Peaks, domes, waterfalls and hippos. Banfora is surely the place to go!

And continuing…

So when Pam pulled up in a sweet almost new looking Rav4 SUV, and I knew it would be at the least, a comfortable trip. We left following the embassy driver through the maze of streets that is Ouagadougou. We passed the peage and the open road stretched out before us. We drove for over 2 hours before getting to Koudougou. It is normally an hour and a half drive, but Pam hasn’t driven much in Burkina outside of Ouaga and so we progress at a slightly slower speed than what the Embassy driver normally goes at. When we get to Koudougou we first have to stop at the chamber of commerce. Pam has to go in and meet with some people so Chelsea, her daughter who is in 6th grade, and I wait outside for her.

Note I sat up front for the whole trip. I asked Chelsea where she wanted to sit and she said she preferred the back. That was fine with me. I had some very nice conversations with Pam and the hours seemed to go by rather quickly. However, I was pretty tired from my lack of sleep the night before and would have liked at least a short nap. But, hey, who really needs to sleep anyway… We finally arrive at the meeting center and crowd is assembling inside. We wait about another half hour and then a procession of people, including Pam, enter and sit at the very nice half moon shaped table. Very official looking. Everyone has to acknowledge the special guests and give some sort of opening speech. When this finishes they all file out. I sit there thinking, was that it? It kinda seemed like a meeting, but it was surprisingly short. But oh no no. That was just the opening and the important people had just stepped outside to get their photo taken. Myself being an aspiring photographer I stepped outside as well and snapped some photos. Then the real meeting started. Several people gave PowerPoint presentations which were all pretty succinct and well put together. They should have been darn it, it was US State Department sponsoring it… After the powerpoints they have a question and answer session. The funny thing about Q and A in Africa is sometimes people stand up and talk for literally 15 minutes as the “question” but by the end you are left thinking and what was the question again? The content of the meeting was interesting, informing people how to export goods to the US. The thing that kept me awake though was that I decided I would be the official unofficial photographer. So I walked around and took pictures while people were talking, ect. I got some nice shots and it will be nice to give them to Pam.

The meeting ended about 12:45ish. We didn’t leave the center until 1:15 and from there we weren’t headed to Bobo yet, instead we were going to get lunch with the group. I can’t complain though. I was pretty hungry and I knew the food will be free… So we go and have lunch. I get to talk in French which is fun and rewarding, and the food is, well, African food, well prepared but lacking variety. Lunch wrapped up quicker than I thought possible and we were on the road to Bobo by 2:30. This sounds good except that Koudougou isn’t exactly on the road to Bobo. There is a shortcut, but we decided to stick to the paved roads which meant back tracking 30 minutes to get to the fork in the road. Up until this point we were still following the Embassy driver, but at the fork we split off. Then we were really on our own. We have just under 300km to go, but it is still a bit worrisome. We reached the halfway point at 4:15ish, with 178km to go I wonder if we will make it before nightfall which is obviously the goal. Thankfully, the road for the second half of the journey is really nice and Pam can go a bit faster. We got to Bobo at 6:15 just as it was getting to be dusk. Talk about just making it! I would like to mention that as we were driving to Bobo it rained. Really rained! It was amazing ;)

Once in Bobo, we went straight to our hotel, L’Auberge and checked in. We left for dinner pretty soon after, not wanting to be out too late. At first we thought we would just walk around and find a place, but that clearly wasn’t going to work, so I racked my brain remembering what was on the map in the guide book. I got us to a place L’eau Vive, that I went to the last time I was there, but being Easter weekend and given the place is run by Nun’s, needless to say it was closed. I did, however, think to ask the guard to direct us to a place called Le Mande I read about and knew was close by. He introduces us to a young punk kid who says he will take us there. A bit iffy, but still nothing to worry about. We start walking and I know we have to go over one more block and he leads us across a smaller side street. Obviously the most direct route, but I must admit I was a bit nervous. There were a bunch of people around in any case. We are almost to the end and Pam starts saying if it isn’t like right here she wants to turn around. I agree with her, and ask our guide how much farther it is. He points just to the right and I see the sign for the restaurant. Saved! Once there I insist on him taking 200CFA for payment. He doesn’t want to take it and I know it is because he wants to get us to go to a dance club after wards and wants to be a friend rather than a guide. Well, we didn’t want a friend so I paid him.

All I can say is the food was excellent and worth the intrepid journey there. I also knew in my head how to go back and noted a well light street one block up. On our way back that is how we went. For dinner I ordered a salad which turned out to be very good indeed. For dessert Pam ordered a yogurt and I was like yeah whatever, but when they brought it out we learned it wasn’t just any yogurt but awesome yogurt. We vowed to return the next day for dessert again! On the way back to the hotel I notice we are just blocks away from the bakery that the guide book raves about, making a mental resolve to go there for breakfast in the morning. Back at the hotel I read for a while and then fell asleep pretty effortlessly, even though my room was a bit hot in spite of my leaving the A/C on. I guess the unit just doesn’t work that well.

