Life is Looking Up

I realize my blog for January was somewhat down in the dumps but life has drastically improved as I have readjusted back to life here in Burkina. I cannot believe it is already March and I have been here a year and a half.

I have had a couple formations and meetings in Ouagadougou in the beginning of February and March so my time at site has gone by so fast.

Hot season started EARLY this year, around February 13th, it get up to 105 degrees inside my house during the day. It has been quite hard to fall asleep at night and I find myself getting up in the middle of the night to splash water on my face. I do not sleep in my bedroom at all for the last month and have instead slept out in my salon. It has been so hot some nights that I get over my fear of having my door unlocked and open. I put my cot right up to the screen door to get some sort of breeze. What I have to get through my head is that it is not even technically hot season, the hottest it gets here is in April and May. Ohh something to look forward to, yippee.

In February I mainly worked with Lagou Da on his 2009 success stories we went out to the villages of Bapla and Navielgane to take photos of farmers. This month, March, I will help him write up his report in both French and English.

We have the ASUDEC's 2008 Macintosh that has never been used set up and just waiting for internet and a power strip. I will begin one on one technical trainings with the agents of ASUDEC hopefully starting the second week in March and construct a schedule of times during the week when I will help them with Microsoft excel and word.

Some WONDERFUL news for my counterpart Lagou Da, he and his wife Marie had a baby girl on February 23rd. This is thier first child.

I headed up to the north west of Burkina Faso on February 24th so I have yet to meet Lagou baby girl. I went up to see an international mask festival that only happens every two years here in Burkina. It was AMAZING!!! I had the best time and dealt with the heat because it was so cool to see all the amazing traditional dances and full on costumes. Pictures will be coming next month once I have time and a good internet connection.

After the mask festival I headed to Ouagadougou, which took me 11 hours and some sickness to get in on February 28th. This past week I and 3 other fellow PCVs have been spoiled by this amazing US based NGO called ASHOKA. We helped with a 4 day conference that they held here in Ouagadougou. My french was put to its limits and my brain was fried, I am not cut out for simultaneous translating in two languages, haha. We worked from 7am to 11pm practically all last week but it was worth it. I was able to meet the most fascinating West Africans from multiple countries (Nigeria, Senegal, Mali. . .) and come away with so many wonderful ideas on agriculture and social entrepreneurship. I have made some lasting contacts and friends. I hope to explain ASHOKA better in my next blog but if you are curious about their work in west africa check out www.ashoka.org

One of the biggest things that I am still working on is funding from the traveling village library. We have successfully set up PayPal for donations at the website www.mrsarmstrong.com and as of March 8th we were 72% to our goal of $3000 to buy books!!! That is WONDERFUL and I hope to have the full amount by the beginning of April so I can go out and buy books before the end of the school year: Summer Book Clubs!!! - maybe

I wanted to get this post out before I head back to site so none of you would worry about me after reading my last blog. I am doing GREAT!! January was just a blip on the radar of a wonderful service!!! I am so excited to get back into all the projects and activities I have planned for the hot season. I have 2 agricultural formations coming up in April which will be keeping me busy and I have been busy researching low cost drip irrigation techniques from around the world. I am also brushing up on semi-arid agriculture techniques, especially successful practices happening in Israel. I feel like I have become a little farmer while I am here in Burkina.

Take care and please check out www.mrsarmstrong.com !!!!!

A Hard Adjustment: January

As you can tell from the title it was a very hard adjustment coming back from the United States to Burkina Faso. Do not worry about me now (February 13th) I am doing fine and have finally readjusted to life here. I am going to share with you a journal entry from January 13th to get a snap shot of how I mentally was.

"I have had trouble readjusting to life back in Burkina. I know a lot

has to do with how people are so unthankful about the presents I

brought back with me from my vacation. (I give them photos and they

demand why I did not give them an album or where is the chocolate).

All my neighbors thought I was in Ouaga or OHG with my host family.

The second I came back they are asking me what I brought them back and

then when I give them something they briefly say thank you and then

ask me what else I brought them. If I give a different gift to

someone they want that gift and not the gift I gave them. Or if there

is not enough of one gift they pester me asking me where their gift

was. I do not know why I even bothered buying them anything. And

then at ASUDEC they know that I went home to America so they are

expecting me to give them iPods or electronic things. I spent so much

money and I feel like shit and it is making me hate it here now.

America has made me so jaded about life here. I hate being stared at

everyday and being called names. It is also so hot and I feel like I

am making no difference. After my two years nothing will have

changed. Nothing I do here is sustainable and I am playing into their

hands by giving them things. For the first time in my service I am

counting down the days to when I can leave. It is too hot and too

dirty here and I just want to have modern comforts. I know i value my

free time and my solitude but I am tired of my life being on hold.

Everyone in the States is moving on, settling down,

and I am here debating if I am in the mood to leave my house. I feel

listless about eating because the food sucks, there is no variety and I

am kicking myself for not eating more bacon while I was home. I know

this is a phase and that I just have to push past it but it does not

make it any less hard. I always wondered why second year volunteers

are more jaded and eager to get back to their lives and I now know

why. They finally give up the ghost that they can accomplish any form

of development during their two years of service. It is now 3:30am

and i have not been getting much sleep at night. I will have to go

back to drugging myself with benedryl to get to sleep. No other time

in my life have I been so afraid of the dark, so much so that I double

lock every door and freak out at the slightest noise (most of the time

just a pig). I am a VERY GOOD COMPARTMENTALIZER, can do it for pain,

love, and truth; but right now I can not realistically grasp why I am

here. Is it that I have nothing to look forward to? No one coming to

visit or no vacation to the developed world to get me through the

tough days. The heat and environment here is draining and in my life

time my village will not even see the development that Ouaga has.

When I leave I will become just a memory, another white foreigner that

comes into their lives and then leaves never to return again. There

is only so much dirt, dust, heat, and tô I can take right now.""

I do not mean to be depressing but I want you reader to know that life can be hard and difficult being a Peace Corps Volunteer is mostly mental because we spend so much time with ourselves. I can luckily look back now on January and say that it was a wash. It was hard on me because I was not busy at all with my NGO. When I would stop by the bureau no one was there because they were all out in the villages. January is when they do their end of the year reporting. There was NO WORK for me.

My saving grace was the National Geographic Magazine (NGM) database my dad got me for Christmas. It has been amazing, it goes all the way up to the end of 2008. I started in December 2008 and read an issue a day and feel very productive now.

I knew that work would start back up in February, and it has, it was just getting over the hump of coming back to Burkina.

All I know is that I definitely plan on leaving after my two years of service. I had been toying with the idea of staying on a couple extra month but I think I am ready to get back to life in America.

I am still plugging away and hoping for funding help from friends and family for the traveling village library here in Diebougou. Go to www.mrsarmstrong.com for more information and opportunities to donate!!!