Swear-In Ceremony!

The big day. Finally here! After 9 weeks (and 11-12 weeks for a few) of intense training in language, sector-specific technical training, cross-culture, medical & safety and security, the newest group of Peace Corps Burkina Faso Volunteers swore in on August 27th at the new US Embassy in Ouaga. This was by far the biggest (and nicest!) Swear-In Ceremony we've had, particularly because it took place at the new US Embassy. You walk in and it's seriously like America. Bathrooms with motion-sensored soap dispensing machines, cold water fountains (had to teach a fellow Burkinabè colleague how to use it) and the like! Many dignitaries showed up, including Madame Chantal Compaoré, the First Lady of Burkina Faso. The drinks (wine!!) were a-pouring and the good times just kept coming.

I'll just keep this short and let the pictures speak for themselves...enjoy!

Some of the GEE Tech Team! Evan, Dame (GEE Tech Trainer from Mauritania, Kim, Diallo, Jessi and Emily). Good work, team!

Shannon (Peace Corps Burkina Faso Country Director), Madame Chantal Compaoré (First Lady of Burkina Faso) and Deborah (Chargé d'Affaires of the US Embassy -- Acting Ambassador). Madame Chantal's skin is lighter than mine! Insane!

Madame Ouattara and I. Love her! She's seriously like my aunt.

Sabrina! My GEE partner-in-crime since May. I loved working with her! Plus...West Coast!

The new GEE Volunteers with some language teachers and PCVFs. Holla!

SOUTHWEST Volunteers, whaat up! <3

My loves, Emily and Jessi. Really, I had such a good time working PST and got even closer to my fellow training groupmates.

Asian glow! But seriously, it's Shannon, our Country Director and I. Good work!

Homestretch (round II), tree planting & crocodiles.

Remember this a year ago? I was in the trainees' shoes, waiting for PST to end as quickly as possible so I could get the hell over to my site! It's funny how things never really change.

So yes. The homestretch. It's here and it's an atmosphere full of anxiety/sadness/happiness/etc. all combined into one big clump. Tech sessions are coming to a close, trainees' language levels in French and local language have improved dramatically and people are starting to realize that the next 2 years of their service are ahead of them.

For me, it's been both enjoyable and exhausting. Exhausting in that the preparation since May and the execution of it all these past few months (planning sessions, facilitating sessions, answering questions 24/7, being known as a constant resource, etc. etc. The list is really endless!) have been constant. Many times, I'd get frustrated but realize that I just have to go with the flow as this is a new experience for everyone (Trainees and PCVF/Ps). This training group, however, has been quite the exception. The first training group in Peace Corps Burkina Faso history where we've had all 4 sectors (Secondary Ed, Health, Small Enterprise Development and Girls' Education and Empowerment) all come at once. We've also moved to 3 different training sites in a matter of 9 weeks (Ouahigouya, Ouaga and Koudougou) but regardless, everyone's spirits have been up (for the most part) and they're all another addition to the PC/BF family.

At the end of the day though, I realize how much I truly enjoy doing this. Working PST has made me more appreciative of my life here in BF, the obstacles I've had to overcome and the successes that have kept me going. It's hard not to put yourself in their shoes and remember what you went through a year ago.

I also feel so proud of them! I've seen them since the beginning and have noticed some crazy growth these past 9 weeks. Seeing them conduct their club meetings, coordinate their youth camps, teach Life Skills...it's utterly amazing! And to think of the great work they'll do once they get situated at their sites.

Jessi, Emily and I. Love these women!

GEE Tech Team, Week 7. This was one of my favorite weeks because the trainees got to put their knowledge into practice -- final Girls' Club meetings, Youth Camps, teaching Life Skills and conducting their needs assessment meetings with the parent associations. Huzzah! By the way, our two GEE Tech Trainers/Coordinators are Awa and Diallo. They're so amazing!!

