The Gourmet Burkina

YAY!! The gods smiled and me and said "Kara, you may now cook." Yep, I gots me a shiny new gas stove and have been cooking up a storm. Okra, eggplant, spaghetti... Life is good once again. So yeah, I've been in a much sunnier disposition lately with my stomach full and my body hard at work. Yep, I've been doing a bit of farming with my host family. Everyone that passes by our field and sees me at work in the field is completely amazed. It's hard work but it feels good. Feels just like being back in the garden at Ag Effort. Except this time I'm farming millet with a tool not quite like a hoe. My family's field is 3k from the house and I have to cross the lake to get there, so even getting to the field sometimes feels like an accomplishment sometimes.

I've been spending my days stretching, reading (a ton!), chatting it up with the school director's wife and little bro, cooking, birdwatching, practicing my Irish dancing and knitting. It's not bad. Feels a lot like that month I spent in Davis when I had no work or school minus all the alcohol.

Right now I am in my regional capital of Kongoussi and having a marvelous time. I just ordered furniture for my house so that's good too. Oh and heres my new address for letters:

Kara Tierney,PCV
s/c CEG de Bourzanga
BP 270 Bam
Burkina Faso

Hope to hear from you!

And the trainee grew to become a real volunteer...

Well, I am officially now a PeaceCorps volunteer!!!! I swore in on Friday and it really was quite an event. Nearly everyone had special clothes made for the ceremony, which was held at the Abassador's house. That night we had a huge party on the roof of the Peace Corps Bureau building. It was nice and breezy all night with lightning in the distance all around. At times it kinda felt like a music video. I hadn't gotten my dance on to good ol' American tunes in awhile, and well, if there's one thing Kara likes to do, it's get her dance on. It was quite a good time and I discovered that Sambas are excellent dancing shoes.

Right now I'm ending out my week in Ouaga being entirely too casual on how I'm going to fill my empty empty house in Bourzanga. I picked up some bare essentials and I leave for my village early tomorrow and then I start my "work". By work I mean sitting on my ass for the next 3 months trying to figure out how to live in a Burkinabé village with no other Americans around. It's weird to think that I won't see my fellow new volunteers for so long. We're a crew. They're like my family. And of course, being in Bourzanga means no telephone/email unless I travel 40km to Kongoussi. Hopefully I'll be able to do that occasionally.

As I sit on this edge of an unknown abyss, I am afflicted with a very Kara thing. I have no idea what to write. There are so many things here that I wish I could communicate, but it just doesn't seem to come out. Life here is so drastically different. We watched a movie today and galked over the gratuitous images of knees. I can't even imagine my life in the States sometimes. And I have no idea what my life in Burkina will be. It's really an awkward and weird place to be mentally, but I'm optimistic things will come together once I get settled.

(On an amusing note, I am typing this with Eminem playing in the backround. Ah Michigan, you never leave me.) Which reminds me, I schooled some folks in Euchre last night. Felt good and it brought back the ambiance of all those evenings when I was young of yelling at my parents to quiet down in the next room because I couldn' t hear my movie over their dumb Euchre game.

Well, keep it real. Send me a letter (and pictures) if you%