Goodbye Party

The high school threw me a party to say goodbye and thanks. I forced everyone to take a picture with me:



Me and the Principle and his wife (left) and her sister (back)



















Mariame the secretary. She is one of my neighbors and she loves to agitate and aggrivate me.



















Salmad, Mariames baby and frequent guest on the blog and indoor pooper



















Diallo and little Saidou are my favorites. Saidou smiles all the time and Diallo explains everything to me when I dont understand which is often















Giatin, one of the english teachers. he loves to make me mad by telling me women have rights in Burkina and then I get all huffy and start lecturing him on the plight of the african woman



















They're presenting me with my gift. They gave me a "tradtitional" Burkinabe outfit. The one I have on in this picture is typical of contemporary african clothes.













Im at the big kids table. Burkinabe are really into protocol so the most important people are always seated front and center and by themselves. So, Im with the Mayor, Prefect, and the Principal.
















Sodray, the other english teacher. he moved into my old Jesus dirt house. He's a bit drunk already . . .






















Yelkouni is also a bit drunk already and he really likes to dance Dance DANCE!






















Ok. Pierre is like the school gopher, he does odd jobs and he and I are making sad faces because . . . well . . . its a long story that would take more cultural explanation than i feel like getting into. I will spare you.
















Bazie, chem/physics teacher and i like talking to him because he is very smart and makes interesting observations about development in Burkina


















Bado, history/geography teacher. He is very short like me and he talks in a really low voice but then makes these really high pitch squel noises that make me laugh . And he's a snappy dancer






















Bonane, philosophy teacher. He has a really big vocabulary and talking to him is like talking to Robert my brother-in-law but in French so i understand even less. And yes, philosophy is part of the educative program for the higher grades but really its also religion, psychology, politics ect all that stuff












Dipama, math and biology teacher and the school clown. He is always talking and developing new catch phrases that are infectious and you find yourself talking like him. He is up to noooo good.
















Konate, math and biology teacher and long time neighbor and good good friend. She is very sweet and patient and I'd be screwed (oh no Jay bird the S word!) without her

















The Serveillant, he is in charge of discipline and he is VERY drunk in this picture as it was also a market day and theerefore a day for sampling the dolo beer














Sawadogo, math teacher. Those little feet you see sticking out from behind her back belong to her baby boy Alverique

Wrapping things up

Peace Corps service is wrapping up. The rains are starting to fall on Tougouri. There are tiny ambiguous green plants proudly pushing up through the red sandy soil. My neighbors are preparing their feilds for farming. Corn, millett, sorgum. I really love the rainy season and its my last one. I love the blessed cool air. I love that bright color green of plants that are newly showing their leaves. Two weeks ago even the acacia trees were bare. Brown. Brown. Brown. Sand. Dirt. Dust. The rains will wash the dirt from the earth and all will be green again.

This is a new event of course. Three weeks ago I could not have imagined what it felt to be cool to not sweat all night long. Around the 13 or so of May I was busy teaching my very last hours of school. Ever. EVER. The rainy season was a distant memory from last year. I was in my favorite class teaching our last hour of the week (and consequently our last hour of the year, of my life) and, chalk in hand, I found myself writing the very last sentence and then the very last period. Remarquez-vous classe! Cest notre derniere phrase!! I finished the sentence, poked the chalkboard with my chalk punctuating the sentence and began to cheer. All 90 students got up and cheered with me. Any excuse to be loud right? What a moment! It was made even more complete when i realized I had made a couple of french mistakes and hod to go back and erase. Typical.

Pretty soon I was teaching my very last hour of my very last class - the class that i really really despise and i didnt even teach the last hour because they made me so mad i walked out. I gave my last test











I corrected my last test



















I filled in my last report card.














My last last last. To me, that was the emotional peak of leaving. All the "lasts." You all say how proud you are of me . . . but I am proud of myself. I dont think Ive ever learned so much in so little time. When I think back on my first weeks and months here I just laugh at how much I didnt know. The language and customs and general "way of doing things" etc. If i knew then what i know now. I cant even explain this because it wouldnt make sense to y'all. Let me put it this way, Ièll never say that I cant do something and I ill never feel like i cant figure something out because I can.

If the world ends the only survivors will be cockroaches, glitter, and peace corps volunteers.



Here I am at the very LAST staff meeting. It lasted from 7am to 1:30pm. Burkinabe have lots of opinions and everyones has to be heard even if its the same opinion over and over and over again. The teachers gave me a present and Konate and Diallo wrapped it in blue plastic and made flowers and ribbon out of pink and white toilet paper. I was tickled.

