Alive & Happy Holidays

Hi All,

I wanted to let you know I am alive and healthy as can be for BF. I spent the last three months in village (one short internet-less trip to Yako right after the last time I was online at the end of September/beginning of October)! I only went to Toma three times during that whole period: once to pick-up my absentee ballot to cast my vote for my presidential and local candidates of choice; once to eat some chicken and drink some cold drinks with my colleagues; and once to see my directeur decorated for his many years of service.

Why so much time in village this year? I am teaching twice as much as last year and CLM is no longer my neighbor. Plus, Bryan (my formerly second closest neighbor, current closest neighbor and soon-to-be second closest neighbor again) and Garrett came up for Thanksgiving and we had tasty green beans and of course, turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, candied yams and cranberry sauce (almost all of which is thanks to ex-neighbor CLM). Though, at the end of this week, I will be getting a new neighbor about 45 km from me! Exciting since it is bikable and there is daily transport that passes through our villages (if I get lazy and feel spendy).

Also, my APCD passed through and dropped off packages and mail which was exciting. Followed by a visit from my CD who just wanted to say hi. Will post pics that he took eventually.

I will be contactable for the next day or so, as I head back to village to celebrate Christmas/New Year's/my new neighbor, but I plan on coming back for a day in the beginning of January.

Hope all is well.

Best, AK

40 km and Caterpillars, Oh My!

Dear World,

Warning: WHINING

My physical address has not changed. I usually receive your letters eventually (two weeks to a month). However, please don't send me anymore e-mails telling me that it is expensive to write me a letter. I am sorry if this sounds rude, but it is frustrating. To use the internet it costs me about an eigth of my daily salary for an hour. On top of that, the connection is so slow that I usually have to pay for at least two or three hours to get anything done and the keyboard is usually sticky. For example, this morning I have been trying to download a file that is 500 KB (a Word document). I have been connected for an hour and a half and the download has failed so many times that I have lost count! I am sure it does not cost you an eigth of your daily salary to send me a letter. I can never get as much done as I hoped.

Now, in addition to all that, I have to bike 40-45 km to get to the internet, and worse yet, 40-45 km to get back. The place 15 km from me is broken as usual. This bike ride takes somewhere between 1.5-2.5 hours depending on weather. AND, since I live on the edge of three provinces, there's no cars/trucks that actually go from my village towards the nearest source of internet. I biked for two hours this morning and didn't see any trucks try to run me over. Are there any alternatives? I can spend my entire day's salary to pay for transport to get to Yako, where there is a connection that is only slightly better. The other alternative is to go to Ouaga and stay the night. There I don't have to pay for internet, but I do have to pay to stay some place.

At all of these locations that are not anywhere close to my kitchen, I have to pay for food. The cost of which gets significantly higher the closer I get to a good internet connection. Fortunately, I need less of it as I get further away since I am not biking a ridiculous amount.

Please, no more e-mails telling me that it is expensive to write me a letter. I am sure it does not cost as much for you physically or financially as it does for me.

END OF WHINING

In other news, I meant to post stuff the last time I was in Ouaga, but I was working on my 42 page EPS (gym) document that rocks. Ex-Neighbor can attest to it since she saw a copy!

I am very sad that a lot of my favorite primary school teachers are leaving for bigger brighter villages. Some of them came by to pick stuff up, so I got to say good-bye to them. The school year starts this week, which means that classes really get going next week. I will try to get online next weekend, too, because I have been meaning to visit my second closest neighbor Marty. However, after that I plan on disappearing into the bush as usual, emerging occasionally only to get tests printed for my students.

By the way, I ate caterpillars (chenilles). I wanted to upload pictures but the internet hates me.

Cheesy Tastes Good

Hello world. So, I did not get much accomplished in the way of work while on vacation---as expected by everyone, especially ex-neighbor. It's okay, I have a little bit of time left to get some lesson and project planning done before the school year gets rolling. I've been working hard to finish up a guide to teaching gym, in French, with little resources, and possibly a lack of background in physical education. With dedication (i.e. not sleeping all day long due to jet lag and extreme rain), this should be finished around sometime mid-next week.

I got back to village on Sunday. My house of course was dusty (and still smells dusty), but not too dirty overall (by my standards, which means by most PCV standards it was practically spic and span). Amazingly enough, my courtyard is a jungle, again! There are cucumbers, green beans, squash, millet and all sorts of other crazy things growing. Will post pictures later (as usual). Thursday night/Friday morning it rained so hard that my roof started leaking and I thought I would go deaf. I can't find the hole though, so maybe the wind lifted the roof just enough to let the pouring rain inside. This year, though the rains started late, it has been raining almost every other day, which is wonderful! The crops are actually tall and fruit-laden. Funny because up until August, I swore that the clouds parted at my village and went around it before reforming to rain on the next village.