We said we would try to leave the hotel at 7:00, go get breakfast and head out. Well I knock on Pam and Chelsea’s door at 7:00 and they are both in their PJs still. Pam had a crazy night and couldn’t get up. I guess the sister of someone who was at the meeting we went to wanted to meet with Pam. They had called during dinner, but never showed up. Well, long story short Pam gets confused into thinking another woman is the one she is looking for and then only discovers it is not her when the lady who she is really supposed to meet calls her on her cell phone. Talk about freaky! Anyway, Pam ends up having to sit and talk with family until like midnight… After hearing about the craziness of her night I say I will just go down by the pool and read while I wait for them. Which is what I did. For breakfast we went to the great bakery which has a restaurant attached to it too. I ordered an omelet and had them serve it on a baguette like Susan had it in Ouaga. My oh my was it wonderful. It really hit the spot. Sidenote, all over Burkina you signs for this new brand of fruit juice made in Burkina. It is nicely packaged and apparently tastes great. However, I read the label and see it is only 25% real fruit juice to which I think to myself, how can you still call it fruit juice! As a result of my disgust for this low percentage of real fruit juice, I have decided to boycott the new brand. No pulling the wool over my eyes. After breakfast I swing by the local Marina Market and get some cheese and ham pate to have on two baguettes for lunch. We pulled out of Bobo at 8:30. The 85 km trip took us about an hour and a half. It really makes we wish we weren’t staying in Bobo on Saturday night. The back and forth two days in a row seemed a bit taxing for me as a passenger; I can’t imagine driving it. But Pam wanted to stay in Bobo at the same hotel all three nights and she was the driver. I must admit it was a very nice hotel though. The biggest plus was they had wifi. But at 20,000CFA + a night they had better have wireless.

Once in Banfora we stopped at the hotel called La Canne a Sucre where we picked up a guide. The road to the Sindou Peaks is a dirt road and we aren’t sure we will be able to find it. However, it turns out it is really simple to get to, but it was still nice to have a guide. For not having arranged for anything beforehand I was pretty impressed with our ability to show up and within 10 minutes have a guide in our car ready to direct us to our destination.

We stopped along the way and saw these basket weaving ladies who sit and weave in deep holes hollowed out of the ground. The dampness and humidity keep the reeds from snapping. I was able to climb down which was cool. I bought two baskets; one, because they were dirt cheap and two because I saw how they were made and met the women who made the baskets which makes them more significant somehow. The Peaks were another 50km from Banfora. We made good time getting there, but as we were driving I am definitely questioning in my head if these rock formations were worth the drive.

The landscape is pretty basic African plains, but with much more green than in Ouagadougou. Being to the south of the country, Bobo and Banfora get much more rain a have lusher scenery. So we were driving along and then out of now where this rock formation cropped up. The peaks were amazing. They seem kind of other worldly really. They were these spindly sand formations that rise up a good 40 to 50 ft into the air. You first ascend a rather defined step pathway and from there, once you are at the top, there are endless paths to explore. Chelsea really liked looking around. More than the peaks themselves though I think I was more enchanted by the view. Overlooking the plains from high above, seeing the barren fields dotted with palm trees, the green rice paddies lining the river banks, and livestock rooming free just tiny specks of color; the green canopy meeting the sky creating a breathtaking horizon. As I stand looking out I think “This is Africa”. This is the Africa I picture in my mind and it is beautiful. We hiked around a bit taking it all in. I could sense I guide wanted to leave, but whatever. He had been there over 50 times this was our one and probably only chance to soak it all in. So we stayed until we had our fill ;)

On the way back to Banfora we stopped at The Lake of Sacred Hippos. I was skeptical but agreed to go. As long as were coming back to see the waterfalls the next day I didn’t care. However, I have to say I ended up really enjoying the Hippo Lake. First off when we got there we decided to have lunch before striking out on the water in the little pirogue. As we were sitting getting things together, there was all of the sudden a big commotion. I quickly gathered from what they were saying that a cow had fallen into a hole. At first I tried to act uninterested. But really, have you ever seem a cow in a hole. I thought they meant like a large foundation size type hole. Oh no. It was a hole about 3 feet in diameter and 12 feet deep. It was actually the pit dug out for a pit latrine the owner was planning to build. So my curiosity gets the better of me and I head over to look at the spectacle. Sure enough there is this huge ox, really, crumpled up at the bottom of this well. Pam decides she needs to try and help and offers to let them tie a rope to her car and she will try and pull it out. Mind you this cow weighs probably close to a half ton. I am doubtful, but supportive. Pam tries it, but no luck. I can’t say I’m surprised at this. She tries again and after getting her engine smoking but good, she stops and offers her apologies for not being more helpful. The village people are really nice about it and are actually very touched she offered to help. Later the villagers all got together and pulled the cow out. They did what the car couldn’t do…

After the cow in the well incident we finally finished up lunch and went for our boat ride. The paddle guide was really a nice kid and we saw two hippos. We got close enough to see them quite clearly, but not too close that I felt in any danger. According to the guide there are not aggressive unless they have a baby they want to protect. Thankfully these hippos were sans children. As we are out on the lake I hear thunder which is an unfamiliar sound for me here, but a wonderful reminder of the promise of rain in Ouaga when the rainy season comes.

