We'll Always Have Ouagadougou

So here I am, in Casa-freakin-blanca. Whoa-ho. I've completely moved out of Burkina and will be in Morocco for the next week. And wow, I'm already a bit overwhelmed by how nice the developed world is.

Right now, we (me and 5 peace corps buddies) are staying with a friend of Yardley, Mo. And Mo is the most incredible hostess ever. Get this... she stocked her fridge especially for us, including a whopping TEN varieties of cheese. This may seem pretty cool to you, but to 6 PC kids who have just spent 2 years where the only cheese available is Laughing Cow, this is quite overwhelming. We're giddy even upon entering the kitchen.

Unsure of the week's plans, but I'm looking forward to some good times and good food. See y'all in America next week!

This is the end... my only friend... the end.

WHOOOOOAAAA!!!! Just a few more hours now.... The paperwork will be complete... And I'll be a free woman. Buh bye Burkina!

The Final Countdown!!!

** Cue the power ballad of same name by Europe **

Yes, kiddies, the time is near and it's true... Kara's coming home!! The big day is June 27, so mark your calandars. I'll be flying into Flint so get your beerguts and unemployment checks in gear! (Just kidding... kinda...)

Life's going crazy fast for me these days. My host family and I are kinda in a daze. I only have 3 weeks left living with them after 2 whole years and it's a bit surreal. School is also just a trip now as I have one test and one quiz on Monday and then THAT'S IT as far as grades are concerned. Wow. It's so exciting and yet so daunting all at once.

The hot season's at full blast these days ( it's literally 110 degrees in my house) so my village activities have mainly consisted in reading, teaching or chatting all while wallowing in a pool of my own sweat. But one good thing this year is the addition of a new cash crop in my village: tomatoes! Tomatoes are stupidly cheap due to new exporting to Ghana (to get canned then ironically sold back up north in BF), so about 20 cents buys a grocery bag full. Remember when I hated tomatoes? Kiss those days goodbye!! Just the other day I had an awesome American-style dinner of homemade Cream of Tomato soup (made with powdered milk and Bourzanga tomatoes) and grilled cheese (made with "village bread" and French processed cheese imported from Djibo). It was AWESOME!! Sigh, I love food.

I guess that's about it. Next time you hear from me, I'll have moved out of Bourzanga FOREVER. Whoa.

Oh, and seriously doods, I want to travel around the US of A when I get back and I'm looking for people to visit and couches to sleep on, so let me know.

Let me tell you about Joe...

No, not Joe (my dad) or Joe (my cousin) or even Joe (my old radio cohost). I'm talking about Joe the Camel. No, no... not Joe Camel (because smoking's baaaaaad), but instead Joe the camel with whom I recently spent some time. Let me explain:

Instead of basking at a tropical beach this spring break and me and some friends decided to hit some sand a little farther north: the great Sahel of Burkina Faso. We visited the cities of Dori and Gorom Gorom, where the roads are sand and the air is hot. But there's also interesting stuff there: diverse and "exotic" ethnicities, beautiful arts and crafts, yummy dates and... CAMELS! So what better way to see the north than by camel? I don't know either, so that's exactly what we did. We rode 12km by camel to a great big sand dune near a teeny little village, camped out then returned the next morning. Now you may be asking yourself, "Self, how long does it take one to go 12km by camel?" Good question! And the answer really depends on how lazy your particular camel may be. On the way in, Joe (my Camel whom I named) was a little worn out and stretched the journey to 2 1/2 hours. Now, I don't know how many of you have traveled by camel but that's a loooong time. My rump and back are still hurting. But the trip itself was definitely worth it. I had a great time. And hell, when else will I be able to wear my turban??

So now it's time to return to Bourzanga. My last (!!!) trimester begins this week and will end sometime in mid to late May. Can you believe it? Crazy. Things are really moving along. I'm even finalizing travel plans home. After some time in Ghana and Morocco, I should get back home on July 2 or 3, just in time for fireworks and a cook out. Yes! I'm also looking to travel around the country for a few months starting in August. Could I visit you?? If so, drop me a line at karatierney@gmail.com

FESPACO, you a-rock-o my world

Yay! Skipping school's fun! Weee! I'm in Ouaga enjoying the BF's turn in the world spotlight (our once-every-two-years turn) for the FESPACO film festival. The city's pretty crazy with tons of traffic, tourists, vendors and me! Of course it's still the BF, which means something completely logical must be missing: it's nearly impossible to find a schedule of the movies. I'm lucky because I'm a volunteer so I have friends with connections, but one helpless tourist asked me where she could find a schedule today. Tomorrow I'm going to a double header of Blood Diamonds and The Last King of Scotland. Looking forward to both.