I haven't been doing a whole lot in village outside of reading and sleeping and working on lesson plans. The whole jet lag and not sleeping because of lights everywhere thing for a month has really taken a toll on my body, and it really just appreciated being able to do nothing for the past week. Unfortunately, most of my reading has been disappointingly disturbing, confusing, boring or all three at the same time. That's why I like to come back to this little passage on love by Katharine Hepburn in her autobiography ME:

...what "I love you" really means. It means I put you and your interests and your comfort ahead of my own interests and my own comfort because I love you.

What does this mean?

I love you. What does this mean?

Think.

We use this expression very carelessly.

LOVE has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get---only with what you are expecting to give---which is everything.

What you will receive in return varies. But it really has no connection with what you give. You give because you love and you cannot help giving. If you are very lucky, you may be loved back. That is delicious but it does not necessarily happen.

It really implies total devotion. And total is all-encompassing---the good of you, the bad of you. I am aware that I must include the bad.

---This gave me great pleasure, the thought that this was pleasing him.

...There is an enormous difference between love and like. Usually, we use the word "love" when we really mean like. I think that very few people ever mean love. I think that like is a much easier relationship. It is based on sense. A blind spot---love.

When I think about this, I realize that I'm very lucky. Most of my relationships (families, friendships, etc.) aren't based on sense. If sense prevailed, I probably would have given up completely on most of my relationships a long time ago. In fact, many of you probably would have given up on me, considering my less attractive qualities (being human and all). So, I just wanted you all to know that when I am feeling lonely and just want to hear from someone (because ex-neighbor ditched me and all!), I remember your love. We might not be able to hear or see each other often, but you're there with me, just like I'm there with you.

Cheesy feel good aside. No, I'm not posting to you live from village. I really wish that I could! I biked in 40 km to hang out with my neighbor PCVs, get groceries, and get some internet time. I plan on heading back home this afternoon, after getting rehydrated and fed. The sad thing is, this won't be the most I have biked in a day. Don't worry, I will try to be more contactable this year (ha! I've said that before), or at least in a week and a few days, I will be online again in Ouaga. Courtney is COS'ing, and as sad as I am to see him go, I will be glad to celebrate him going. Besides seeing him off... sort of, I have the usual paperwork stuff that I want to get done. Unfortunately this is paid internet on a sticky keyboard; I will try to respond to emails in a week or so.

What I Did During My Vacances (or, How many times can I say "cool" in one post?)

Where are the pictures? On FB (see links at right) and Picasa. BTW, Finally got B's pictures from March uploaded online.

Well, I haven't really been doing that many exciting things over the summer. One of the toughest things for PCVs in medium-to-tiny villages is the rainy season. Once the rainy season really gets under way, almost everyone is out working in the fields farming (cultivating, which as I have discovered, really just boils down to weeding by hand after the seeds have sprouted). It makes it hard to do cool things like girls' camps or other things without lots of planning ahead of time and also being located in a more "urban" area, where people aren't all out in the fields. So, as you all know, I travelled a little bit, saw Dori, and got sick.

Happily, I got selected to attend an HIV/AIDS/Life Skills workshop in Koudougou. It was a three-day intense workshop. A lot of the information and resources shared with our counterparts was really useful/interesting/eye-opening for them, and seeing other PCVs was great because we got to exchange stories and ideas. I think the most important thing I got out of the workshop, is keeping in mind the milieu. Some things might work great in certain regions, but in others they won't work at all because of the cultural differences from province to province. Heck, village to village. Other than that, my counterpart and I formulated some game plans (well, technically, action plans, but game plans sounds way more exciting) for the upcoming school year. More importantly, we discussed what we would need to do to motivate the school director to get on board and also chip in a little bit of elbow grease.

What else was cool about Koudougou? Well, of course seeing a lot of the teachers from my village, who vacation there with their families. More exciting though: TAIWANESE people!!! I got to meet the Taiwanese people who work at the hospital. Military service is required for all of-age men in Taiwan, and often in lieu of the service people with medical training opt for a year of volunteer service in a country with need. Burkina Faso being one of the few countries that has diplomatic ties with Taiwan indeed has Taiwanese people. They took me on a tour of the hospital in Koudougou, which I think is pretty nice, but then again I am comparing it to the "hospital" in my village. On top of doing regular doctoring things, there is also acupuncture and a training program for local majors on malaria and HIV/AIDS. So, it looks like they are doing good work, and maybe I can work with them in the future to get some projects done. There are several of them that get shipped out every October/November, so this current "class" is leaving soon, but I plan on at least visiting them for a weekend because they have a basketball court (with a bad ball) and I have a good ball (with no players or basketball court nearby). I can definitely see how this will work out amazingly!