When we finally have enough of the Hippo Lake and turn down a chance to see a Sacred Baobob, we head for Banfora to drop off our guide and then it was off for Bobo. We had to leave between 4:00 and 4:30 at the latest to get back to Bobo before dark. We made it back in much less time than it took to get there. I even had time to jump in the pool and swim a bit before we went to dinner. Dinner on Saturday was at the Watinoma; a restaurant that François, the Embassy assistant, recommended. I track down directions and lead us there as the declared trip navigator. I like navigating actually and love maps. I have a good sense of direction and can draw out paths in my head. This is a very useful skill to have, especially in places where there are no street names. For dinner we order two pizzas, one of which is a special order ham and pineapple one. It wasn’t on the menu and we only described to them what we wanted, so weren’t sure what we would end up with. However, I am happy to report they did a great job with the pizzas. Not anything to write home about, errr…well I guess it was as I am writing about it now, but still good. Afterwards, true to our word we went back to Le Mande for a yogurt dessert. Luckily it was right around the corner from the Watinoma.

The yogurt was so good! Like frozen yogurt almost, just softer and not quite as cold. I can only imagine how much sugar it contained… I read for a while on Saturday night before going to sleep. The book I was reading called Water for Elephants is really very good and I wasn’t too tired to read so I stayed up.

Sunday morning did not feel like Easter at all. I had to keep reminding myself that this is the day we celebrate Christ’s triumph over death. We got up and left the hotel at 7:00 as planned. This time we went to a different place for breakfast; a place the guide book suggests has really good yogurt (different place than Le Mande, our first yogurt score). The yogurt here is much cheaper and even better in than the other place. Unlike most of the yogurt you get here in Ouaga this stuff was really thick and creamy. Yum! I also ordered a slice of the “Diplomate” pie looking thing. They couldn’t explain to me what is was but it looked good. So feeling adventurous, I bought it. It turns out is was bread pudding and went great with the yogurt. Score two for Sara and good breakfasts. After breakfast we went and picked up another girl who is the daughter of an Embassy worker. While she and Chelsea aren’t really friends per say we thought it would be nice to invite her, otherwise she would be stuck at her hotel all day. So after picking her up we made tracks to Bobo again. This time the drive goes faster. It also helps that the Domes and Waterfalls we want to see are close to the town unlike the peaks which were another hour away.

After the ease and success of Saturday’s expedition we decided we didn’t need to get a guide on Sunday. Besides these places are much closer, how hard can they be to find? Wrong. Unlike the road to the peaks which was a treelined colonial route, the domes and the falls are hidden pretty well. We kept driving and driving, occassionally stopping and asking people to point us in the right direction. We drove in the general direction of the mountain which seemed like a good idea. As we were driving though we realized we were smack in the middle of a sugar cane plantation. Nice. We were all still pretty calm, but I could tell we were all wishing we knew where to go. Then finally we happened across a tree lined road… so we took that road and thankfully found a sign pointing us to the domes and the falls.

We came across the domes first. So we stopped paid our entrance fee and hiked up the short path to the plateau. At first I wasn’t all that impressed, but the longer we stayed and more adventurous we got climbing up the domes the cooler they became. They weren’t quite as other worldy as the peaks, but they still seemed quite out of place. From the domes we ask the guy to point us in the direction of the falls. He gives us instructions and this time we are able to locate them. I still don’t know how we found these places, and I don’t know if I could find them again any easier if I went back a second time.

The falls were beautiful. We parked the car and hiked up a trail again. We got to the main area and had a nice little picnic of bread and cheese, a lovely pastry and some mangos we picked up from the lady selling them there. The only thing about the place was that it was terribly littered! You couldn’t take a step without encountering a discarded plastic bag or sardine can. Pam and I are pretty appalled by this and decide we will start cleaning it up. The other tourists there and guides are at first dumbstruck by what we were doing. Then they started to thank us and then others joined in. Pretty soon there were 5 people picking up garbage and when we were done the place looked great. What a difference it makes to do something and not just complain. The guides who helped us said they would talk to the people who run the place about getting a garbage can up there and cleaning up the rest of the stuff we missed. It just seems unbelievable that people have such disregard for nature. I think part of the problem was also that there was so much garbage already it didn’t seem like a big deal to add to it… it’s the mentality of “Well everybody else has done it, why shouldn’t I?”

After lunch and the trash pick up we went and played under the water falls. I didn’t think it was a great idea what with the risk of possible parasites and such, but my logic was forced to take a backseat to fantasy of playing under the waterfalls in Africa. It was great fun and the water was so refreshing. I wasn’t in for a long time and I hope nothing comes of it, but there is always a risk. We ended up staying at the falls for like 3 hours. We met a nice European couple who work Niger with the European Union. It turned out the guy is in charge of their water projects. I gave him my email and I hope to stay in touch with him. He seemed like he really knew what was going on. We actually ended up following them out back to Banfora. They had a guide and we decided it was better to follow them than try and find our own way back. The prospect of getting lost and not making it back to Bobo in time was not all that appealing. The road they took was crazy! It was truly offroading and it put the shocks and Pam’s driving to the test. It went well though. She did a great job and it was great to have someone to follow.

Once we got back to the main road in Banfora we started the final return trip to Bobo. We got back before dark, always a good thing. I went and found directions to the restaurant I had been really wanting to go to called Le Zion. It is on the outskirts of town and hard to find, but I saw a poster advertising some concerts they were hosting and there were directions at the bottom. So after I showered and before I was supposed to meet Pam and Chelsea I walked down to the bakery to have a good look at the sign and write down the directions and phone number. We set off in search of Zion, but couldn’t find it. We found the water tower in the directions mention, but that was it. So I called the number to the place and in French, thank you very much, arranged to meet the owner by the water tower to follow her back to the place. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but her vehicle was impossible to miss; it was a big van painted all over with pictures and words promoting the Le Zion.

