Oh god i'm broke! You'd think that eating benga every day (about 2 dollars for one weeks worth) and biking to tougan to avoid bus fair would afford me a sense of economic security... but allas! I'm quite the spender. It really comes at the expense of two things: First if I feel like buying something will help be study/be a more effective teacher I seem powerless to resist it. For instance I spent 6000 francs today on notebooks (about 12 bucks worth) and gave my school director cash to pick up another set of biology books while he is in Ouaga (just for comparison with the one I inherited from babet). I also bought a battery that I hooked up to one of babets old lights to enable me to enjoy the western comfort of a different sleep schedule than the sun. The second of course is partying. This month of September is a chance for all peace corps teachers to just spend time integrating into the community and not necessarily be bogged down in lesson planning and test grading. So to that end, I make an effort to go out every night with my burkiabé friends. It's pretty cool because people usually don't let me pay for much as I am the guest, but due to my modest salary and to me kinda over furnishing my house I'm still in the red.
One awkward thing is that in the course of my leisure with my friends I very frequently run into my students (or future students as I have yet to teach them anything). The thing is one of the points that was hammered into us at stage was that we need to be adult and super professional around our students at all times to maintain sense of respect, in and out of class. So when one of your students happens to be the gal that is serving you booze, it becomes quite the tricky proposition. Not to mention that there is no real way of telling a student from a non student based on age as I might have students as old as 25. I always dress professionally and never make an ass out of myself, but I would prefer to know if a student was listening to me talk so I could use more proper french and not the hurried, error prone conversational stuff I throw around with my friends.
I'm still trying to design a sustainable work out routine here. I really like the bike rides in for internet, they are quite satisfying. I've also been in talks with a local metal worker that said he could build me (upon my request) a set of gymnastic rings that I could use to fight the losing battle against losing every scrap of muscle from my body. Working out is very meditative for me so I hope to build a satisfying routine.
Well i guess that's all. I'm not sure if anyone reads this but if you do comments are always loved. I really like to know what's up in MPLS.
till next time-

Working through september

Everything in the Big L continues to go smoothly as I continue my quest to gain a passable understanding of the French language and settle into my new home. I'm really diggin the chance to have so much independent study time on my hands. Even after the substantial portion of my day devoted to gathering water, saluting the neighbors and other burkinabé essentials I still have gobs of time to read and otherwise prepare myself. There is a kind of lurking dread in the air in anticipation of the comming school year- I really want to give my kids a good education - more than that I want to give them an inovative and orignial look at biology that they can't get from a text book. If i'm struggling with language I won't be as flexible with delivering my content. I've also been hanging out with my burkinabé mates as much as possible just to acquire more rapidity and confidence in my daily language- I want to be able to engage my class, not just unload a lecture on them, and it seems like being able to maintain a personal conversation is a nessisary precursor to that. I would like to say my days progress like a rocky montage except in lieu of beef-punching sequences you have pouring over grammer books and French/julakan dialogue.
I've been rolling around with my friend Zackaria the most who was one of Babets really good friends. He's super patient and generally pretty cool. His 30th birthday is today so tomorrow he's coming over to my place for some fried bannana cake and american coffee (not to be confused with the dreaded crystalized nescafé they drink here).
In Tougan today I've met up with my two closest neighbors, both teacher like me but Math instead of SVT. They're both pretty rad and it's not a chore to hang out with them in the least. Today i'm biking both to and from tougan making in sum a solid 84K. My body may have completly devoured itself but I will not surrender it to a sedintary existance until im under the earth.
Eating is still going quite well, I've taking to doing the whole fusion act with west african meets itallian. I'm fond of prepping rosa sauces and pesto for my benga.
Not to mention that pasteries are still my strenght although i've replaced the oven for the deep frier as calories usurp all other demands here.
I get the sense that half the words in these blog posts are spelled like their french homologues and for that im sorry.

Big L at Last!

So after 3 months of stage and the headache of Ouaga I am no officially at site. More appropriatly I'm writting this from Tougan, the local capital of my village because it will be a cold day in hell when the Big L (what I affectionatly call my home of 1000 people) gets internet. I must say again it's just wonderful here. My home is quite the palace by Burkinabé standards. Babet had the whole thing worked on in anticipation of my arrival- which was extreamly selfless on her part as she was on her way out of the country at they time. The whole house is cemented and has a wonderfully constructed hanger under which I can enjoy the cool breeze free from the opressive west african sun. I've also brought my coustom table and chair and a lit pico (basically a cot) which was constructed by a handicapped association in Ouahigouya. These pieces of furniture augment the already substantially fournished home that I inherited. One of the custom piece of furniture that Babet had constructed for here was a wonderful book shelf which i've already begun to fill with pilfered books from the Peace Corps and US Embasy libraries.

I've begun just doing the meet and greet thing with the neighbors. Everbody is extreamly nice here. The only downside is prolonged chats en route are obligatory. There can be no salutation from a distance, I always have to hop off my back shake hands and go through lengthy exchanges in Jula or Francais. Oh a little anectdote about Burkinabé salutations. The initial moments of any engagement are highly ritualized here. For instance there is an initial exchange back and forth between party A and party B. An english equivilent might look something like this:
A: hello how are you?
B: Hello! I am fine thank you. And you?
A:I am fine as well. Beautiful day isn't it?
B:Yes it is. I hope you have a good day.
A: I wish the same to you, Goodbye.
B: Goodbye.

Ok so maybe a little a little dramatic but there are equivalent conversations in Jula except they never vary. In fact these initial exchanges are so habitualized here that they be quite hilarious when one party (for example me, the nassara) doesn't really get how they go. In fact the knoledgable party will keep going on the same conversation path even if the other person doesn't really know what is going on. For instance, if the above conversation was a Jula chat and person B was a cracker like myself the conversation might go something like this:

A: hello how are you?
B: Hello! (oh shit what do I say next?) I am fi...
A:I am fine as well. Beautiful day isn't it?
B:Yes! The day wishes...
A: I wish the same to you, Goodbye.
B: ...

And at each point where it was my turn to contribute something the opposing party would wait 1-3 seconds and then continue with the next step in the conversation regardless of whether or not I had fufilled my role. At the end of the exchange, that's when the real discourse begins but these cultural exchanges are nessisary and must precede any other conversation. They sometimes don't even notice when iv'e jumped ship on a conversation path and will continue despite that until it's finished. The Burkinabé of course find this endlessly funny and I do too. The plus side to this is it gives me only a few opening dialogues to master and after that I can run away before the real conversation begins thus creating the illusion of fluency.

But for the most part the friends i've made at my site are all french speakers. One of the guys in Lanfiera is the owner of a fish grill (I may have discussed the benifits of being close to a barrage before) and goes by the name of Zachaaria. He took me the other day to go check out the barage (aka man made lake) and to see where he get's his fish from. The Big L is in general a lot greener than burkina in general and the closer you get to the barage the greener it gets. As we approached the lake the terrain began to resemble a mix between american heartland and east asia rice patty. A twisting path led Zachaaria and I through a corn fields that would rival southern illinois before dumping us into an marsh like rice patty with oldgrowth tree scattered amoung it. It truely was an experience after the sahelian city of Ouahigouya.

This was a pretty rushed blog post but so it goes. Hope to have more luck next time!