So, after Koudougou, I went back to village and relaxed for a little bit. Cleaned my house for the first time since December, and reorganized... pictures next time I am in village for sure. I finally figured out a way to hang up all the pictures and letters that everyone has been sending me (because you all are wonderful people of course!). Also, I acquired stuff from CLM because she left me (she COS'd, CONGRATS!!)... so, I had lots of fun rearranging and throwing out papers and other trash that I didn't really need at all. I'm very sad that CLM is gone because having a neighbor is/was nice. Though, Marty is moving up near me, and there is always Bryan. My nearest neighbor is now in the 65-70 km region. Bikeable in a day, but aller retour in a day will be tough physically.

Right now, I am in America. And, I am very happily getting fat. Today I leave for California, but in a little bit more than a week, I will be back in Burkina. After I get all settled in, I want to do a pre-school year warm up session with the new 6th graders. Just so they get used to hearing French, more importantly my way of speaking French. AND get reminded on how to do things like add, subtract, MULTIPLY and DIVIDE. Plus, if there's time (or if I can sucker the English teacher to come back early), I want to give them a head-start on English, and get them really excited about that. Of course, this depends on how my director is doing on advertising for this, but even if only a few kids show up, I will be really happy. If no one shows up, I'll probably just paint another mural, I'm thinking number lines this time around!

How many exclamation points did I use in this post?!

Hello World

I am back online until the 18th! Will post a longer post soon with pictures and whatnot and an update on what I have been doing. Afterwards, I will be heading home for a short vacation. I hope to go to California, but that depends on if I can good cheap plane tickets.

Fun tidbits:

Number of people who should be in the car to Ouaga: 25
Number of people who were in the car to Ouaga: 50
Number of goats on the car: 8
Number of goats that fell off the car: 1
Number of spam messages since the last time I checked email: 1748
Number of hours to travel 70 km: 2.5
Number of hours to travel 100 km: 1
Number of hours to travel 10 km: 0.75
Number of hours to bike 5 km: 0.25
Total continuous travel time: 4.5 hours
Number of days till taking off: 7 point something...

Beaver Fever

I am in town for the day to drop off paperwork, pick up paperwork, enjoy internet and air-conditioning and just escape the complete emptiness of village.

One of the great things about being a PCV is being terribly ill from a gastrointestinal infection.

I took a short trip up to Dori a few weeks ago, just to check it out and say goodbye to PCVs who are COSing and going back stateside. It was pretty fun, we crossed two flooded barrages in a bus (think tour bus-sized). Got to eat some really darned good pork (shout out to JL). Did not really see much of the city.

The day after I got back to my village, I ended up being terribly sick with giardia (aka, beaver fever, and not the good kind like those good old college days... go beavers!). Unfortunately, I did not know I had giardia and was rather miserable for the first few days trying to do the standard treatment for diarrhea (which didn't work), stabbing stomach pains, and mild fever (101-102ish). Needless to say, one MIF kit later, it was confirmed that I had giardia.

Now, I have not had problems with sending things TO Ouaga via my transport, but getting things from my transport has been a miracle recently. The last few times I spent days biking up and down my road stopping every car in Yaba and finally found out that my medication was sent back to Ouaga from Toma and then when it was re-sent it ended up in Toma again and a friend had to pick it up. Clearly, not a viable option for someone who practically lived in a latrine for ten days (since biking takes me somewhere between 30 to 60 minutes and all of my friends were gone from village when the prescription came through, also not buyable in village). So, I decided the best thing to do would be to commission someone in a large city who was on their way back to my village to pay for my meds and give them to me. Luckily, it worked out much better than the transport method (i.e. I got my meds as expected, took them and now actually have an appetite!).

Two weeks ago, I was at a solid 68 kg (just shy of 150 lbs), now I don't even dare weigh myself. I am at pinky to thumb ratio of skinniness on my wrist. And as we all know, I have rather small hands for my size, and a very short pinky.

Yes, I know this should be a much more exciting update of how I have been vacationing/cultivating/volunteering now that the school year is out, but realistically I have just been downright miserably sick in village and everyone is out farming the fields. I've got some projects in mind, and will be doing a training on HIV/AIDS and Life Skills in a few weeks. So, now that I am back up to healthy (sort of). I am going to head back to village and get more appropriate forms signed and hopefully the ball rolling in a good direction as opposed to in a circle.

Here is a fun little song I composed while being sick and in the rain (it hasn't rained all that much at all at my village, literally the clouds stop raining at my village and continue afterwards)...