I should mention the owner is a French woman who married a Burkinabe man. She is a French gourmet chef and he is a musician. So they have this great place called Le Zion where the food is superb and there is almost always live music at night. While it was hard to find, it was well worth the hassle. The food was great. I ordered the capitane lasagna. They also had strawberry juice, so I had to try that and a mango milkshake for dessert. So good.

A funny little sidenote is that there were two little kids hanging out there. You could tell they were, Camille, the owner’s sons. The little boy who was probably about 4 was so adorable. He came over and put his sunglasses on my face and then used our straws to make himself into an elephant using the straws as tusks :) The really amazing part was just as the music started going the kid falls asleep on some floor cushions spread out under the cabana. It was like the music lulled him to sleep. It was traditional African music, so I didn’t really get the lulling feel right away, but after a while I could see how it might put someone to sleep.

After dinner we went back to the hotel for the last night. We decided to start our day on Monday at 7:30, going to the same place for breakfast as Sunday; the one with the good yogurt. On the way I stop and get a pain au raisin from the good bakery. It looks amazing, but is actually a bit of a disappointment in flavor. Oh well. From here we walked around and looked at the Old Mosque. Frankly I wasn’t impressed. It was built in 1890, which isn’t even all that old. By 1890 there were skyscrapers in Chicago and here they were still building with mud brick, which they are still building with today. But whatever.

We paid our hotel bill and went off looking to enjoy some of the national cultural festival. We saw some traditional fighting, which seemed a lot like wrestling. We went in and found we were like the only women in the crowd and the only white people for that matter. But hey, what can you do? So we stayed for a bit, but then decided to try and find some other exhibits. We went to the French Cultural center and found a few book vendors, but this still wasn’t the main center of the festival. After asking like 5 people we finally figured out were we had to go. So, we drive across town…again. This time we found the main market area of the festival. I was expecting dancing and traditional music, but instead all we found were very pushy vendors and loud music played by cell phone promoters and banks. It was ridiculous. I did find some wooden salad tongs and ended up buying them. I probably paid more than I should have for them, but it was hot and I was flustered. Needless to say we didn’t stay long at the festival. After shaking off the last vendor we beelined it to the car and hit the road back to Ouaga. We left Bobo at 11:30ish. The drive back was without incident. I was able to read some of my book as well which was nice. We stopped in Boromo, the halfway point, for lunch. The stop took about an hour, but we needed the break. I was back at my house by 5:30 which is pretty good time considering the long stop as well.

I only had like 60 pages left in my book so when I got home I went into my living room sat down and finished it. Reading the book I got lost in the story, not even aware anymore that I was reading. Those are the best kinds of books. I was considering seeing Leanna that night, but didn’t feel like going out and she didn’t really want to come over so instead I went to my office and talked to my Mom. The trip was all in all fantastic. I was not so ready or happy about going back to work, but there isn’t much I can do about that. The only thing I am worried about is my face is kind of itchy. Around my chin was itchy starting on Saturday and I even noticed on Friday that the edge of my upper lip felt funny. Anyway, by Monday night my face was definitely reacting to something. I didn’t know what to do, so I didn’t do anything hoping it would clear up in the morning. At first I was afraid it was something from the waterfall waters, but then I remember the symptoms started showing up before then.

Monday morning I look in the mirror and my face is still reacting. But now it is even itchier. I go to work anyway and do my business as usual. I can’t help but notice though that my face feels really hot and going out in the sun make it worse. In the morning I wash out filter one, again, hoping it will help get the high coliform counts under control. I also measure the large sand filter flow rate and see that it dropped considerably. The prefilter level was up and somehow leaves got in the basin again. I planned to have Pierre clean it out in the afternoon, but I forgot about it as I was trying to get my MES test done and prepare the chemicals for the test I want to run today, Wednesday.

For lunch I went to the cafeteria to say goodbye to Pascal. He was leaving for Bobo for two and a half months to do his memoir. I am actually quite happy about that. I thought he was already gone, but when I ran into him the night before I learned out I was mistaken. Anyway, the sauce on the rice at lunch was really good! It was some onion sauce that I don’t remember having before. Things were pretty uneventful and since Pascal was leaving on a two o’clock bus he couldn’t stay long which was fine. However, he brought with him some papers he had printed out. At first I didn’t think anything of it, but then he showed them to me and they were about me! He had googled my name… And apparently there is a lot of information about me online. Darn all those impressive awards I received. This was a bit concerning and somewhat stalker-ish so I tried to act somewhat unfriendly about it and shrugged the whole thing off. Ugh. Since I had seen him around very infrequently for the last few months I thought all this had passed, but I guess not. I think it is time to be frank and tell him to bugger off.

Anyway, continuing on with my day…in the afternoon I just finished with the chemical preparations and washing my bottles to have them sterilized when 5:00 o’clock rolled around and it was time for my French lesson. I like my lessons, but man I hate how I have to stop what I am doing for them… But as I said I just finished with things when my teacher showed up so that was good. It was actually during the lesson I realized I forgot about seeing Pierre about the prefilter. Doah! At that point there was nothing I could do and it would have to wait until tomorrow. I worked so hard and so long all day that I was wiped by the end.

