I Hate Couscous!!!!

Couscous.....why? Before I came to Africa, I had no idea what this substance known as couscous was, and I wish that were still the case. I am sure everyone knows what couscous is and I just had a sheltered life in Missouri, but for those of you like me who are couscous illiterate, couscous is a grain that is similar to rice, except for the fact that it is horrible. There are pretty much four foods that are widely available for human consumption in Burkina Faso. The list consists of pasta, rice, to, and couscous ranked in order of awesomeness. Everytime couscous is placed in front of me, according to onlookers, I make a face that describes just how upset at the fact that I am about to eat couscous. About a month ago, we went to a fancy hotel restaurant in Ouahigouya that you had to make reservations at the day before, so I figured it would be pretty fancy, and it was. The first course was salad, which sounds pretty boring, but there isnt a whole lot of salad in the country of Burkina, or at least salad that wont give you some type of tropical disease. In the next courses we got a pizza-ish thing, some type of eggplant, and these fried dough mystery balls, all of which were good. I was thinking to myself, "self, if all of this food has come so far, and we are still waiting for the main course, the main course is going to be awesome!" A huge tray was brought out and on this tray was a huge pile of.......... couscous. Seriously, I mean seriously what kind of a main course is that. Couscous runs rampant in Africa. You can get it anywhere and everywhere, but why at a "nice" restaurant is the main course couscous? I am pretty sure that is all of the ranting that I have about couscous, but be warned.

Model school ended this week, and only 11 out of 39 of my students passed. I have been assured though that that is good in Burkinabé standards. We had a ceremony yesterday where we gave the top three guys and girls of each class prizes of textbooks, notebooks, and other school supplies. Before each class could get their prizes, they had to choose a representative to lip sync a song for the teachers and all of the other students. I thought it was very odd, but apparently it is a natural occurence here. The performers would also dance whilst siging and pull us up out of the audience to dance with them. This is a picture of Julia, another soon to be volunteer, doin a little dance. All in all, it turned out very well. Model school was a useful experience, but I am very glad that it is over.

I took my final language test today. I only have to go up one more level to see if I go to site in a week or spend two weeks in Ouaga boning up on my French. I dont think that I did very well though, but I will find out tomorrow. Swear in is a week from today!