Rain, Rain come today
Come again for many days
Burkinabe want to eat
Rain, Rain come today

Hello Connection; Goodbye Free Internet

Hi All,

I know I promised I would be online more because the connection was fixed, but unfortunately, the connection became unfixed encore.

I have been busy in village making yet another world map. School ended at the end of May, but then came the exam period. The BEPC came and went (end of middle school exam) and then the CEPE (end of primary school exam). The results in my village were not spectacular, but they weren't terrible either. The BAC (first tour, end of high school exam) is finishing up around the country.

A little about the French-ified school system. At the end of each school year, the students (and also anyone who isn't in the school system and registers) takes the examens to get their diplome at whatever level they are trying to get. This basically involves 2 to 4 days of intense testing followed by a second tour (basically a redo in French and Math for those who at least make a certain cutoff level). The subject material didn't seem so bad to me, but then again, there were also errors during the second tour.

Everyone is leaving my village now that the rain has really started (last Saturday). The fonctionnaires to go on vacation and the villagers to cultivate. So, all in all the only people in village are the people who are too young or too old to work all day in the fields. Unfortunately, this cross-section of the village population leaves something to be desired in the French-speaking ability.

My progress in Moore/Jula/San has not made any real advances. Though I've started to recognize that there are more similarities between Jula and San than Moore and San.

Tired. Will be internet-able for tomorrow and Saturday.

Please note. While it says "April" that's when I started this post. I really posted in June. Darn you internet.

Dental Woe / Quickie Post

I don't have much time because I will be running to my gare in a few minutes to catch my bus back to village (if there is such a bus this morning).

Monday afternoon after lunch while flossing out the wonderful bits of food stuck in my teeth, the floss broke. So, I tried again, second time around, one of my fillings popped out. No, Doctor Stender, it was not one of your fillings, it was one of my old, should-have-really-gotten-it-replaced-before-I-left-California fillings. In all cool-headedness, I popped it back in and sent a message to the PCMOs to ask them what to do.

Normally, I have Thursday mornings off, with English club in the afternoon. So, English club got cancelled and I planned to leave Wednesday night for a Thursday morning village and then back to village on Thursday afternoon... Yeah, so things did not pan out. I spent all afternoon watching as cars went away from the capital and not towards (except one camion, which passed really early but I truly believed the bus was coming that afternoon). Come 5 PM, after my friends across the street at the primary schools had watched me wait all afternoon, one of them calls the gare to find out what's up. They say they are not running at all this afternoon. If I had known that at 2 pm when I saw the camion, I would have jumped on and gotten off at the closest city with decent transport 70 km away. Fortunately, people in the Faso understand transport doesn't always work out. Got my dental appointment rescheduled and left yesterday morning (after being rejected by a couple of cars which were full of people who wanted to leave yesterday afternoon like me).

CLO helped me find the dentist; got some new shiny silver in my mouth; ate a good dinner on one side of my mouth (like I have been all week); saw Liz and caught up on life in general (who I have not seen in FOREVER).

So, how's village? It's going. The school year is almost over. In fact, I am rushing back to village to surveille the BEPC blanc. The BEPC is the middle/junior high school exit test. We are giving the examen blanc, a pre-test (think PSAT:SAT) over the next four school days (Sunday is excluded).

I might be online again soon (as I have not checked to see rumors have panned out). Internet may or may not be coming back near me at least for the next week, but hopefully permanently.

I have been extremely bad these past two trimesters about keeping in touch and I apologize. Things have been kind of hectic as the school year winds up. Don't worry, I will write lots of letters in June.

Much love from the Faso.

PS, I put a couple new photos up in the usual places (FB/Picasa). Sorry, not more specific, gotta run.

It's Getting Hot

General Notes:

• New photos posted on Google Picasa. Check them out (in the usual places).
  
• Bats have been sited going in/out of my latrine as recent as this week.
  
• I am incompetent at keeping in touch. Just been overwhelmed trying to catch up at school since I missed a week and the kids didn't understand negative numbers. So, I apologize for not writing letters/emailing/calling. Also, my network coverage has been terrible. My messages don't go through for some reason or I don't receive them. In fact, some of my fellow PCVs thought I had ETd and gone home because they weren't hearing from me.
  

I have officially finished my second trimester (and then some). This term because I was not pressed to leave for a training/funeral, I actually got to go to the conseil and eat chicken. As I may or may not have previously mentioned, I am the professor prinicipal of a class. It was 4e last term, but now that I no longer teach there thanks to schedule shuffling, I am pp in 5eB.

