Saturday, July 4, 2009

Happy Birthday, America (all the way from Africa)!

To whoever thought a little July 4th fun couldn’t be brought to Burkina Faso was dead wrong!

Us GEE/village folk biked to Ouahigouya for the weekend to celebrate with the other SE people. We had two straight blocks of language class first…I think I mentioned this in my last blog entry, but I’ve switched to French temporarily with Marita (until we find out our site placement). In any case, I’m having so much fun in language class because: 1) I’m really improving my conversational French; 2) Saliou (our Language and Culture Facilitator [LCF]) is so hilarious; and 3) Marita and I laugh about everything and you all know how much I love to laugh!

Anyway, later that night, we all celebrated July 4th at the training center. Lots of delicious American(-style) food and drink to go around – burgers (mini baguettes with beef, lettuce, ketchup), fries, brochettes, pasta salad, mango and banana salad, and beer (Brakina, the national beer of Burkina Faso which is actually a play on words -- Brasserie [brewery] + Burkina). Lots of music and then we got to the games. Apparently we have some really talented people in our training group, and one volunteer can draw like no other. So we did “pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey” type games like “Pin the Peace Corps heart on Obama.”


Peace Corps Burkina Faso 2009 trainees showing some love to our President!

Word on the street is that Obama is coming to Ghana next week (just below Burkina Faso!) so if any of his staffers see this, tell Obama to swing on over to Ouahigouya and visit his Peace Corps trainees up here!!

We also had a lot of music playing and of course, we all ended up dancing! When Coleman put on The Roots and that one old song by Biz Markie…”Just A Friend”…Coleman, Devin, Marita, and I broke it down on the dance floor. So. Much. Fun. Despite the unusually humid night, it was such a blast and a definite break from training. Happy Birthday, America…all the way from Africa!

2 comments:

cecilia said...

hi son, did obama stop by to say "hi" to you after his visit to ghana? :)

your celebration of the 4th was more fun than just watching the fireworks. that was nice of the peace corps to celebrate the 4th with their trainees. first time too for all of you and away from your hometown.

lolo, grandma, benji and i watched the fireworks at tito vic's house. the dogs were scared to death at the noise. gumby threw up. benji wanted to run away.

Anonymous said...

Hello. And Bye.