Leanna came over to hang out around 6:45ish because we hadn’t had a chance to catch up for a whole week! We sat and chatted for a while and then decided to go grab dinner somewhere since I didn’t feel like cooking anything and I didn’t have much to work with at that. We originally planned to go to the Petites Delices but changed our minds and instead tried out the Austrian restaurant next door. It was good. Reasonable prices and air conditioning, what more could you want. And the food was great. I ordered a spinach strudel which I would highly recommend. It came with a spicy cucumber slaw that went great on the strudel.

I came home wrote the first half of this post then cashed in for the night. Praying my face would be fine the morning. Oh, two other points to note from Monday 1. I chatted online with Bonnie which was awesome. Great to hear from her… and 2. Katha put some pictures from Easter with family online which I got to see! Yeah!

I want to end the post here and get back to work, but I can’t leave you hanging. So I will just go ahead and keep typing. This morning when I woke up I knew there was something wrong with my face. My eyes felt puffy and my face stiff. Sure enough I look in the mirror and the face I see was not happy. My eyes were super puffy above and below. The eyelids created concentric half circles. I remained calm, but quickly went to my office and looked some stuff up online. Again, somewhat concerned it is something serious. However, instinctively I think it is an allergic reaction and not something like a parasite. It is a rash and a reaction of sorts. Anyway, I go to see the nurse. Ever been to a medical place in a foreign country and have to speak a foreign language with the nurse? Yeah. That’s what I thought. The great thing was the nurse was really nice. She wrote me a prescription for an antihistamine medication and crème to apply. She also did all the stuff with my insurance papers. I have coverage with my job which is great. I didn’t think I would ever need it but I guess you never know which is why it is good to have. Once I got the prescription I wasted no time in going over to the pharmacy. I paid roughly a dollar fifty for my medicine and headed home. At home I read everything carefully. Thankfully there was information in French and English! So I take the pill and apply the cream. It seems like it is working. I will keep you up to date. I cancelled my tennis lesson for today and stayed home this morning finishing this post and staying out of the sun.

Thinking back over the weekend there are so many possibilities of what could have caused it. Could have been the soap at the hotel, the pillow which seemed a bit odd, the sheets, I went swimming in the pool there as well. I used some of Pam’s sunscreen on my face, ate fish, many mangos and other foods… It is pretty much impossible to determine what has caused it and honestly I don’t care. I just want it to go away! Final note: my housemates are officially moving out this week. The exchange about that information went really well and I can tell our talk the week before was definitely beneficial.

Pictures of the trip coming tomorrow!

Over and Out.

Tennis games, courageous conversation, and market thrifting.

It’s 10:42pm and I am just starting this post. Why? Because I have been able to come up with about a million and one reasons to put off writing it. The thing is I really like writing once I get myself down to doing it, it’s just getting myself to start. So I have exhausted all million and one reasons and thought it easier to start writing than search for a million and two reason.

The highlight of Monday was my tennis game with Dane. It was the first time I had played with anyone other than my tennis teacher, so naturally I was a bit nervous. I shouldn’t have been though, my tennis skills are, as I have discovered, a-oh-kay. The only court time available was 11:00am so we took it. Problem was, one it was hot, two I am technically supposed to work until 12, three when I tried to get up on Monday I was so tired I couldn’t get out of bed… so naturally I changed my alarm and slept in. I got into work later than I hoped and found myself unable to do anything productive, save for searching my friends facebook profiles. I have to admit this may be a sign I have not quite found the right job yet… Since I woke up late I couldn’t start my tests as usual since I had to leave for tennis. I did start them at like 9:50 though so as to fall right in line with when I would leave for tennis.

Next topic, about 8:00/9:00ish my boss comes by with Nigerian Minister of Water to introduce me to him. It was a short hi and hello, and I made plans to meet with Professor Maiga the next day at 7:15 in the morning. He originally suggested 4:00 that afternoon, but honestly I had hoped to meet up with Bianca and Leanna, and I needed time to prepare so Tuesday morning it would have to be. The reason why I add all of this is simply to set up the next encounter which was less than a brilliant move, but I am quite indifferent to it at the point. Anyway, at 10:50 I am all set to go to tennis and I take my bike over to check my filters on the way out. Sure enough I pass Professor Maiga and the Nigerian Minister of water on my way out, tennis racquet not at all inconspicuously sticking out of my backpack. Nice. I figure if there is a problem he will tell me in our meeting tomorrow morning. Sure enough when I ask if there is anything I need to work on or things I need to change, he says everything is fine. I did go back to the office at 2:00, making up the one hour of work I missed…so its back to a zero sum game. I was just afraid it wouldn’t look so good to have one of your research assistants heading out on her bike to play tennis as the Minister of Water is getting his tour of 2iE. Whatever. C’est la vie!

So yeah tennis. At first it took me a while to find my confidence, but by the end we were playing a legitimate game. I lost pretty badly, and I am quite sure most of the points I got and the 3 games I won were on account of Dane’s going easy on me… On my way out I decided to hit the treadmill and run 2 miles. It felt nice. Tennis only lasted 45 minutes and I wanted a little more cardio. When I finally go to leave I saw Susan sitting at a table by the pool and went over and chatted for a bit. She was reading applications for Fulbright applicants. Pretty cool, eh?