In the midst of all of this, International Youth Day in Burkina Faso was celebrated with a huge Tree Planting Extravaganza in Dori. Because there were so many people, the tree planting itself took less than 20 minutes! But it was a great event to meet other Burkinabè youth and other volunteers (Japanese, French, etc.) here in Burkina Faso. It was also great to develop an even better rapport with the Burkinabè government and it seems as if the Minister of Youth and Employment absolutely loves the Peace Corps. It's great!

Free shirts and hats...and ready to work!

Some of us Peace Corps Volunteers who could attend the Tree Planting. The woman in the middle of this picture is Dr. Claude, the Associate Peace Corps Director (APCD) for Health.

With a new friend, Frederic, planting some trees.

Working that daba! Note the Peace Corps logo on the back of the tee shirt.

This may looks disgusting but it made for a good photo. =)

In other news, the last weekend before Swear-In, our whole GEE team took a trip about 25 km to Sabou. There's a lake filled with sacred crocodiles but I felt as though they were accustomed to the massive amounts of tourists. It started off with one of the guys that worked there luring the crocodiles with a dead chicken at the end of a long piece of rope. Eventually, it would really the crocodiles in and...well...we all got to take pictures next to it!

Sacred crocodiles in Sabou. I'm touching its tail! Holy @%#$!

The whole experience itself was a little anticlimactic BUT I enjoyed it nonetheless and it's just another thing I can check off my list.

The trainees come for a visit...

Every year during PST, the new trainees either do a site visit or do something called 'demystification' (or 'demyst' for short). Demyst consists of a small group of trainees, accompanied with their language teacher, who visit a current Volunteer for a couple of days to see how life is like in Burkina Faso. It's a great way to get a better idea of how your life will be like for the next 2 years...also, it's a way to get away for a couple of days from the hecticness/craziness that is PST!


When they arrived on Friday in the afternoon, it was pouring rain. I mean, raining cats and dogs to the extreme! There were mini 'streams' all around my house and I was drenched as I biked to meet them on the main road. When they arrived I could tell they were completely exhausted because it was their first time on transport in Burkina. We ended up relaxing and snacking at my house. One of the trainees, Paula, used to teach Yoga around the world, so we did some Yoga at my school -- that hurts! I did Bikram Yoga with one of my best friends once a couple of years ago. That was intense but the Yoga I did in Burkina...for some reason, my body could feel it more. Anyway, I had the trainees get water at my pump for the first time. Absolutely hilarious! As nightfall hit, my neighbors came by and cooked the national dish of Burkina Faso -- tô -- with leaf sauce. Tô has the consistency of jello and grits & looks like mashed potatoes. Hard to explain but actually really good -- really, it depends on the sauce.

Getting water at my pump! Talk about a workout. Seriously!

Some of the trainees enjoying tô with leaf sauce. So good! You can see my neighbor, Madame Constance, to the left of the picture.

Saturday was the big day where we did a long walking tour of my site. We met all the authorities that were there (the mayor, the police, etc.) and I was able to show them centre-ville (downtown, but not in the American sense...don't get it twisted, haha), the market, etc. Before the trainees arrived, I talked to the Directors of my high school and primary school, asking if I could borrow the classroom keys so the trainees can observe a typical Burkinabe classroom and make their observations/comparisons. So we were able to do that as well. In the end, it was an absolutely tiring and busy day, however, I think they got a better idea of how their lives would be like for the next 2 years.

At the sign nearby my house. Getting ready for a day full of walking and getting to know my site.

At the end of the day on my porch with some of the neighborhood kids (including a couple from my Girls' Club!).

Sunday was the final day and I offered the opportunity to see Jon's site. Jon was up in Ouaga teaching English at a summer camp-type thing, but we have the keys to each other's house, so I thought it would be a good opportunity for the trainees to see more of a village (since my site is more of a small town). Jon's counterpart, Papa, is seriously the best -- super motivated and willing to go above and beyond his 'call of duty,' so to speak. I texted him the night before, asking if he'd be able to give us a little tour. We saw Jon's house, dropped by the church, saw the market/common meeting grounds area and also took a look at the lake. Coming back, it was more relaxed and Jillian (another GEE volunteer in my area) came by to speak with the trainees on her life here, the activities she's implemented at site and to answer any questions they had -- all under my neighbors' big, shady tree. And Rachid made them try traditional African tea (3 glasses, which each consecutive glass getting sweeter and sweeter)! For dinner, I invited my neighbors and Frederic, the French volunteer at my site, to eat some American and Mexican food...totally improvised. We had tuna pasta salad, grilled 'cheese' sandwiches, village tacos (thank God for taco seasoning from the US!) and cucumbers with vinegar and black pepper. Mmmmm!