What does the pp do? All the work that a computer does in the developed world without a computer: calculating weighted GPAs, ranking students, laying the general smack down. All I know is I rock at it... must be the years of organizational skills I developed at my institute of higher learning... or something.

In other news, I finally finished a world map at my school (as opposed to in CLM's village) with her help (pictures in the photo gallery). It took two days and it is beautiful.

General recommendations for those who are interested in doing world maps:

• Less people is better, but more than one is strongly advised.
  
• Having two "adult" figures is good. One for supervising any students that might be there, one for actually directing traffic.
  
• Small brushes are essential for painting countries. Clean brushes often and also immediately after use.
  
• Kerosene is essential for preserving paint and also removing it from your hands.
  
• Don't let the kids draw the grid. For some reason, students are incapable of drawing a whole lot of perpendicular lines (math teachers too, but we got by a little better than the students did).
  
• Old socks are great for wiping off dripping paint.

I got my hair done for Huit Mars (aka Inernational Women's Day) and a fancy schmancy outfit made, but unfortunately didn't get any pictures of the outfit, but I did get the hair. I putzed around all day and then played soccer with the women against the married men of the village. The women won 3-1. We kicked butt. My students came out to cheer me on (after all I am also their gym teacher and they love me anyway).

One of my other highlights since Chinese New Year was my friend B from high school came to visit me in village. That's right, all the way from America. He actually had a hard time getting in touch with me since my phone/coverage stinks, but somehow he actually made it to my village (though in a roundabout ridiculously long fashion). He took lots of pictures which I am hoping he will post soon of me, my students, my village, and friends. So, be ready for the awesomeness... when it arrives. He and his accomplice Brian stayed for the night. They got to chat up with some locals, experience real village life, sleep under the stars (sort of), and check out a funeral (they are a lot of fun around here). Seeing two Americans (with corn starch and old socks) really made my day! Their visit also coincided with our first "rain" of the rainy season. Really by "rain" it is more like mist, but still. Very exciting! Since then it has only sprinkled once.

So, really I just came in for a few days to get out of village, bask in a/c, and get some work done. I will be back next week on Saturday for the day, so be on the lookout for yet another post.

In Yako

I am in Yako for the day. Came in with hopes of internet only to discover that the power was out until about 1 pm and the place doesn't open until 4 pm. Got them to open an hour early so I could get in some time before the bus leaves for village. My new strategy to deal with my students: pop quizzes. They are afeared. Put up new photos of kids (see link from last post). Forgot to take a picture of my actual students though; so, that will have to wait until next update. Things have been busy and getting hotter and dustier. When I get more time I will post photos of my wars against dust and flies. The bats are still there. Overall, life has not much improved. Recent rioting (rise in costs of living but no rise in pay rates - most necesseties have nearly doubled in price) has kept me in village as opposed to going to internet (was hoping to come last week).

Two Posts A Day...

Keeps your anxiety at bay!

So, Chinese New Year feasting was a success. The glowstick mood lighting was a big hit. I made oily rice, beef and broccoli with a black pepper sauce, cabbage and shrimp, and vegetarian chow mein. Also present were salty sticky rice cakes and sweet sticky rice cakes, two huge fish, dumplings, egg rolls, bbq pork, chicken, tea eggs, stewed pork, shrimp chips, pickled vegetables, hairy seaweed, strawbery sponge cake, and pineapple cakes, as well as red envelopes filled with candy. I am entering food coma or enterring myself, who knows which?

We ate, we answered trivia questions, and we ate some more. Which is good because I intend to exceed 70 kg for my return to village.

All in all a sweet Saturday soiree. I wore my new dress (in photos if I can ever convince this internet connection to let you have them).

The new pictures of my house are up by the way! You will find pictures of my lovely new hangar and also gate to my courtyard. Here are pictures of some of the kids I mentioned earlier. Here are some pictures from CNY shindig. Mostly I just don't believe in double-posting (despite my love of redundancy, technology is limiting me).

Happy New Rat

Happy Asian Lunar New Year!!

I am currently in THE Dougou (not to be confused with Kool Dougou or West Dougou) to celebrate Chinese New Year. We are having a shindig which involves me cooking. Hopefully, no lives will be lost except for tasty ones. We decorated, and me being the loser I left my lantern in village (see photos), BUT I made up for it with yellow glowsticks and red ribbon (thanks to my (always) awesome former co-workers!) and my amazing ability to provide tasty Asian candies and treats. I am actually going to run off in a little bit to start cooking and whatnot. I hope that I get back in sometime late tonight or at the butt crack of two hours before dawn.

Life has been hectic as I try to make up for lost time in school and also battle boughts of paresse and fatigue. Coming back from a wired country really made it tough to adjust to the lack of electricity and general convenience.