From there I headed home, had lunch, finished last weeks post and went into work by 2:00 thank you very much. I worked like crazy and finished up my microbiology tests by 4:30. From there I left work a little early like 4:45ish to meet Leanna and Bianca. We were all going to go shopping at the marche but that didn’t happen. Instead we sat and watched Miss Potter. It was pretty relaxing actually and afterwards Bianca went for dinner with some of her Peace Corps buddies and I went with Leanna to Paradisios for dinner. I think we redefined a long dinner on Monday night. We were there for over two hours talking. There was a lot on Leanna’s heart and mine as well. It was great to have someone to share with. After dinner Leanna drove me home and I made a quick list of stuff for my meeting the next morning. Monday night I went to bed so thankful that God provided me such an awesome friend here in Burkina. Although even with all the people I know here, I have to admit sometimes I find it hard coming home to no one. At Princeton, Cassy or Ruby were always around always interested in my day and I in theirs. It’s just not the same anymore.

Tuesday’s meeting in the morning went very well. I was again encouraged by Professor Maiga’s confidence in my work, but still skeptical as to what I can come up with in the end… The day on Tuesday was filled with more experiments which would prove to be the pattern for this week. Tuesday I worked the normal hours and worked out in the lunch break time. My French lesson went well. I was a bit disinterested, as is the theme of my life at the moment… but I was miraculously able to focus for the full hour and half since we had to make up for last Friday’s short lesson. After work I had a great talk with my Mom. She is doing better, but still isn’t 100% healthy. We finish up our hour long conversation and I have resolved to finally talk to my housemates. I vowed to myself that if the opportunity presented itself I would make the first move and ask to set up a time to talk. The whole walk back I was praying for God’s strength and his wisdom. I was hoping for the perfect opportunity but also dreading it… I walk in, the girls are in the kitchen. This is it, now or never. No use in waiting. Just do it, SARA! This is what is pounding through my head. So I open my mouth and just when I think I can’t do it. God gives me the strength I need and I ask them if we can sit down and talk about some house stuff together either tonight or tomorrow.

They seem a bit surprised but very willing. As I walk away my heart is pounding, I have that wooshing feeling in my ears and I feel a bit weak. Shoot, I think. I didn’t actually set up a time. Great. I just left it at “let’s talk”. I lay on my bed trying to read hoping to distract myself from the stress of the pending confrontation. I hear the girls talking to each other then one comes to my door and says if I am free we can all talk now. Thank God. Seriously. I was so happy to be getting done with this dreaded thing. So I go into the living room and we talk. I express my remorse for acting coldly towards them. I assure them I am not upset with them but have simply been dealing with a lot personally with my job and decisions with next year, which is entirely true. Sometime I don’t even recognize who I am right now. Not that I was ever mean I just plainly ignored them for all intensive purposes. It was my way of coping. But I did just want to clear the air with them. I want to be able to communicate with the people I am sharing a house with and that wasn’t happening. We discuss kitchen usage, and I explain my harboring my own kitchen tools. I don’t think the talk fixed everything, but it was certainly a step in the right direction. I am not one to sit back and suffer, and I felt like I was suffering. But I will tell you, there is nothing like the fear and uncertainty that comes along with standing up for yourself. I have learned over and over the power in and need for being your own advocate. It is hard, but it is worth it or else you will live unhappy and unable to do anything about it. I did something, and I thank God for the courage to confront my problems. I think my housemates really respect my coming and talking with them, initiating the conversation, ect. At the end of the conversation they apologized and said they understood how it would be hard for me having two new people come and stay, especially two people who are already good friends. That was nice to hear… so they aren’t oblivious to my feelings after all. Whether they are more encouraged to leave or not, I don’t know. At least I feel like I don’t have to explain myself anymore.

After the housemates talk I went to dinner at Susan’s with Becky. It was great! Susan made Quiche and I contributed smoothies for dessert. LOVE THE BLENDER! It was a late dinner to begin with and it ended late, so afterwards I basically called it a night.

I had heard rumors that Thursday would be a day off. Gotta appreciate the Muslim calendars. Instead of being able to plan ahead for holidays you get to be surprised by them. Nice. Anyway, Susan and I were going to try to go horse back riding. Fun. So I decide to do my microbiology very early so I can read the tests early the next day as well.
Perfect, and done. I finish with the tests and head off to play another game of tennis with Dane. This time my serves actually stay in and don’t hit the net so it is much more fun to play. I still lose pretty bad, but this time think I actually earned some of the points I won and I think Dane had to play harder than last time. This time I also brought my swimsuit and swam some laps in the pool after the game to cool off. This time I was much more tired after tennis. I played a lot harder than on Monday.

There is no bible study this week on account of it being Spring Break for ISO. So I get back after tennis and go to work right away. I had all these plans for more experiments, but it seems that everything is really deserted. And I all the sudden lost all motivation to work and was getting thrown into that tailspin of not knowing what to do next with myself. This is a very frequent occurrence these days. I blame grad school. I am going to keep using that excuse for all my failings and misgivings as of late. I feel like a cat on a hot tin roof every time I think about next year. Obviously not a good thing… I have the best of all worst situations. Choosing amongst my top choices, oh the agony!

