A Little Delayed

I am actually getting to site tomorrow for the very second time. Yes, I am actually moving in, and no, I don't know what my new postal address will be, but as I said, the other one will work if you change the T to a V (and probably even if you don't). Once I know, I probably won't have internet access to tell you all, but I promise to write someone or bike 40+k to the nearest (unreliable?) internet source.

This past week has been really hectic, between moving out of my host parents house, and then the swear-in ceremony, and then the bus ride down to capital, and then shopping for all of the stuff for my house, and then... Yeah, basically I have been feeling overwhelmed.

I am excited to get to site though, and really get settled in. It will be good to make a home and to paint my house all sorts of pretty. Unfortunately, I hit a snafu when trying to buy a car battery today because the salesperson was concerned if I didn't buy the whole package deal with the (dry-cell) battery and the solar panel, I wouldn't be able to recharge my battery just any old place. Why dry-cell? Lower maintenance cost despite the higher price tag. Downside, I don't have the time or the understanding of electrical type things to know how much juice I need for my battery (obviously this affects the price). Also, I don't know if I can charge a dry-cell battery through normal means (i.e. not a solar panel). So, the nice thing was they didn't pressure me into buying anything, which I couldn't afford anyway. And then, I had a tasty dinner at the restaurant next door.

So, to all my readers out there:

• If I have a 12V dry-cell battery, what kind of wattage/amperage/some sort of electrical termage do I need to charge a laptop (without running it)?
  
• Do I absolutely need to charge from a solar panel or is it possible to do so from conventional battery recharging sources?
  
• Should I just buy a cheaper standard car battery (higher maintenance and doesn't like to be drained completely) and hope it doesn't fall apart on me.
  

If the responses could be compiled into a nice and neat presentation that takes little time for my french-fuddled brain to comprehend, that would be great!

Other things? Since TH posed the question, I am sure other people may be wondering, too. What am I doing for the next month before school starts (yes, it is a trimester system sort of like Tech)?

The answer is integrate. Mathematically and socially, of course. *zing* (blame TH)

So, I know that there is another stage coming in soon after me. If any of you future PCTs are reading this, I highly recommend:

• Packing an extra bag inside your other bags. What they don't tell you is that they give you lots and lots of books and other papers that are useful and also use up a lot of space that you had so carefully packed everything you thought you needed for two years. Also, you kind of acquire lots of stuff by accident.
  
• Also, really do bring a good frying pan and spatula.
  
• Tupperware and ziploc bags are awesome.
  
• Peanut butter is everywhere, but it is just not the same.
  
• You don't really need lots of clothes because you can have them made here (or shop in the marche aka the thrift store), but I do highly recommend at least one pair of jeans (I automatically feel 50x more American when I wear them).
  
• They take Visa here, not Mastercard or American Express (if you are thinking of bringing a credit or atm card). And, you can't use that plastic card for much more than atm machines that exist only in really large cities.
  
• Bring a camera and take lots of pictures (unlike me, I am now less camera-happy than during my yesteryears).
  
• I get to read Newsweek when I actually get my mail. The truth is, though, I sort of miss trashy American celebrity gossip, but only really just a tiny bit. I miss not having information readily available at my fingertips more.
  
• Tell your alumni association where you are going. Chances are they will actually send alumni newsletters and the like to you in BF. (Yes, Tech is really doing that!)
  
• Bring a good sense of humor because joking is key in this culture.
  
• Appreciate every last tasty morsel you eat before you get here because you will shed all those pounds you gain before Stage and more!

Okay, it is late by my time, and I am off to bed.

Response to THs Question

You all can still mail me at my current address, just change the PCT to PCV. If I get a post box within in an hour or so of me, then I will write and hopefully someone can email everyone my new mailing address.

Also, I am expecting lots of love on/for Thursday.

Also, if you recently moved, I may not have your new address.

Braided and Photos

As you can see, I got my hair braided. This was an extremely long and fairly painful process, but since swear-in is coming up on Friday (for those who are keeping track), I thought it would be nice to get a new 'do. I am not looking forward to taking all the little rubberbands out. This will probably be my primary activity during transport to site when I have nothing better to do. I think hairstyle is a form of art though.



I have also gotten some clothes made. On the left, you will see some awesome fabric that I picked out for pants. In fact, I would like to call them my molecule pants since they remind me of small molecules. It is a big hit with all the other science and math teachers. I also have had some other clothes made, but I don't have any pictures of me in them yet.



Last Thursday, we had our closing ceremony for model school. We presented prizes to the top students in each class (male and female) and the kids danced and lip-synched a bunch of songs. It was fun, almost all of the SE PCTs got up to dance and J--- gave a speech about the seeds of knowledge that we had planted... and something about a garden in French. I handed out a few prizes and even danced a little bit with the kids.

I have been having San lessons lately to prepare myself for going to site. Like Jula and Mooré, there aren't very many verb conjugations. Unfortunately, there is a distinction between past tense, present tense, the infinitive, and the future tense. And, on top of it all, it is a tonal and dialect language like Chinese. As in, different regions speak different dialects of San. It is not like Mooré and Jula where there may be small variations in pronunciation (e.g. Texas vs. UK). There are full out different dialects. So, I have my brain full of local language that I can't get to stick.

This will probably be one of my last few posts before I head off to site and go off-the-grid for a few months. So, I will leave you with a few pictures of people during one of several heavy rain storms that we have had.




BTW, Biking through heavy rain storms is not fun!

PS, I also posted a few other pictures in my photo gallery. And, for this blog, I am too tired to figure out how to rotate the pictures, so you all will just have to bear with it, or perhaps one of my blog editors can figure it out and rotate the photos accordingly.

