Monday, November 26, 2007
Disclaimer
The post below contains a riskay picture. However it is an everyday occurence in Burkina. I was also going to post some pictures of my house, but my camera is dead. Thanksgiving in Burkina was awesome. We killed a pig, turkey, and several chickens. Killing the pig was a very traumatic experience, but afterwards, it was very tasty.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Thanksgiving in Randomland
I am currently sitting in the wonderful air condition Peace Corps office in Ouaga enjoying an oreo and listening to American music on a friends iPod. In my mind I am in America right now. For Thanksgiving I will be attending a dessert party at the ambassador's house. I am a pretty important person if you didnt know. I have exausted all of my energy on the internet already, so I dont think that I have enough steam to relate the goings on since the last post. In a nutshell, I am still alive and kicking in the rocking city of Matiacoali. Most of my students passed the test and a few of them with actual good grades. I have about two full weeks of teaching left, and then I am done with the first trimester. We are in the works of planning our Christmas in Ghana, but since I will be going to an English speaking country, how bad can it be? I have recently come to terms with one of the problems that I previously thought Burkina had a problem with, the trash problem. The problem, as I saw it, was that there were no dumpsters and no trash collection program, but then I realized that this was not needed. In Burkina, instead of dumpsters, they have goats. If you are inexperienced with the awe inspiring wonder that is the goat, allow me to educate you. Goats eat everything, whether it be food scraps, or like in the cartoons, old tin cans. For this reason, I think that the trash collection program in Burkina is actually better than that of America. There is no need to take the trash out to the dumpster when the "dumpster" has the ability to come to the trash. Burkina has herds and herds of mobile "dumpsters", and I am going to make it my secondary project to improve this program by increasing the number of "dumpsters".
small child
small child
chillin'
me and child
Rachael, neighbor, cookin' some to
My church
Friday, November 9, 2007
Brain Explosion
I feel as if I have been out of touch with the world for so long! I have now officially been teaching for over a month, which leaves only a little over a month until Christmas break. I love the Burkina school system. I seem to have gotten into the swing of the whole teaching thing, but I still find it difficult to look forward to going to school each day. I am sure that will come with time, I am just tired of waiting for everything to get better. It is happening to slow and all at different times. I need to find Burkina Faso's fast forward button, or even better, its easy button. On the plus side, I think that the french language and I have reconcilled our differences. I am still having some trouble with the whole conversation aspect (Burkinabè talk really fast), but in the classroom I pretty much rule.
Surprisingly, my favorite class to teach is English. There isnt really a book for the class, so at first I was really worried, but now it is awesome. I think this is due to the fact that I just so happen to be a fluent genius in the English language. I know all there is to know, unlike in other subjects when I am afraid there is some piece of information that I have forgotten. One of my students came to my house to ask if I had a book with the conjugation of all English verbs, and I happily responded that I did not, and that all of the knowledge was in my head. Outside of class, I am slowly introducing my own English slang to the kids that live in my neighborhood. My greetings with some of them consist of "Yo yo, what up!", and "What up G!". It is awesome. After two years I will have taught them to say all kinds of sweet stuff. It is fabeled that another volunteer, in an undisclosed location, taught kids in his village that curse words were English greetings. I dont plan to do anything like that, but it is funny.
SIDE NOTE: This French keyboard is meking me angry. Why cant keyboards be universal? It just took me forever to find the question mark! It is stupid!
I gave my first tests this week in both of my science classes and my one english class. On the upside, I only played review games in all of my classes, but on the immediate downward slope, I now have about 300 tests to grade. If I had been thinking about this number as I was writting the tests I might have made them a little bit easier for my sake so that the 300 tests wouldnt haunt me in my vivid larium dreams every night. My only hope is that my students in Mati do better on my tests than my students did during model school.