Big Thank You

I am very very happy to say that this past Friday (May 15th) the Principal and I went to the capitol and bought the generator for the school!!!!!!!! We were very excited and got exactly what we wanted. This is going to greatly improve the functioning of our school. I should say their school as i am a week away from the official end of my last school year in burkina! I just wanted to say thank yout to all of you who contributed to the project. Your generosity was much appreciated by the community of Tougouri, especially the students and personnel of the school, and of course me too. Thank you for supporting me and this community. This will help us do a lot of basic things . . . like print tests. Yay!!!

I will take some pictures for you guys and post them as soon as I can. Thank you again!

Tidbits

The traveling salesman has been sighted three more times!! I took poictures to share with you people but ... alas they have disappeared. No worries I still have 9 weeks and three days or so . . . i'll get him again. He has added mystery chinese lotion to his repertoire to soothe aches and pains and . . . probably Dengue fever . . . just as a bonus. Sheesh . . . if only i could get him hawking malaria meds we'd be in business.


I recently broke another pair of glasses and peace corps gave me replacements. They are very very art deco and grape purple. Mac says i look like a european lesbian . . . thanks. Sorry Mom about breaking the glasses. I had set them down while i was doing laundry and stepped on them. I was pissed.



Sazlmad has woken me up with poop twice this last month. The first time i was asleep inside my house. It was 5:30 am and i sense some motion going on beside me bed. The next thing i know there is a little black fist shoved in my face and it releases a handful of dryed up goat poop onto my mattress. Good freakin morning. About two weeks ago Salmad let himself into my house at about 6am. I was up sweeping and he was just chasing me and my broom. Then he drops into a squat right on my "kitchen" floor and poops . . . goddamnfreakinwhatthefuckshitass . . . Mariam!!! Come get your kid!! Hes pooping in peoples houses. Actually he has a bit of a record of this kind of behavior and his courtyard nickname is "Shieur publique" or "public shitter"


My friend Marty has a neighbor whose dog got rabies. It started acting all crazy . . . and well . . . rabid. Totally creeped Marty out. Well the dog had a violent episode and actually fell . . . oh my goodness . . . it fell in a latrine. Thats right, a six foot pit of human excrement. Oh my geez . . . i cant imagine a more horrible end. Rabies and then you fazll in a latrine. If any part of me ever touched the inside of a latrine, id have to be institutionalized for post traumatic stress syndrome. Eventually they had to get the dog out and they finally took it off somewhere and ended its suffering


One day I was headed off to the Marché. I get all toughed out if im going to be spending extended periods of time in noon day sun. This partiocular day I am decked out in my Barak Obama t-shirt, long flowy skirt, bandana, and my shades. I look really really Peace corps-y and not a little bit mannish. Anyway, im biking along and when i bike (just like when i walk) I look at the gound right infront of me. I get a whiff of something . . . stinky . . . a zoo smell . . . i look up and not 3 meters infront of me are three camels wamlking side by side. Its a wall of smelly camel butt and i am about to bike into it. A quick swerve to the left and all was good . . . what a peace corpsy thing though . . . silly white girl, barak obama tshirt, camels, etc...

Safari Bitches!!

It is spring break here (i have ten days off from teaching) and so I went on a short safari. There are several animal parks in Burkina - all of them are in the south. I went to a park called Arly near the border with Togo. This is the truck we went in. It was crazy windy and sunny up there.



Eventually i got in the front with Adama - the sun was killer.



This is the first "animal" we saw . . . and its a dead one. A dead elephant. But dont be sad because we saw a lot of live elephants too. And baby ones!


Like this elephant here! He was the alpha male elephant and he ran at us and attacked that big tree in the bottom right corner of the photo. Sorry!


They are so wonderful!! Oh the wee ones are so cute!!!!!!

Here are some hippos.

And some warthogs . . . and yes, i DID call the hogs while on safari.

The Travelling Salesman

I have a huge crush on a travelling salesman. He's been on my bus three times and he flirts with me and gives me freebees. This is not in itself outstanding as i like to flirt and tend to have multiple crushes at any given time. What is outstanding is that there is a traveling salesman on my bus at all. Let me explain...



The first time i saw him was on the STAF bus on the way to Ouahigouya last July. I have taken A LOT of buses in my 21 months of service and I was confused when a man got up and stood in the center aisle of the moving bus and began addressing everyone. My first thought was - wtf? i hope its not a proselytizing christian! I gave him a disinterested cold shoulder when he started passing out candy to get peoples attention. Great! A proselytizing christian with shitty candy! This 3 hour bus ride is going to be fantastic!

