful teal panya and journal with a beautiful note in the front. Kirsten got me a beautiful coin purse and the craziest gift of all was the dehydrator Amanda made for me. I cannot describe in words how incredibly thoughtful and awesome this dehydrator is. She spent so long making it from scratch. I think these gifts have been the best gifts I have received in a long time because they were hand made and given so much thought in the production . I really cannot wait to have time and post up the photos from this great day!! WAIT!!! Brittany was able to upload photos so check them out at the bottom of this blog!!!! Crazy these were taken TODAY on Christmas

Most things are open today because we are up north and it is prodomitedly a muslim area. I went out and got laughing cow, veggies, and bread to make our favorite meal here in country – veggie sandwiches. I was also really excited to use my calabash for the first time!! Other then that I have been packing up all of my things because I leave here at 4am tomorrow morning. I do not get to my new house until Saturday night. It will be nice to finally not live out of a suitcase, which I have been doing for the last three months.

Tonight we are going to a local hotel and having Lebanese food, my fingers are crossed that there will be enough food for 32 people. Well I have no idea when I will be online again, but please know I am thinking about everyone.

MY NEW ADDRESS:

Gwendolyn Armstrong,
BP 21 Diebougou
Providence de Bougouriba
Burkina Faso
Afrique de l'Ouest

Amanda the amazing girl that made this amazing dehydrator for me. Ingenious and it had french words inscripted on the side. So excited for some dried mangos. You can also see my NEW white belt which used to be a tie (best white elephant).