I joined to Peace Corps for many reasons. Contrary to popular belief, these reasons did not include not being able to fart with confidence, sustaining myself on rice and Hardee's ketchup packets alone, or even the daily fixing of a flat tire on my bike because apparently all of Burkina's vegetation has an armor of ever resistant thorns that litter the ground. One of the reasons that I did have, however, was to see if I could survive with out one of my best friends that we all know and love. His friends know him as Sam, but you might knoz him better as Mr. Electricity. I have survived thus far, but I do miss him. Looking around in village, people have found ways to survive without it. Instead of children zoning out in front of the television, they are thoroughly entertained with the rigorous activity of playing with for example, my trash... or really anyones trash for that matter. Whether it be a plastic bag, tin can, or piece of string, they will find a game to play, or a way to annoy me with it. For an hour straight, to my dismay, a kid played with my watch because if a button is held down it beeps once every ten seconds or so. This apparently was the coolest thing in Burkina since those whistles, because he was entertained beyond belief. I have however found a way to put these electrically deprived children to good use. I previously wrote of the fly problem that is plaguing Burkina, and that fact holds true for Maticoali. For a while, I toyed with the notion of finding a carnivorous plant like a venus fly trap that I could place around my house, but then another thought came to my mind. I had recently purchased a fly swatter in Ouaga, but the fly swatter, unlike the plant, required some sort of human intervention "effort" to produce the desired results, and I, being the lazy person that I am, saw this as its immediate failure. Then, as usual, my mind drifted to the topic of child labor, and an idea came to me. It oddly came in the form of some type of math equation, and looked something like this:
constantly present children + 100 cfa fly swatter = game * happy me
Now I know this sounds crazy, but I tried to balance this equation and solve for happy me, and it worked. It was like I was Tom Sawyer, and my fly swatter was my paint brush. I called a few of them into my house, showed them how much fun I was having, and the next thing I knew it was a hit. I probably have a kid once a day come over to play this game. This realization opens the door to numerous possibilities. Next thing on the agenda is turning doing the dishes and writting my lesson plans into a game. Soon, I will have even less to do, if that is possible. It will be excellent... or maybe I should rethink this plan. With absolutely nothing to do, I would go crazier than I already have.
Speaking of free time on my hands, it seems that Harry Potter has taken over my life, and he has brought all of his literary friends with him. To fill my television void, I have taken up the lost art of reading. Perhaps you have heard of this mysterious practice that was used as a form of entertainment before the existance of television. I know it is hard to believe that life even existed before television, but yes it is true. I have become obsessed, and I cant stop. I guess the first step is admitting I have a problem. To track my progress with this addiction, I have added a section to my blog of the books I have read. I am well past merely a social reader and am clearly addicted.
Back to the subject of child labor, a bat flew into my tiny hobbit house and a small child came to my rescue. The bat was flying around, and I, not being a hobbit, had to crawl on the ground so that it didnt fly into my face. I dont think I have ever been in such close proximity with a bat in my life, and this being the day before Halloween, I wasnt going to take any chances. I called a neighbor kid over, who brought along his trusty stick, and I hid in my mosquito net. I figure that if it is resistant to mosquitos, it must also do the same to bats, but I doubt if it protects against undead vampires. I will have to check the label next time. Long story short, no help from the kid, I used my super power, that I thought was only good at killing roaches while I slept, to vanquish the bat, which I can do while awake. (I attempted to use the roach power by the light of day, but with no noticable result.)
After that, Halloween came and went in Africa with little to no excitement the day of. On a side/sad note, thinking back on all of my past Halloweens, it is hard to remember one that I did not spend in the walls of a Missouri Wal-Mart. I have spent my last 6 there. I realize this because the first thing I think of when I think of Halloween is the bucket/shopping cart full o' candy left for the door greeters to hand out to he unfortunate kids that are, like me, forced to spend their halloween in the wonderful world that is Wal-Mart. I zould spend my whole shift digging to the bottom looking for all the good candy and leaving all of the peanut butter flavored taffy for the kids. I gave my soul to Wal-Mart, and the least they can do is give all the good candy to me to fill my soul-less void and not waste it on the children. I dont know if I have ever gotten that sould back since I quit. If not, I am sure it is going to cost an arm and a leg to ship it to Africa.