He began his speech and to my surprise it wasnt about Jesus and eternal damnation at all! He was talking about health of all things. Now this was a surprise! Culturally speaking, in Burkina people do not really talk about their health. When you're sick it's because someone cursed you. Babies grow in the stomach. Meningitis comes from eating green mangos. The menstrual cycle and pregnancy have nothing to do with each other. There is very serious ignorance in this country when it comes to the human body and its quirks and functions. And here was a man talking about health!

I was very confused and listened in to what he had to say. He was talking about menstrual cramps! Infertility! Malaria! He was telling men that it was okay to have sex with their pregnant wives and that it wasnt good to look for another woman in the mean time! What what what??? Yes! Finally there was someone talking publicly and without embarrassment about health and the humna body! I quickly discovered what was going on because the guy started hocking weird "chinese" medicine to cure any number of ailments. Fatigue, heat rash, malaria, muscle pain etc. First of all - the Burkinabe are used to getting things from China - cheaply made shirts, plates, jewelry, everything! They call it "la chinoiserie" and they think that the chinese have lots of secrets and answers so random chinese medicine being sold on a bus was a hot item. The guy started selling tons of the chinese tea stuff. They couldn't get enough of it! Try to get them to take quinine for malaria or wash their hands and its a waste of time but mystery chinese medicine?? It sold like hot cakes. Geez. The guy was so charming and funny that even I was thinking - hey, maybe this stuff would be good! Geez.

Well, it didn't stop there. The chinese tea was only item numbe one. Next, he had these weird patches that you apply to the skin. Large white tape rectangles that stick right on the skin. I read the directions - its like a trans-dermal analgesic something or other. Wow I thought mystery mentrual cramp tea was popular! The people on the bus were pointing out places on their bodies that have been suffering from pain for years! The travelling salesman assured them that the patch would soothe their stiff necks, feet, hands, backs etc. I got off the bus three hours later and half the passengers are covered from head to toe in white sticky patches. The driver even had one across the top of his head. Pasted on feet. Slapped onto forearms. It was hysterical!

I think two things here. I think first off - I am so glad that someone is actually talking about the menstrual cycle and malaria and diarhhea and not claiming these health issues as curses but as actual diseases with logical and avoidable causes. Awesome! The second thing that occurs to me is that buying mystical chinese tea from a travelling salesman on a bus isnt all that different than a visit to the witch doctor for a traditional tea brew to ward off curses. So, there is a small gain - a window of communication was opened albeit by the hand of magical chinese tonic. I still have a huge crush on the travelling salesman - he really is so charnimg. Argh! Freaking salesmen!

Cursing Nuns

Note: This blog post contains the F-word so if you dont want to see the f-word continue elsewhere

Have I mentioned my lovely and enthusiastic group of nuns that I teach english to? Of course I have. English class is going well and they are almost fluent . . . well not fluent so much as . . . well, lovely and enthusaistic. One day we were playing the game 20 questions to practice vocabulary etc. The object chosen by the Nun in question was "fork." Well, this was all fine and good until the end when the nuns started to practice the word "fork" and hit a little too close to the word "fuck." Well, we can't just have Nuns going around saying "fuck" and i certainly can't be responsible for this transgression. So, to make a point of it - i told the nuns to be careful.
"Sisters! Be very careful. When you are pronouncing the word "fork" it sounds very like another word in english that is very bad."
Of course this small tidbit peaked their curiosity and bade me explain further; afterall ignorance never helped anyone and i found it more than amusing to explain the word "fuck" to a group of nuns. I'm sick. I know.
"Well, the word means to have sex but in a not very nice way. And it is the strongest word in the english language. I do not know of a stronger word and if i were to say this word in front of my mother she would smack me for saying it" (totally not true but it gets the point made).
"Ooooh . . . no this is not good." Good. The nuns have understaood the gravity of such a pronunciation mistake. "Say the word for us again so we will be sure not to confuse the two."
So i repeat, "Fuck."
And . . . God forgive me . . . all the Nuns repeat in unison and with boistrous clarity "FUCK!"
Noooooo!!!!!! All the Nuns just said fuck!!!!!!
"No no!! My sisters do not repeat this word! God will strike me down." Now we are all laughing and some of them keep saying "fuck" just to watch the shame play across my face. Eventually we have the two words separated out and they can say "fork" without dropping the "r".

That's one wild bunch of Nuns.