This is at Jon's site which has a little lake. The trainees are with Papa, Jon's homologue.


Drinking dolo, local millet beer here in Burkina Faso.

The trainees trying African tea for the first time. That courtyard under the tree is where I probably spend most of my time (chez the Ouattaras). Rachid's laughing in the background!

Mixing tuna pasta salad. With no electricity and multiple ingredients, it apparently takes 3 people! This picture is deceiving because it was super dark.

Grace-Victoire, the baby daughter of Madame Constance. So cute!

I'm a hot, sweaty mess but look at how cute Grace-Victoire looks!

The next day was our long journey back to the new training site in Koudougou, the third largest town in Burkina Faso (after Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulassso but before Ouahigouya). It was my first time traveling to the western part of the country and so far, I'm liking it!

Overall, I will say that preparing for demyst was stressful. I only had a day or two to prepare, meaning telling everyone at my site that they'd be coming, cleaning my house like no other (I regularly sweep my house but this time around, I cleaned everything) and just running around like crazy. But in the end, it was all worth it and I had an amazing time with the trainees and their language teacher. We're even thinking of doing a little reunion once they become settled in their sites and are official Peace Corps Volunteers!

More importantly, demyst made me appreciate my site that much more. Now that I'm moving on to my second and final year here in Burkina Faso, I feel like my footing on the ground much more solid and that, my friends, is an amazing feeling (especially if you look at me from a year ago)!

PST is in full swing again!

It's been a year since I've been in Ouahigouya but damn, does it feel good to be back. There's something to be said about spending your first three months in a foreign country and calling it "home" -- and coming back after a year elsewhere, it feels like...well, it feels like home. Like going back to the US. I guess it's that sense of nostalgia that's tied to Ouahigouya that's made me feel so comfortable.

Anyway, PST (Pre-Service Training) for the new group of Trainees is finally here and I got here a week before their arrival (around the middle of June) to help prepare with our Technical Trainers, Diallo and Awa. They are absolutely amazing and it's bizarre being on the other side of the training realm. Hectic, exhausting but enjoyable all at the same time!

Before really getting in the full swing of things, Gwen, Marita, Ilana and I headed to my host family's village (Komsilga) to visit the host family!! I was so excited and anxious at the same time -- it's been a year since being there. Fortunately, Ilana was with us and her Moore is really good. Long story short, what I thought would be a quick "hello-bonjour" visit for no more than 30 minutes turned into a three-hour ordeal of greeting everyone. I almost forgot how long greetings were in the north of BF! Greeting the chef (village chief) and the rest of the village community was exhausting but something that I really, really miss, especially since the people in the south where I live are less keen to greet. When I went to visit my host family, it was just as I had left it, except my host grandfather was there. Man, talk about feeling like I was at home for a bit.

My host dad, Mamadou and I, next to the new mosque built at Komsilga, my old host village. My my, how things have changed! But my host dad is still the same -- laughing all the time!

Me with my host family's compound in the distance. Second home!

Fast-forward to June 23, I was lucky enough to go meet the new Trainees (Peace Corps Trainees = PCTs) at the airport in Ouaga. It was overwhelming seeing 57 Americans walk out of the airport and start their two years of Peace Corps service. Fielding all of their questions was quite the experience -- I forgot how many questions I asked as a PCT! We headed up to Ouahigouya, had a great welcome ceremony and started the nine-weeks of training. I don't even know where to begin in describing the hecticness of PST but what I do know is that I love it. In total, there are 79 PCTs here in Burkina Faso and it's the first time that all four sectors (Secondary Education, Girls' Education and Empowerment, Small Enterprise Development and Community Health) are coming together at the same time. Love being busy, meeting new people and getting PCTs acclimated to their new life. Sure, there were a few unfortunate glitches in our training but for the most part, things have been going well! The idea of the Peace Corps family is what keeps me (and everyone else) going.