I had my French lesson on Wednesday at 2:00 instead of Friday as normally scheduled because of my plans to go out of town for the weekend and didn’t want to miss another lesson. I have not been super impressed with the homework my teacher has given as of late and I talk with him about it. This sort of confrontation is easy. I think the housemate thing was hard because it conjures up so many unpleasant memories and feelings from Freshman year roommates at Princeton. Anyway, after the lesson, the labs are locked I can’t find the keys and I am pretty unable to function. So I sit down and try to pull myself together. I finally make a list. Yes, the blessed item which helps me sleep soundly at night and put my mind at ease. I decide not to try and do any more experiments that day. I was burned out from the week.

I finally leave the office and stop by Susan’s house to drop off my computer cord so she can charge her computer. I end up staying and having salad for dinner with Susan and Becky with is just as well since I didn’t have anything planned and ddin’t have much to choose from at that. You may notice that I haven’t talked much about my cooking and food adventures this week… it’s because I can’t remember them right now… It has been too long. I will try and do better this coming week. I do remember on Tuesday I made more oatmeal crackers which are amazingly good :) Anyway, back to Susan’s… we end up watching BarberShop and I actually feel less intelligent after watching that movie. I would not under any circumstances recommend it. Oh, and at dinner I found out from Susan that Wednesday was declared a half day at work, but nobody told me. Hence, the extra deserted feel of the place. Anyway, after working the full day when I didn’t have to I feel absolutely vindicated for missing work for my workouts.

Thursday I woke up very early and had a tennis lesson. It was fantastic. We actually played a real game. My teacher was going easy, but not that easy. His serves were definitely hard to return, but it was great to get a chance to work on it. My tennis trainer was late in getting there in the morning. We had said 7:00 and I was there on time, but he didn’t show up until 7:30. But alls well that ends well and while I was waiting I got out the basket of tennis balls and practiced serving again, and again, and again…

After tennis I stopped by my office to read the tests from Wednesday. I fought the urge to crawl into my bed and instead packed for my trip to Bobo and Banfora I am leaving for on Friday. I planned what I am going to wear and handwashed what wasn’t clean. I killed a little time by reading; waiting until I hear from Susan about the horseback riding. When Susan finally calls, at first I am disappointed because she says she is too wiped to go riding. However, she is up for going shopping at some of the thrift stalls in the market. I need some new shirts and was looking forward to spending a fun day thrifting and enjoying Burkina culture.

Susan and I have a blast. I bought four shirts, they are really nice actually… we went to the Zogona market and another one a past where Leanna lives over by SIL. This is the market Susan used to go to all the time when she used to live in other housing provided by 2iE. After being thoroughly tired from riding our bikes, walking the markets, looking at fabrics and greeting people left and right we finally strike out in search of some lunch. En route we find more shops and of course I make us stop. I don’t find anything, but it is fun to be able to just stop and go as we please not worrying about getting back to work, ect. We end up getting lunch at a little hole in the wall place called the Blue Marlin which I guess is popular with the Peace Corps Volunteers. Susan got an awesome looking omelet which was actually a sandwich! I ordered rice with peanut sauce and I am sorry to report the peanut sauce was anything but stellar. I was not convinced of this places good reputation. To add insult to injury, when we first got there Susan ordered a Fanta. I ordered a Sprite but was told they don’t have any. In reluctance I order a Fanta like Susan. However, the guy brings over the yellow Fanta Cocktail, not the good orange Fanta that we all know and love. He says this is all they have left… well this does it. We decide to go somewhere else… funny thing though is that as we are unlocking our bikes the guy comes out and says they found two more orange Fantas. How convenient. Why did it take us having to leave for them to look in the other fridge and drum up some orange Fantas. This is Africa. Case in Point. You can’t explain it, because its not logical.

After the mediocre lunch we head back. I go to my office and take care of some emails. Checking a few things off of my list. At about 5:00, I head back out on my bike to get some money for my trip from the ATM. On the way back I wanted to stop at one more clothing vendor off of Charles de Gaulle that we hadn’t looked at earlier. On the way, I stop by some guys who are selling camping chairs. I have been looking for a nice lounge chair and they have a pretty sweet one. Problem is the guy wants 35,000CFA for it. I had to try hard not to laugh and explained to him these don’t cost that much new in the states. He came down a little in price, but we were no where near reaching an agreement so I wrapped up the conversation and continued on. I general I was feeling pretty good. It is amazing how positive everyday encounters in a foreign country makes you feel like you have achieved something. I finally make my way to the last vendor. As I am looking at the clothes that are hanging both from a little wooden booth and hung from hangers in the trees, blowing freely in the wind, my reverie is rudely interrupted by a noise that is impossible to mistake. As my gaze jerks from the clothes to the street my worst fear is realized. There was moto accident right there on the road. It was between a moto and a donkey cart. Sounds pretty funny, but the clashing of metal and stamping of hooves was anything but humorous. Luckily both men got up and seemed fine. The bike was not in good shape, but that was the least of my worries. Many people stopped to help and I stayed out of it. I guiltily continue checking out the clothing, trying on a skirt over my pants and deciding to buy it… done and done. Talk about an eventful outing. At least the bank part was predictable and uneventful.