Here's the scoop:

• Negative numbers are every students bane and I am way behind on grading papers. I've only graded about 20 devoirs, but the best note (coming from one of my top students) is 10/20. I spent all week reviewing operations with relative numbers (positive/negative). I am going to give a pop quiz on Tuesday (but don't tell my students!)
• The cost of living here has gotten tres cher. The cost of a bottle of Dinor (palm oil) has gone from 800 F CFA to 1400 F CFA in village. That along with many other daily consumed items (that aren't veggies or millet) have gone through the roof.
• Internet by me is still out. The internet lady and I are going to hang out at my place next week, though.
• Things are starting to heat up. Day time temperatures have been exceeding 90 and rising.
• I biked over 90 km in under 24 hours unintentionally.
• I am currently weighing in at 70 kg. Trying to get it back up this weekend.
• I received an extremely large box with refried beans and Del Taco sauce packets... every girl's dream!
• I own a ridiculous number of bags and suitcases in the Faso now. All of which are at village (because I thought I had left one in THE Dougou, but alas, no!).
• Tailors here are awesome. I own awesome dresses.
• There are 14 French people building tables for my school. I stare at them as much as my students. They stare at me as much as the Burkinabe. All in all, we're a bunch of oddities to each other.
• My last act before getting on the bus to get out of village: Watched telecentre Hamidou gut a lightly smoked chicken while making conversation and kids played with the innards.
• I have bats in my latrine. Unfortunately, the plumbing in my latrine is shared (i.e. one latrine, two holes). They pop up during the day time and night time to eat bugs and just make it difficult for you to excrete waste peacefully.
• I run an unofficial day care center. The kids of my neighbors just show up to lie around and doodle in the shade. At least they are cute and sweet (most of the time), except for the faux type in the making. My favourite is Newton, not even a year old and crawling around and causing havoc. He's big, fat, and a mama's boy. Total cutie, too!

Plan to be back in Marchish for spring break and to get some medical work done, but will try to get in sometime tonight or tomorrow morning for a last bit of internet time.

Layover Laughs (or The Lariam Delirium, not sure which)

[Casablanca, MORROCO @ 1731 GMT]

I am no stranger to nonsensical flight plans or long layovers. Once upon a time I actually flew from Indianapolis to Las Vegas to Los Angeles to Newark. There was a 20-or-so hour layover in Los Angeles. Not advised by the way.

So, here I find myself deliriously tired in Casablanca (as you all may have seen from my previous posts). After my time ran out, I managed to fight my way to the front of the transfer desks... twice. You see, in normal airports, there are things like signs, staff, lines. In Casablanca, such organization does not exist. [Heck, signs point all over the place to things and then when there is a crucial turn right before the stairs to the final destination, there is no sign. Maybe my exhaustion has blinded me and they don't usually see people who have been on three flights before arriving in Casablanca for yet another flight.] So, the frustrating thing about arriving to the front of the transfer desk is because once you are in front, that does not necessarily mean you will be helped. They really need a new supervisor or something in this airport to whip these guys into shape.

I can understand that my layover is ridiculously long and such, while others have a quick turnaround. The problem here is that there is a serious lack of organization. I noticed this the last time around, but miraculously made it through with about 15 minutes to spare before my next flight (I had a three hour layover). Heck, I got to the front of the line before people who were leaving in twenty minutes (twice) and I already had my boarding pass (thank you, HKI efficiency!!!)!!!! So, why was I at the transfer desk? Because I wanted to know what gate to go to... logical question right? Also, apparently if you have a transfer from Royal Air Maroc to Royal Air Maroc you can get a voucher for a restuarant in the airport (fat chance you'll find it though since it is not well labelled to get there). Unfortunately, since I was switching airlines. I did not qualify. Even though other staff members told me I was eligible for this and possibly some place to pass out that was not the floor or a cold uncomfortable airport chair (this is was one of another reasons I was at the transfer desk). I also wanted to make sure my luggage got checked okay. The guy didn't even look at my stubs and said it was fine even though there was a typo. I don't know what to say other than I hope my luggage gets there (not that you won't find out at the end of this post if I don't). All this was after wandering in and out of the "gates" area several times because I didn't know where to go (since I didn't know my gate number). The guards were ever so helpful (as in not at all). All of the staff kept pointing me back to the overcrowded transfer desk. Add all this to a mix of French, English and Arabic and shoving and shouting from many people (not me, I was too tired). So, just in general frustratingly tiring. And really, I am too tired to be frustrated, just vague shadows of frustration.