Welcoming the new Trainees at the airport.

Marita, Jessi and I in our wonderfully awesome and decorative GEE cubicle!

Come July 4, the Peace Corps helped organized our celebration in Ouaga. Cake, cold sodas and beers, burgers, potato salad and chilling by the pool = the perfect July 4th celebration! I also came to the realization that this is my second time celebrating July 4th out of the US. Crazy!

Audrey and I chilling at the pool during the July 4th celebration. Second one for me outside the US!

I'm heading back to site after being gone for almost a month. I'll be having a few GEE PCTs come to my site next weekend for demystification. Demystification (or demyst, for short) is where PCTs visit a current PCVs' site and see how their life is like for a couple days. I'm a little nervous for that seeing as how I haven't been to site for a while due to PST, plus no one will be there since the school year's over and everyone either heads back to the big cities or visits their family in Cote d'Ivoire and elsewhere. Wish me luck!

Note: All pictures are taken courtesy of Gwen, the picture queen. Seriously, she takes pictures all the time and I love it.

A Moringa pepinière!

When I went back to site for a few days after TOT Workshop, I decided that I needed to make the most of it since I'd be gone for a few weeks for VAC and the start of PST. Talked to the teachers at my primary school for a bit about the end of the school year activities, weighed babies at the CSPS (village medical center) and decided to start a Moringa pepinière (nursery) since it's rainy season is about to begin and everyone's hitting the fields.

A few of the really dedicated girls in my CM1 Girls' Club helped me out with everything from beginning to end to make this Moringa pepinière a reality. My hope is that when I return to site in the beginning of July, I'll have a full-grown nursery that I can begin to plant at the school, in my courtyard and at the CSPS.

Planting Moringa is something that was emphasized as an excellent secondary project. Personally, I don't have much experience planting, except for when my little brother David and I were little and we helped our Dad plant things in our backyard (I'm talking 5 years old, so really, we didn't do much!). But what happens is that if done correctly, the Moringa tree can survive in pretty harsh conditions. The leaves (also if dried/used properly) have ridiculous amounts of vitamins and nutrients that can be added to any dish. A perfect way to combat malnutrition and help save the environment too. Read it up!

The girls collected the water sachets along the street in town. Littering is such a huge problem here in Burkina (I admit, I can be guilty of it, too) so it wasn't difficult to collect water sachets.

I showed the girls how to cut the appropriate holes into the water sachets so that water can exit in the bottom.

We then got a wheelbarrow and collected some dirt to place into the water sachets.

Hard work, yo! The cultivating tool they use is called the "daba."

Placing the dirt into the water sachets. Ideally, you should mix dirt with compost and manure...because time was of the essence, I just used really moist dirt.

We lined them up on my porch and poked our thumbs into each dirt-filled water sachet. You insert the seeds and voila! You're almost done.

Watering them initially is extremely important.

While I'm gone, one of my CM1 Girls' Club leaders (Kadidja) will be helping to water them everyday. She is without a doubt one of my favorite students! You'll be hearing more about her later, I'm sure. She'll definitely go far in life!

Jon and I constructed this net cover over the Moringa pepinière to protect it from hungry goats and sheep that will definitely munch on the plants once they start to sprout.

Special thanks to my good pal and closest PCV neighbor Jon for helping me out and taking pictures!! My New Year's Resolution to take more pictures is definitely working. We just need to take more pictures of our daily life!

Okay, so that's that. This might be the last blog in a while because I'm heading to Ouahigouya to start training for the new Volunteers. Exciting!

ALSO, IT'S OFFICIAL! I'VE LIVED HERE IN AFRICA FOR MORE THAN A YEAR!