Things have been going well in village. The Harmattan winds are here so it's incredibly windy and dusty. It got so bad last week that at one point in class I was YELLING with hands cupped at my kids trying to be heard over the tin roof making an incredible racket. I SO TOTALLY won that battle. Go me. Stick it to the stupid Sahara and its stupid winds. What I won't do for a little geometry.

Let's see what else? Oh yes, I have a baby in my courtyard temporarily as the younger sister of Mariam, my tantie, is visiting. So that basically means I can't leave my house without being reminded of how terrifying my white skin is. Emily, I can't wait to see Ella if not for the sole reason that she won't freak out at me.

Okey dokey. Well, I'll be enjoying the good times and ya'll enjoy a burrito or something. Only 4 months til I'm back so watch out!

Good times, great animals

Allo! Greetings from Kongoussi, the capital of DustLand, a region of AllergyLand. Yes, it's that time of year again in the BF. And oh boy, is the dust ever flying this year. It literally piles up daily in my house since I live on a somewhat well-used (a very relative term, I know) dirt road. And when I say "dust" I mean "dirt flying through the air" not that dustbunny stuff we have in the States. That's much cleaner.

Hope all at home had a nice holiday season. Mine was pretty darn good despite some craziness in Ouaga that changed up my plans a bit. I traveled around with some fellow volunteers: saw some cool rocks, some cool waterfalls, some rad hippoes (doing their hippo thing) and some superfabulousohmygodarewereallythisclosetothem elephants (doing their thing for 5 HOURS! -- okay, pervert, not like that, geeeez). Yeah, it was pretty sweet.

Back at home, I was pretty annoyed that I missed the big Bourzanga festival by ONE measly day. Yargh! We have a new chief this year so this was THE traditional festival to go to in the north. What really gets to me is that I was sick during last year's festival so I didn't really get to experience it much.

Ack! Gotta go, my time's up here at the CyberCafé.

This week's fun: Ouahigouya, fake penises and cookies

Happy December! The school year is chugging ahead steadily. I can't believe it's already grade calculatin' time, but alas, 'tis so. Luckily, I was able to use another volunteer's laptop to calculate my Math and English trimestrial grades (all 210 of them). I've just got one more test to give before break on Tueday. This weekend is a long one due to a national holiday on Monday. Woohoo! So I'm enjoying the ammenities of the big city here in Ouahigouya, along with the phenomenal cooking skills of fellow volunteer, Dr. David. (There's 3 volunteers based here right now, so I'm getting some good socializing in.)

In case you weren't aware, December 1st was World AIDS Day. And, like last year, my school took part in the "Leçon de Vie" (Life Lesson), a worldwide program where schools take an hour out of the normal school day and use it for a lesson about HIV/AIDS. My lesson went pretty well, despite being completely disruly. It was definitely worlds better than my lesson last year. I started with a "True or False" game trying to dispel myths about HIV/AIDS and people with the virus. Then I used the animal world as an analogie for how the HIV virus works, using students to play the parts of a baby elephant (the human body), adult elephants (the immune system) and lions (common diseases, sicknesses or infections). Thankfully, that part went really well because our town's prefect (high-up gov't official) observed my class at that time. Then, I took questions. One student asked how to use condoms, so using the condoms I'd brought with me, I did an impromtu condom demonstration. Wow, the kids sure were excited about that. In fact, when I started, I was stuck for a "penis" and one kid in the back (sometimes a troublemaker, in fact) jumped up and raced out the room. No more than thirty seconds later he came back in and produced my "penis": a large stick. Good work! By this time, I'd outlasted all the other classes, so I had my 105 kids in the classroom plus pratically the whole school looking in all the windows and the door, enthralled with the demonstration. Luckily, former health volunteer Katy taught me how to do a thorough condom demo, so it went really well.

I'm also attempting an English Club at my school, as I talked about last time. The first meeting had an overwhelming attendance but the second was quite underwhelming due to end of the trimester exams. We'll see how next week goes. For any of you teachers or parents out there that know of kids who would be interested in an African penpal, let me know!! My kids would love to practice their English with letters (and maybe someone could practice their French with us?).

Good work, Mom, getting those questions in. You see, making stove-top cookies is quite simple. One makes the batter as normal, but for baking, you just plop a nice heavy frying pan on a low flame. Then, depending on the size of the pan, one can place about 6 cookies on the pan at a time. Then take the normal time for baking, divide it in half (gasp! math!) and let it go for that long, flip the cookies like pancakes and give them the second half of baking on the other side. They turn out pretty much just like oven-baked cookies, but with two crunchy brown sides instead of one! I don't recommend it for you folks in AmericaLand as it is quite time consuming. My Ramadan festival batch took me ALL morning.

(Oh and hi right back to Teich!! It's been so long! Shoot me an email: karatierney@gmail.com or a regular letter, ya lazy bum.)