My favorite thing about Matiacoali is the people. The adults are all very nice and understanding, and when the kids arent asking for candy they are pretty good to. There is a man in the market who speaks French and Morè, and it seems that he has taken it on as his personal mission to teach me Morè. At first I avoided him because he refuses to speak anything but Morè, and I dont know enough to say anything but that I dont speak it. This was really annoying, but I knew I couldnt avoid him for two years, so I started walking by him every now and then and speaking in the few Morè words that I knew, and after a week or so I could understand the conversation. It seems to actually be working, and now I look forward to talking to him. There are so many languages in my head though, that I often get confused and have to take a minute to think about it.
One of the biggest changes that I have seen in myself since beginning this is my food preferences. In the US vegetables were my sworn enemy. I didnt like them, and from what I heard from my allies, potato and corn, the werent all too pleased with me either. Since I have been here, I guess because my body is so deprived of bodily nutrients, I eat any and all vegetables. When I found out the major crop of Burkina was onions, I was horrified. Now, I cant get enough. It makes me question if all of those burgers at Booches in CoMo would have been better, if that is possible, if I had veered from my normal path of only ketchup and mustard.
I am out of time. I hoped to post pictures, but I will try to do that later.
Surprisingly, my favorite class to teach is English. There isnt really a book for the class, so at first I was really worried, but now it is awesome. I think this is due to the fact that I just so happen to be a fluent genius in the English language. I know all there is to know, unlike in other subjects when I am afraid there is some piece of information that I have forgotten. One of my students came to my house to ask if I had a book with the conjugation of all English verbs, and I happily responded that I did not, and that all of the knowledge was in my head. Outside of class, I am slowly introducing my own English slang to the kids that live in my neighborhood. My greetings with some of them consist of "Yo yo, what up!", and "What up G!". It is awesome. After two years I will have taught them to say all kinds of sweet stuff. It is fabeled that another volunteer, in an undisclosed location, taught kids in his village that curse words were English greetings. I dont plan to do anything like that, but it is funny.
SIDE NOTE: This French keyboard is meking me angry. Why cant keyboards be universal? It just took me forever to find the question mark! It is stupid!
I gave my first tests this week in both of my science classes and my one english class. On the upside, I only played review games in all of my classes, but on the immediate downward slope, I now have about 300 tests to grade. If I had been thinking about this number as I was writting the tests I might have made them a little bit easier for my sake so that the 300 tests wouldnt haunt me in my vivid larium dreams every night. My only hope is that my students in Mati do better on my tests than my students did during model school.
I joined to Peace Corps for many reasons. Contrary to popular belief, these reasons did not include not being able to fart with confidence, sustaining myself on rice and Hardee's ketchup packets alone, or even the daily fixing of a flat tire on my bike because apparently all of Burkina's vegetation has an armor of ever resistant thorns that litter the ground. One of the reasons that I did have, however, was to see if I could survive with out one of my best friends that we all know and love. His friends know him as Sam, but you might knoz him better as Mr. Electricity. I have survived thus far, but I do miss him. Looking around in village, people have found ways to survive without it. Instead of children zoning out in front of the television, they are thoroughly entertained with the rigorous activity of playing with for example, my trash... or really anyones trash for that matter. Whether it be a plastic bag, tin can, or piece of string, they will find a game to play, or a way to annoy me with it. For an hour straight, to my dismay, a kid played with my watch because if a button is held down it beeps once every ten seconds or so. This apparently was the coolest thing in Burkina since those whistles, because he was entertained beyond belief. I have however found a way to put these electrically deprived children to good use. I previously wrote of the fly problem that is plaguing Burkina, and that fact holds true for Maticoali. For a while, I toyed with the notion of finding a carnivorous plant like a venus fly trap that I could place around my house, but then another thought came to my mind. I had recently purchased a fly swatter in Ouaga, but the fly swatter, unlike the plant, required some sort of human intervention "effort" to produce the desired results, and I, being the lazy person that I am, saw this as its immediate failure. Then, as usual, my mind drifted to the topic of child labor, and an idea came to me. It oddly came in the form of some type of math equation, and looked something like this:
constantly present children + 100 cfa fly swatter = game * happy me
Now I know this sounds crazy, but I tried to balance this equation and solve for happy me, and it worked. It was like I was Tom Sawyer, and my fly swatter was my paint brush. I called a few of them into my house, showed them how much fun I was having, and the next thing I knew it was a hit. I probably have a kid once a day come over to play this game. This realization opens the door to numerous possibilities. Next thing on the agenda is turning doing the dishes and writting my lesson plans into a game. Soon, I will have even less to do, if that is possible. It will be excellent... or maybe I should rethink this plan. With absolutely nothing to do, I would go crazier than I already have.