A Peace Corps Timeline: From Applicant to Volunteer

I’ve been meaning to post this for a really long time (since training last year) and am finally getting to it. This is really intended for those interested in Peace Corps service and want to know how long the process is, things you need to complete, etc. I want to note that the time frame is different for every applicant – everything here is based on my personal experience. Cheers!

• April 25, 2008: Submitted online application and references to the Peace Corps
• May 10, 2008: Graduated from LMU
• May 15, 2008 (morning): Interview with Shane, Peace Corps recruiter at the Los Angeles Regional Office
• May 15, 2008 (afternoon): Received a call that I was nominated to a French-speaking post in sub-Saharan Africa, expected departure date is June 2009 and the field is Youth Empowerment/Community Development
• Note: nominations can be done this quickly or can take months. It really depends on the recruiter, the skills of the applicant and the needs of Peace Corps posts around the world.
• May 16, 2008: Receive Medical Kit in the mail
• June-August 2008: Traveled with family in the Caribbean and the Philippines for several weeks**
• September 5, 2008: Mailed completed Medical Kit to the Peace Corps Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
• Note: very long and detailed process. It required me to go to the doctor’s office about a dozen times!
• November 7, 2008: Medically and legally cleared for Peace Corps service
• December 15, 2008: Sent in a Skills Set Addendum and official college transcript to the Peace Corps Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
• January 5, 2009: Checked my status online – am officially invited to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer!
• January 10, 2009: Received the huge invitation packet and assignment description in the mail from the Peace Corps – sent to Burkina Faso as a Girls’ Education and Empowerment (GEE) volunteer, slated to leave on June 8, 2009!
• January 15, 2009: Called the Peace Corps Headquarters in Washington, D.C. to officially confirm and accept my invitation
• February 10, 2009: E-mailed my Aspiration Statement and Résumé to the Peace Corps Burkina Faso staff
• May 2009: Dentally cleared for Peace Corps service
• June 8, 2009: Fly from San Francisco to Philadelphia for Staging
• June 9-10, 2009: Staging with the 31 other Peace Corps Burkina Faso trainees in Philadelphia
• June 11, 2009: Fly from Philadelphia to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (stopovers in Paris, France and Niamey, Niger [had to stay an extra night in Niamey due to plane problems during refueling])
• June 12, 2009-August 24, 2009: Pre-Service Training (PST) in Ouahigouya, Burkina Faso
• August 25, 2009: Swear-In Ceremony as official Peace Corps Volunteers at the US Ambassador to Burkina Faso’s residence, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
• August 26, 2009-August 2011: Two years of Peace Corps service as a Girls’ Education and Empowerment (GEE) volunteer in Burkina Faso

The Before and After Training Pictures of Peace Corps Burkina Faso, SE/GEE Training Group 2009.

I thought it’d be fun to put a before picture of us during June staging at our hotel in Philadelphia and our after picture of us during the August Swearing-In Ceremony at the U.S. Ambassador’s residence in August. Note that there are a couple of us missing in these photos…but we started as 32 trainees and came out strong as 32 Peace Corps Volunteers!

THE 'BEFORE' PICTURE

June 9, 2009

Staging Event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Peace Corps Burkina Faso Trainees 2009-2011

THE 'AFTER' PICTURE

August 25, 2009

Swearing-In Ceremony at the US Ambassador's Residence, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Peace Corps Burkina Faso Volunteers 2009-2011

The next group pictures? Mid-Service Conference (MSC) in a year and after two years, our Close of Service (COS) group picture! Let's DO this!

"Congratulations, you are officially Peace Corps Volunteers!"

Who would’ve thought this day would finally come?! And so soon! We arrived in Ouaga this past Sunday and are now staying in a hotel with air conditioning, a toilet and a shower! Ah yes, the simple luxuries of life. Our last few days of training consisted of evaluations, final medical and technical training sessions, and taking our final Language Proficiency Interview/Exam (PS: I moved up a level to Advanced Low in French! Granted, it’s all relative but hey, it’s [at the very least] an ego-booster!).

