What?! I'm supposed to WORK here???

The last two weeks have stretched for miles. I've been in Ouaga with my fellow stagiares enjoying the wonders of pizza and flush toilets and cramming our brains for the coming school year. My French has improved a bit and I've learned the ins and outs of discipline in the Burkina school system, but I'm still nervous. But I think that's understandable. School starts October 3, I believe, but that's not a guarantee. I'll be teaching two math classes and one physical science class. It's about at higher middle school/lower high school level with 50-120 kids per class. I've got a couple secondary projects in mind (a library and a simple lab setup), but I'm nervous that writing lesson plans in French will take up all my time. It's so strange, I've been sitting on my ass doing nothing all summer and now I'm stepping to the edge of this abyss. At least it seems like that to me. I've never had so much responsibility in my life. And now I'll be carving out a place in 200 little brains. Kinda unnerving, but I have a great support system. My new boss is absolutely amazing. Her hard work is keeping me motivated to make her proud. And the fellow education volunteers (there's only 20 of us now in Burkina) are all incredible.

I'll be back in Ouaga next month to help celebrate the new swearing-in of the newest Burkina volunteers, so I imagine that's when you'll hear from me next.

Too much of a good thing?

Yup, still in Ouaga. My new boss is absolutely incredible and has arranged for my buds and me to have a 4 day French frenzy. So I got back into that mindset this morning, while trying to remember what subjunctive verbs are and how I will ever use them. My confidence in my French abilities is much like my confidence in all other areas of my life: unnecessarily low with amusing peaks thrown in to keep me happy and trudging ahead.

Ouaga's great to be in except for some reason all my cuts keep getting really infected. And if you know me, you have an idea of how many open wounds I can create for myself in a day. Why just yesterday I gashed my feet on a door. Don't ask me how, but it happened. So I'm starting to get antsy to get back to village because I'm sick of being covered in bandaids and also the school year is approaching and I find myself with no lesson plans.

My relationship with the 11 other members of my training class, or stage as they say in the Frenchy, has really solidified this week. These are definitely the people that will keep me sane here. We celebrated our 6 month anniversary with a sextuplet date at a nice pizza restaurant and a rousing game of "First Impression Spin-the-Bottle" where we admitted our immediate judgements of each other way back in Philly. We all dressed up in costume which was fun, but I really hope those pictures don't make it onto the internet (HINT HINT guys!).

Alright, well, the writing bug really isn't biting me too much today (unlike the mosquitos), so I'll call it a day for now. Ciao.

Hey, I'M impressed

Well, lookee there.... Kara rummaged around the HTML code and actually changed something for the better. So now my addresses are permenantly posted for all to see and admire and think... "Gee, that reminds me, I should send Kara a Howdy via snail mail..." Hope it works :0) I also changed it so that anyone can comment on my posts; you don't need to be a member. Sorry about that, what an unnecessary pain in the ol' keister.

Well, apparently the toughest part is through. Everyone here says the first six months are the hardest. I hope that's true. Not that it's been horrible here, but imagine yourself in a rural village with not much stimulation for the senses with no work for three months... Yeah, not easy. At least it wasn't for me. Americans' senses are overstimulated constantly and we're always busy, wishing for more time. So having a completely blank slate is really quite bizarre. But soon school will be starting and although I'm nervous as hell, I really want to start working.

My Ag Effort okra plants are going crazy. They're giving me enough "gumbos" (okra in French) to make an okralishess meal everyday! Of course, one would go insane on okra everyday, so I give my extras to the family I live with who..... eat okra everyday. (Hope you caught that.) I've also been enjoying the overabundance of corn and watermelon that have infiltrated my sleepy little town. I've honestly never seen so much watermelon in my life. Bourzanga must be the watermelon capital of the world. EVERY little shop or house or whatever has a table of slices for sale (5 cents each or you can get a whole melon for as little as 25 cents). So yeah, I've always had an aversion to the stuff but magically now it's the most wonderful thing ever.

In other news, I was able to get my party last night at a party for the group of volunteers ready to head back to the States. This group includes my two closest "neighbors" but luckily they're both being replaced. My iPod was in full effect as I showed off my latest music mix and I got to dance poolside. Good times...