Worst 10 Things To Do During A 15-Hour Casablanca Layover
10. Sleep. Physically impossible, it is too shiny.
9. Try to use the mysterious Wifi advertised on every darned wall in the airport. (Have to pay for it and can't even get to the pay page anyway!!)
8. Try to understand the language people are speaking to you while you stare blankly at them.
7. Pay exorbitant money for nourishing substances.
6. Try to find an outlet in the airport for quickly decharging laptop.
5. Try to figure out how to get to the other side of the glassed off area where people are lounging semi-uncomfortably (as opposed to uncomfortably).
4. Pay exorbitant money for internet time.
3. Go to the restroom.
2. Drink tap water from the restroom. (NB: I didn't actually do this, but was strictly warned by one of my new acquaintances that I should not drink it... besides the fact that it smelled quite... unpotable.)
1. Go to the transfer/transit desk. Yes, I am pretty sure the frustration is not worth it. Don't go if you don't have to!

Top 10 Things To Do During A 15-Hour Casablanca Layover
10. Strike up a conversation with someone who had to run to the restroom while waiting in the crowd by the transfer desk. Alternatively, give bad directions in French. Alternatively, give away your plastic bottle collection (from all the other layovers).
9. Watch the cleaning people wash the windows and wonder why the airport is so clean every where except the restrooms.
8. Figure out exactly how you can spend the change you got in dirhams so that you don't have anymore and also that you are no longer hungry or thirsty.
7. Try to find anything in the airport (AKA window shopping/wandering around dazed). Whoever designed this airport must have been loonier than the guy who designed the South Houses. At least there, I can understand the old numbering scheme, not the new one though.
6. Watch the escalators as they mysteriously change speed from fast to slow to fast again. (I thought I was delusional, but really all of the escalators slow down and speed up again. I think it has something to do with solar power.)
5. Go through security. Multiple times. Explaining that you are American and not name-that-Asian-nationality.
4. Change socks and discover that the new socks are unmatched.
3. Consume nourishing substances, multiple times, preferably things you saved from previous flights. Warning: this causes the second worst thing to do during a 15-hour Casablanca layover!
2. Pay exorbitant money for internet time.
1. Watch a guy carrying the giant raw leg of cow that will be your next schawerma sandwich. Mmmm...

Well, here's hoping that the next 5 or so hours are as wonderful as the last 10 have been!

[Ouagadougou, BURKINA FASO]

Well, I intermittently slept uncomfortably. Where I really mean, I would fall asleep for about five minutes and then wake up hoping that I had slept longer when I really hadn't, darn that shininess!

Around 8 PM, all of the flights that showed up on the board were flashing that they were boarding. This was not the case, nor were gates announced on the board. Luckily, by this time through a combination of nagging and wandering I had found out that my gate was at gate 22. Chatted with a couple of Guineans in my butchered sleep-deprived French. Smiled at some kids. Felt exhausted.

Anyway, to top off my Casablanca experience, as everyone was preparing to board the plane, a nice neat line was automatically formed by the people who wanted to get on the plane without instruction. When they finally started boarding, airport staff actually told people about halfway down the line to move to the front. Most people thought they would open up both boarding machines and have two nice neat lines. What did they really want? They wanted us to crowd around the one open boarding machine and squeeze our way through regardless of who was there first. Completely and utterly inane. That and the fact that people were switching seats like crazy on the plane and some guy didn't have a seat for a short while. The staff was generally rude e.g. telling a guy with a small child that said small child did not have a seat when his small child in fact did have a paid-for seat. They made him get his ticket out and everything. Also, some other guy was being told by two staff people back and forth different information right in front of us about some misplaced items from his previous flight. Yeah, no applause for Royal Air Maroc.

I am still in love with Qatar Airways service and food. On top of it all, last time around I am pretty sure I was really in economy (since my seating and food type arrangements were the same), the boarding passes were on business class paper because the staff at Casablanca is again incompetent. Either way, Qatar Airways rocks. Royal Air Maroc not so much.

Amazingly, my luggage made it safely all the way from Taipei. Well, sort of, one of the locks was mysteriously opened but at least it didn't look like anything was missing. I mean who really wants to steal a 3-pound jar of peanut butter or spandex?

Conclusions:
1. Don't fly through Casablanca again unless absolutely necessary!
2. Get enough sleep and figure out what to do in Casablanca before getting to said city if yet another ridiculously long layover ensues. Alternatively, be rich enough for business class so that one can sit in the nice comfy lounges.
3. Try not to take four consecutive flights ever again.
4. Using a bathroom while carrying all of your carry-ons since there are no hooks and the floor is wet and you haven't made any nice friends in the airport yet is rather difficult, but doable.
5. Find another way to take Qatar Airways again that doesn't involve Casablanca.