In the days leading up to Ouaga, I had 3 things I had to do: get Chinese food (wonton soup, especially), shop at Marina Market, and go out for drinks (hard liquor, folks – none of this beer stuff, haha!). Almost immediately after arriving, half of our training group went out for Chinese food. Devin, Colette and I tried the other Chinese restaurant the last time we were in Ouaga but heard the one in centre-ville (downtown) was better. All told, I had wonton soup and lemon chicken…and I was pretty much on cloud nine until we all decided to get ice-cream at this really nice restaurant. At this same restaurant for the next couple of days, I got a legit cheeseburger with fries, a chocolate banana split and a shrimp scampi-like pizza (CPK, anyone?). Holy crap – amazing!!

Now the second thing on my checklist was going to Marina Market. These are only found in Ouaga and Bobo (the 2 biggest cities in BF) and it’s literally like a slice of America. They’re like your typical grocery stores back in the US but in a country like BF, they seem completely out of place. I literally stocked up on everything I could find once we received our Settling-In Allowance – toilet paper, cereal, canned fruits and vegetables, corned beef, spices, canned tuna, etc. etc. They even had Vietnamese pho soup mixes! Basically anything I can’t get at site, I got it at Marina Market. Of course, the price of everything there was ridiculously overpriced (probably tantamount to US prices) so while I went ‘crazy,’ I still had to budget a little. I bet everyone thought us Americans were insane for buying everything in excess.

The day of Swearing-In Ceremony, all of us trainees were scheduled to have a tour of the US Embassy in Ouaga. It reminded me a lot of the US Embassy in the Philippines when we were stuck in the Philippines and had to get David’s passport renewed. My absolute favorite part was when we met the Chargé d’Affaires (2nd in charge after the Ambassador) and he started talking to us about a career with the Department of State/the Foreign Service – the ultra-competitive Foreign Service Exam, changing posts/countries every few years, 5 career tracks to choose from (political, consular, economic, etc.), meet and work with many different people, and represent the US in diplomacy. Basically, a really lucrative career that I thought about following a long time ago and now am really considering it, especially after the Peace Corps and grad school! So send me those Foreign Service Exam prep books and copies of ‘The Economist’ – I got to get studying these next 2 years, haha! He also talked a lot about International Development and USAID, and that got me thinking more about careers in the international/global realm. And with the UN, too! Endless, I tell you…

…but back to the situation at-hand, Swearing-In Ceremony was later that evening at the US Ambassador’s Residence. Such a beautiful event – all of us were dressed so nice, most of us wearing traditional African/Burkinabè attire that we had custom-made at the tailor. Burkinabè government officials/ministers, US Embassy dignitaries, Peace Corps staff, current volunteers, and the media were all there. Some of us gave thank you speeches in local languages and in French, and we were made to do an official oath as representatives of the US – and to make us official Peace Corps Volunteers! And we are the 2nd consecutive group of BF trainees to enter as 32 and swear-in as 32 official PC volunteers! There was wine, plates of hors d’oeuvres, cake, beer on tap, and lots of photos taken!

What I call the 'Original Three.' Story goes like this: When I got my invitation to serve in the Peace Corps/Burkina Faso in January 2009, I posted it on my blog. PeaceCorpsJournals.com found my blog and added it to their database. A few days after that, I received 2 Facebook friend requests: from Molly and Chris. From that point on until Staging in June, we chatted with each other on FB, etc. Great way to prep for leaving!

Emily and I. Bringing the traditional Mikey peace sign to Burkina Faso/Africa!

Steph and I in our traditional Burkinabe complets/outfits. This is the only one I could find where it shows my whole outfit...if you look at the bottom of the picture, I'm wearing these black, fake-leather sandals I found at the market. My actual outfit is called a 'boubou' which is traditional Burkinabè ensemble for men. It's usually much longer and looser but I asked that it be a little slimmer and shorter since I'm so thin!

Ahh yes...Colette, Devin and I with Zach, a PCVF (PCV that helps with training). I love us! (What's new, right?)

After the ceremony, a lot of us chilled at the hotel pool, and then headed to get some food in downtown Ouaga. I kid you not, there were at least 50-80 PC volunteers there – the longest table imaginable. And a few of us even went dancing!

