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.