Technology!

Can you believe it? Apparently hell has frozen over because Kara is now the proud owner of a cell phone. Yup, and it only took two weeks of little amoebas and bacterium partying in my intestines while my meds sat waiting for me to convince me that maybe being able to get ahold of me in village is a good idea. Not that I can always get phone reception. I have to climb a hill in town and cross my fingers and pray to the cellulaire gods and check (it's available about 1 out of every 3 or 4 days). But whatever, I'm already a fan of text messaging, though I'm as slow at it as a grandma.

Christmas was good, though each year after moving out of my parents' house I have progressively given it less and less meaning. But I made some tasty traditional Christmas guacamole and hung out with some other volunteers as well as various others in Bobo, the nation's second-largest city. New Year's shall be spent in the great Sahelian city of Djibo with other fellow northerners. Looking forward to it.

Can't think of much else to say. Have a great New Year's everyone!

It's that special time of the year

Woohoo! Winter vacation. Two weeks with no school and no definite plans. I finished up my time at school with 4 tests last week. That means I graded almost 200 tests in 2 days and I have 75 more waiting for me when I got back. Fun fun.

I had originally planned on going to Ghana for break, but that kinda fell through and so now I have a void of two weeks that I'm having fun filling up. I'm just taking things one day at a time to see where I end up. The past couple days I detoured to Ouahiguoya with my neighbor Chris to visit Giorgio, the volunteer there. We had some good times that included a LOT of good food and some Simpsons and Sealab viewings, as well as breaking in a new super cheap-o Burkinabe blender. It sounds like I'll be heading to Bobo tomorrow and from there I'm not sure, but I know good times will be had.

In other news, I'm glad to hear the good ol' MSU men's basketball team is kickin' some ass this year. Can't believe I have to miss THREE tourneys while here. (Insert pitiful violin music.) I sincerely think THAT has been my largest sacrifice in coming here. Hope you all enjoy the games. Eat some barfood for me.... GO STATE!!

A Discussion of the Downs Found in the Middle of some Ups

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. It actually didn't feel as weird as I thought it would to not celebrate. Although I did have a dinner of Sweet Potato soup and a pumpkin cookie (thanks Tessa!) which are traditional fare... kind of. My Thanksgiving week was quite eventful as the students at my school decided to strike (yep, the STUDENTS). It was definitely not a good experience and one of the low points of my service and I'd rather not relive it, if you don't mind. But the short of it being that I was thankful beyond words to be back to work on Thanksgiving Day.

This past week, my school celebrated World AIDS Day by not having classes in the morning and instead having classes solely about AIDS. Sounds like a good idea, right? Well I think it was on the whole, but it left a bittersweet taste in my mouth. The NGO helping to organize the event paid the teachers (including me) to participate, to which the teachers complained of not getting paid enough. Of course, it surprised me that we were getting money instead of a comprehensive training which of course was my big suggestion for next year. My fellow teachers seemed to have done a good job with their classes with limited resources, but once again my French crashed and burned as I struggled with AIDS-related vocabulary. My kids seemed to enjoy the skits I prepared for them, but I was not fully satisfied with their knowledge base at the end of class. Oh, well... I did my best.

As you can see from the title of my blog entry, I am deep into reading "Tom Jones" by Henry Fielding. It always amuses me how my writing style can change to immitate the books that I read. Anyhoo, it's a good read and I recommend it to anyone who has the patience to read a big ol' book like that.