I’ll probably say this time and again, but it’s completely true when they say the days seem like forever but the weeks and months fly by. It’s amazing to think we started as 32 people from all over the US, extremely different in personality and schooling/careers and now we’re at this point. Who would’ve thought some of us would get so close as friends; I can only imagine how these next 2 years (and beyond) will play out…

Farewell to the village life.

Leaving a family that opened their doors to you and introduced you to their culture for 3 months is no easy task. I recently had to say farewell to my host family in village, meaning training is really coming to an end. Last Sunday, Kait (volunteer who stayed with my host family before me) came over and I tried to cook an ‘American’ meal with limited resources. So pasta it was with tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, onions and garlic. I think I slowly changed my host father’s conception of who cooks in the kitchen since he saw that I was slicing the tomatoes and boiling the noodles in the kitchen (with Kait’s help, of course!)…a man doing the work that traditional Burkinabè society dictates as a female task! In all, the meal was a way of saying thanks, and since sharing a meal with your loved ones is such a universal concept, I thought it was fitting. What I thought was interesting was that after the meal was done cooking, Kait ate with my host mom and I ate with my host dad…still divided by gender since in many traditional families, the two do not eat together.

On Wednesday, we had our village closing ceremony and all our host families, the village chief, and others attended. All 4 of us in my village expressed our deep gratitude to our village for hosting us, but in particular, our host families for being our home base and rock during training. No matter how intense training got, I knew I’d be coming home to a family – my second family here in Burkina Faso.

All 4 of us with our LCF (Language and Cultural Facilitator), Saliou, after our Closing-In Ceremony.

After when we returned to my family’s compound, I gave them some gifts: a Barack Obama tee for my host dad, a midnight blue-colored veil for my host mom, a Burkina soccer jersey for my host brother and a small bag of American candy for one of my host father’s Koran students who always helps me out.

It was really bittersweet but I know I’ll visit them at least once or twice before I end my 2 years of service here in Burkina Faso. C’est la vie!

My host dad, Mahmoudou and I during my last days in village. Gonna miss this guy!

Finally putting training to practice!

Earlier this week, all of us GEE volunteers had to do our Life Skills presentations at Model School. Leslie and I did our presentation on Gender Roles and their correlation to your sex (male/female) and how those gender roles vary by community/culture/society. We introduced ourselves and did a little ice-breaker, asking them to give us differences between the Burkinabè and Americans. Then we moved on to our activity...on the board, you divide it into three parts: masculin (male) on one side and féminin (female) on the other side with a space in the middle.

The part of the Life Skills activity where the students run to the board and put in their initial thoughts of a gender role they receive on a piece of paper.

Each student received a gender role or type of job (cleaning the house, taking care of the kids, power, beauty, doctor, tailor, etc.) that was face down. Once we said go, they had to flip over their gender role card, run to the board immediately and place the gender role under the column they felt best fit their gender role. By the end of the activity, you have a board filled with various gender roles in different categories and all the students were having some crazy debating.

You do the activity a second time but the instructions are a little different...you give each student a gender role again, face-up and ask them to think before going up to the board. They have to ask themselves: "Can a man, a woman or both physically do the gender role written on my card?"

The second time around was really interesting because everyone placed all of the gender roles in the middle category, meaning they applied to both male & female. On the féminin side was "pregnancy" and on the masculin side was "constructing/building a house." This is where it almost turned into a mini-riot because some students were arguing that women can build houses; it's just that here in BF, women normally do not while others argued that women don't have the power to physically build houses, nor have the money to fund them.

The whole point of this was to emphasize that gender roles are dictated by what the culture/society/community says...an example being a Burkinabè girl and an American girl. While they both share the same sex, their gender roles differ due to where they grew up. Such a powerful and interactive activity that's getting me more excited for some of the things I want to do while at site…and got me thinking about future careers after the Peace Corps (teaching /education policy, anyone?)!

A pretty blurry picture of me teaching Life Skills. So much fun but definitely a lot of work! I have even more respect (if that's ever possible) for teachers in the U.S. and abroad.