Yet another rainy Sunday.

Being unclever, I wanted to internet today, but the more expensive place is closed, so I am just down the street from my house, but I can't upload any pictures and it is also going to take me a while to type a comprehensible post, so bear with me.

Rain is good, but the other PCTss and I are getting tired of rain on Sundays when we want to hang out at the pool in town.

We are now officially at the start of week 10. Tomorrow I am giving a chemistry test. I am also getting my first official San lesson. San is the language primarily spoken in my village. I am also learning Mooré (spoken in the capital and throughout most of central BF by the Mossi) and Jula (western BF). So, on top of French, I am also trying to learn three local languages. I can do basic salutations in Mooré, but that is about it. I have only had one lesson in Jula, and I have already forgotten most of it. I know less than a handful of phrases in San courtesy of one of the staff members who is Samo (and actually originally from the village I am going too). I figured out that by the end of all this, I will have a minimal comprehension of almost ten languages/dialects. That is if I don't go crazy from being in village and learning all these languages. On the plus side, like my first language/dialect, there is no conjugation involved, which makes it easier than French, in theory.

General whining, being female in Africa stinks for multiple reasons, but my top complaints are anything involving excretion from the body and biking in a skirt. Other things that I would like to complain about, but don't have time for: flies, latrines, toilets, missing friends and family, limited contact with people (coming up at the end of August), food from home and other cultures that don't involve starch doused in palm oil!

Things that are awesome (aka, why I am still here): teaching and being told by my students in (6è) that they miss me, receiving a ton of letters and packages from people who love me, my host family, getting clothes made in africa (I will post a picture later of my very enviable molecule pants), the PCVs, the PCTs, and the staff.

Days till swear-in (not including today): 12

The Difference, Part II

Wow, it is the start of week nine. For some reason, FB is retarded and thinks that because I list my country as BF, my hometown is in BF (brief aside about FB and not BF).

Today I taught my first class of 3è (think freshman). The system here groups the physical sciences (physics and chemistry) and the sciences of the life and the earth (geology and biology). It is a little bizarre, but I am teaching chemistry... through discussing experimentation. I guess it is a little bit mind boggling for me to be teaching electrochemistry (which is the first chapter in 3è) without using the concept that metals have the ability to transfer electrons easily thanks to their d-orbitals. And also, to teach an experiment, and not actually do an experiment. Kind of bizarre, but again, lack of supplies, resources, etc.

In American chemistry, we start with the idea of the structure of the atom and its evolution through history and eventually go to orbitals and whatnot. In BF, there isn't enough time to be spent with a lot of the history because of the lack of textbooks and also the fact that the class is both physics and chemistry at the same time, it is more like bootcamp with lots of experiments and then trying to understand what happens with the experiment sort of like how BiCh111 and 113 were at Tech, but at least we had some resources to work off of.

How is my French doing? I already passed the level necessary for swearing in a while back. And, I think that all of the other PCTs are on their way to swearing in with the minimum level needed. For the most part it is okay, my problem is when I speak before I think, and questions that I am formulating to pose to my class are not formulated in an intelligible manner (and they sound as terrible as this run-on sentence does). I realized a little while back that I am the equivalent of any of the numerous foreign postdocs, grad students, or professors that taught in college with their thick heavy accents. Oh yes, in case you haven't noticed, my english is also deteriorating while my french gets better.

Some good news, I have experienced my second week of weight gain since my arrival in BF. I am very excited. I am almost at 160 lbs again. This brings me down to 25 lbs lost (I was at 30). I think this may be due partially to the fact that I now eat five meals a day. Two of which are really processed American food in high-protein bar form (Luna/Balance/Cliff bars). The plus side is I think I am regaining muscle mass. The down side is I can't depend on these supplements in my diet that much. Thanks to the high carb/high fat diet, I am almost always hungry now that I have officially stopped being sick and regained my appetite.

Other good news, I think I can make my own peanut butter cups here if I try (through a concoction of condensed milk, cocoa powder, and peanut butter (this is prevalent everywhere, they have plenty of peanuts here).

In other news, I lent my knifelight over the weekend, and because I was in a hurry to leave and the knifelight was still in use, I left it behind, assuming (foolish person that I am) that the person would be able to close it and give it back to me the next day. Unfortunately, this did not happen and my knifelight/only knife in Africa is now lost (mostly I have been whining about this for about a day now and understanding/teaching electrochemistry in french). I am going to try to go back and find it with some big tough people because I really don't think it could have just washed away with the 12-hour rainstorm we had on Sunday. (Dear TH, I am very sorry for being incompetent.) In reality, I don't think I am going to see it again.

Moral: Don't lend a sharp pointy object to someone and expect it back the next day because people are not prone to riding bikes with an open knife.

Next week is the last week of model school, and the week after that is the big goodbye/separation and lots of packing.

Ok, time to going back and relearning chemistry in French. The sad thing is that I understand the concepts (I think) behind what is observed, but I can't teach it that way. I guess we all have to start somewhere. And then also planning my math lesson in French. BTW, it is way easier to teach math in French, than PC in French, which is still easier than SVT.

Love,

A, Knifeless in Africa

Days Left Till Swear-In: 17

The Difference, Part I

The biggest difference between the school systems here and the school systems in the United States is the unfortunate lack of resources. In a class of 100 students, there is a very strong probability that not a single student will have the textbook. That means that the word of the professor is their textbook. This is both good and bad.

The second biggest difference is the French philosophy versus the American philosophy. The French scoring system is a 20 point system, where 10 (50%) is considered passing. Unlike, the American system of 100 where 65% is considered passing.

I am actually going to have to run now, so this is short, but it gives you a small glimpse of what I am working with...