Let's Get Started

The end of training is upon us, and we couldn’t feel it more heavily than now. Model school has been a huge stress (though arguably successful), and as we begin our final week of teaching, there isn’t a soul here who doesn’t wake up each morning thinking, Can I PLEASE just get to my site and get this whole two-year-commitment thing started? I’ve escaped a few things in my move to Africa, but senioritis isn’t one of them.

Just last week, we had a session on cooking. They gave us a Burkina-specific Peace Corps guide, with loads of delicious recipes, American and otherwise, which we should be able to throw together with ingredients from our local markets. Presenting us with this information towards the end of training was—as I now realize—a very good idea. We are now enlightened souls—so sick of rice and couscous that some of us (okay, mainly I) can’t get out of bed for two hours on Sunday mornings, with the knowledge that we will, in a matter of days, be able to cook ourselves some damn pancakes and drown them in loads of syrup.

Eleven days until we bid goodbye to our host families, and to the barren-though-homely city of Ouahigouya which we’ve learned to appreciate, in a hometown-pride kind of way. After a brief stint and Swearing-In as volunteers in Ouagadougou, we will be escorted to our sites by Peace Corps vehicles with all the junk we brought from America, and all the relics we’ve acquired here thus far. It seems that each of us has an unspoken plan, while in Ouaga, to put ourselves into a debt of General-Motors proportions, as it will be our last chance to acquire those amenities and creature comforts which will permit us to survive as foreigners in a land entirely alien to our own.

Hopefully the Wonderful Wizard of Ouaga possesses the power to grant us all our wishes. Among my priorities are a solar panel (brain), a french press (courage), and a can opener (heart, for the tin man). With the panel, I should be able to charge my phone, possibly my computer, and if nothing else, a tiny light to grade papers by. With the french press, I should be able to continue my self-serving addictions. And with a can opener, I’ll be able to open cans. Duh.

The volunteer transit house in Ouaga has free internet. I’ll try to get some pictures posted when I’m there. Sorry for the wait! Internet time is pricey, pictures take a while to load, and I tend to let other volunteers take party shots…

I’ve updated the Want List. It should be in the column on your left. Don’t feel obliged. I’m a big boy.

-J