Speaking of free time on my hands, it seems that Harry Potter has taken over my life, and he has brought all of his literary friends with him. To fill my television void, I have taken up the lost art of reading. Perhaps you have heard of this mysterious practice that was used as a form of entertainment before the existance of television. I know it is hard to believe that life even existed before television, but yes it is true. I have become obsessed, and I cant stop. I guess the first step is admitting I have a problem. To track my progress with this addiction, I have added a section to my blog of the books I have read. I am well past merely a social reader and am clearly addicted.
Back to the subject of child labor, a bat flew into my tiny hobbit house and a small child came to my rescue. The bat was flying around, and I, not being a hobbit, had to crawl on the ground so that it didnt fly into my face. I dont think I have ever been in such close proximity with a bat in my life, and this being the day before Halloween, I wasnt going to take any chances. I called a neighbor kid over, who brought along his trusty stick, and I hid in my mosquito net. I figure that if it is resistant to mosquitos, it must also do the same to bats, but I doubt if it protects against undead vampires. I will have to check the label next time. Long story short, no help from the kid, I used my super power, that I thought was only good at killing roaches while I slept, to vanquish the bat, which I can do while awake. (I attempted to use the roach power by the light of day, but with no noticable result.)
After that, Halloween came and went in Africa with little to no excitement the day of. On a side/sad note, thinking back on all of my past Halloweens, it is hard to remember one that I did not spend in the walls of a Missouri Wal-Mart. I have spent my last 6 there. I realize this because the first thing I think of when I think of Halloween is the bucket/shopping cart full o' candy left for the door greeters to hand out to he unfortunate kids that are, like me, forced to spend their halloween in the wonderful world that is Wal-Mart. I zould spend my whole shift digging to the bottom looking for all the good candy and leaving all of the peanut butter flavored taffy for the kids. I gave my soul to Wal-Mart, and the least they can do is give all the good candy to me to fill my soul-less void and not waste it on the children. I dont know if I have ever gotten that sould back since I quit. If not, I am sure it is going to cost an arm and a leg to ship it to Africa.
My favorite thing about Matiacoali is the people. The adults are all very nice and understanding, and when the kids arent asking for candy they are pretty good to. There is a man in the market who speaks French and Morè, and it seems that he has taken it on as his personal mission to teach me Morè. At first I avoided him because he refuses to speak anything but Morè, and I dont know enough to say anything but that I dont speak it. This was really annoying, but I knew I couldnt avoid him for two years, so I started walking by him every now and then and speaking in the few Morè words that I knew, and after a week or so I could understand the conversation. It seems to actually be working, and now I look forward to talking to him. There are so many languages in my head though, that I often get confused and have to take a minute to think about it.
One of the biggest changes that I have seen in myself since beginning this is my food preferences. In the US vegetables were my sworn enemy. I didnt like them, and from what I heard from my allies, potato and corn, the werent all too pleased with me either. Since I have been here, I guess because my body is so deprived of bodily nutrients, I eat any and all vegetables. When I found out the major crop of Burkina was onions, I was horrified. Now, I cant get enough. It makes me question if all of those burgers at Booches in CoMo would have been better, if that is possible, if I had veered from my normal path of only ketchup and mustard.
I am out of time. I hoped to post pictures, but I will try to do that later.
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