On going back to life in the Faso... I have missed constant internet connection like nobody's business. That and cute shoes are probably two of my top picks for trivial things that I miss. At the same time though, I will be relieved to go back to my simple life of mangled French mathematics and Scrabble. Though I will be considerably more busy this term (already behind at school! though I did leave exercises for the first week. The poor suckers won't know what hit them if they didn't finish their exercises.), finish up the world maps at my school, and I am self-appointed PCV Asian Lunar New Year cook or something like that, so I hope to be back online again end of January/beginning of February. I also want to visit some cool people like my third nearest neighbor Babette and help her with her tree-planting project. 80 K bike ride sounds like fun! And, I want to check-out Koudougou possibly during spring break. Thoughts are out there, though plans are always bound to change. This time around, I really promise to try to take pictures though as I now have a normally functioning camera!



Me in the Doha airport. It is shiny, too. But not as offensively as CMN (which is actually quite pretty aside from the disorganization and restrooms, don't have any pictures though because I figured it would be weird for the strange 15-hour layover tired person to walk around taking pictures all over the airport).

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Tired in Casablanca

If I were a braver and less confused soul, I would probably be wandering around in the city. Unfortunately, I am even downright confused about which terminal I am in and the ground staff isn't being terribly helpful. I decided to shell out some big bucks for internet that I found here hidden in some remote corner of this mystery terminal. And after my time is up I am going to try the transfer counter again because I am just tired and confused and want to sit relatively near where I will be boarding for the next 14 or so hours.

Service Interrupted (2)

A week ago on Friday, we had the first of our last three ceremonies (which I have been able to attend). Traditionally, every seven days, there is a ceremony. Though, in modern times, this is occasionally abbreviated. Last Friday, was the seventh seven day ceremony. If you do the math, this means that the seven day periods were abbreviated.

Before that, though, there were many activities to be had. Each morning after paying our respects to my grandfather, my family was busy planning for both the small and big ceremonies. As I mentioned earlier, we bring offerings each morning such as fruit, my grandfather's favorite snacks, etc. This is not burned in offering, but large amounts of paper money and the paper lotuses are. Last Saturday, we had an additional ceremony to wish my grandfather good health in the afterlife, as well as to give him his home and seemingly a ton of sacrifical money. You can see a photo below of the house that we had constructed. Not included in the photo are representations of some of his favorite activities (mah-jongg and fishing). The model house was quite large and fully furnished. I say was because Saturday night we burned it in offering. Since it was large, and also the immense amount of sacrificial burned, we used the temple's incinerator as opposed to the traditional firepot.

 

On Monday, was the official ceremony for all of the people who aren't in the immediate family. Before it started, I took a bunch of pictures of the flowers and drinks that people sent. In return for attending a funeral, a towel is given to the attendee. I don't have any pictures of that.

   

This ceremony lasted quite a while and my brother and I were part of the procession even though we are "outside" grandchildren (i.e. we do not carry the name of our grandfather since he was our maternal grandfather - we were clothed in a manner to indicate this though I don't have any photos of that). One of the most difficult parts was seeing my grandfather lying in his coffin. After everyone paid their respects (which involved lots of incense, kneeling and bowing on lots of people's parts), we saw him again. However, everyone who wanted to see him one last time saw him with us and my grandmother. It was so strange because less than a year ago I saw him alive. There really are no words to describe how I feel about it. As poor as his health had been in recent years, my family was not ready or really expecting this to happen.

We escorted the coffin outside to the hearse. All of his "direct" family (except my grandmother and me) went to accompany his body to the funeral home that will house his ashes until my family is ready to transport them to the temple they have elected on the south side of the island. I went with my grandmother to help her with the offerings and prepare for their arrival. Afterwards, we paid our respects once again. We "washed" ourselves. The rest of my relatives went back to the temple, while my first aunt and I took care of burning the last of the sacrificial money for him. There was a lot left and we were burning out of our improvised offering cauldron - a rather large mixing bowl on the rooftop of my grandparents' apartment building. Being rather windy, and with a rather large stack of ceremonial cash to go through. This took us all the way through to dinner time since it was just my aunt and me.

After the services, most of my relatives left for home within the days following. My brother and I went to see my paternal grandmother yesterday after paying respects to our namesake my paternal grandfather at his temple on the south side of the island, and then visiting the technical school he founded and my dad's childhood home.





I think my grandma looks great for someone who is turning 97 this year. You can also see the quality of my camera with these photos. It stitches panoramas for me fairly well. It's got loads more megapixels, but I don't know if this is necessarily an advantage.

Well, back to your regularly scheduled programming starting Sunday.