Back at my office I disciplined myself to study French for 30 minutes and then talked to my Mom when she got home from work. This was important since I wasn’t sure if I would have internet over the weekend when I was away. When I finish talking with my Mom I am naturally in a good mood :) Then conveniently enough, Susan calls and tells me the tailor is at her house. I head over to her place and ordered two new items. A dress and a skirt. I am looking forward to what he brings back next Saturday. While I’m at Susan’s I pick up a books from her and say good bye. She will be gone when I get back from my trip and won’t be back until early April. I will miss her!

I should go to bed, but I can’t. Instead I decide to make some popcorn for dinner, pack and start watching the movie Transformers. Since it was already pretty late I thought I would only watch part of it, but if you have seen this movie you know you can’t just watch part of it… So I stayed up and watched the whole stinkin’ movie. I’m telling you, my judgment is seriously impaired. Either that or I am finally starting to have a healthier, more laid back approach to life. I’ll say it’s the later… I fall asleep by like 1:30ish and get up at 6:15 to be at the U.S. Embassy by 7:00am to leave on time.

Instead of waking up at 6:15 I hit the snooze meaning I lost 8 minutes. I was tired give me a break. However, this snooze had a snowball effect. I was supposed to leave at 6:30 to walk there, but I leave at 6:35 because I couldn’t not eat breakfast! As I approached Charles de Gaulle, I reluctantly admitted to myself I couldn’t make it on time if I continued to walk. Instead I hailed a taxi and paid my 200 CFA for a ride. I pulled up right at 7:00am and was waiting just as Pam got there. Talk about good timing!

You’ll have to wait until the next post, hopefully coming tomorrow to find out about how the trip went and see the beautiful pictures or the Sindou Peaks and Cascades! For now, I’m calling it a night.

Council Dinner, Crepes, and an 8ft Diving Platform...

This week was so packed and this weekend so fun and exhausting I feel like I need to take a break from life! Everyday was just scheduled full and not all with work stuff. Each day I had something outside of work going on distracting me and generally making the week seem like it just flew by. Upon reflection I realized that you can have too much fun. You can be so busy having fun and being social, you don’t realize and relish what you are doing but just go from one activity to the next. I turned down two different invitations to hang out with friends this evening. Why? Because I haven’t had ten minutes of down time since I can’t even remember when. So, I am slowing down tonight, writing this post, and going to bed by 10pm. That is the goal.

Starting from the beginning, which is always a good place to start in my book, Monday was in one word, nice. In the morning I worked on some my work stuff; checking the filters, revising proposals, ect. My ankle was still a bit weak from the soccer game on Saturday and with a tennis lesson scheduled for Tuesday I decided to swim as my workout. I worked until 1pm and then headed over to the pool. It was so nice and refreshing! For lunch I went to Alice’s house and had lovely potato soup with her and Leanna. I actually joined them for a short prayer time after lunch. The other good thing was that I was able to get a few books to use as bible study guides for the junior high bible study I am leading. We are going to start a new series and I was looking for a leader’s guide so I didn’t have to come up with the lessons like last time which is actually quite time consuming. I went back to work after the very enjoyable lunch break and took some samples to analyze. I had a quick chat with my Mom and then my French teacher showed up! Um, yeah. I don’t have French on Monday, I have it on Tuesday. He was mixed up. I felt bad telling him to come back tomorrow, but I didn’t really have another option since I had other stuff I had to do.

I ran the microbiology tests in the lab and headed home. I quickly changed and got ready to go to the Scientific Council Meeting Dinner. Since I didn’t know where the Director lived and didn’t really want to roll up on my bike, I was able to arrange for the school driver to take me when he left to go pick up the other guests at their hotels. So even though the dinner wasn’t until 8:00, I had to leave at 7:15 and drive all over Ouagadougou picking up the other guests. I can’t complain though. I got there alright and when the dinner was over one the 2iE professors drove me back so I didn’t have to go back around to all the different hotels again. Funny story: in setting up the ride to the Director’s house I had to talk to the driver on the phone in French. A little miscommunication ended up in my thinking he was coming at 7:30 and him really coming at 7:15. Lucky for me, I was sitting reading waiting for him starting at 7:00, so it was really no problem just a surprise.

The Council Dinner was fantastic. The Director’s house is beautiful. They had all the tables set up outside around his pool. The food was catered, there was a drink bar and for dessert they served strawberries. What is not to love. At first I was afraid I wouldn’t have anyone to talk to there. One being about half the average age of the party goers, and two being the only female who wasn’t married to the director or a professor (there were only three women there in total) I wasn’t sure how my being there would go over. However, I am happy to report I had a lovely time. Being an English speaker I was able to entertain some of the North American guests. I found I was never without someone asking me questions and talking to me. At dinner, I sat next to a Professor from Alabama who was one of Professor Soboyejo’s friends. It was very nice to talk to him about my work. He seemed genuinely interested and I think I am just now realizing how important it is to 2iE that I am here this year. It is really important to them in building up the bilingual and international reputation of the institute. I’m glad I can be of help. I would also like to note I picked out the perfect outfit to wear to the dinner. I didn’t know what to expect and didn’t want to be too dressy or too casual, but I hit it right on the money with my red African print skirt with my black scoop neck top and artisanal necklace. If you ask me it was the perfect blend of Western and African styles. I came home from the dinner like a million bucks :)

Tuesday was a crazy day! I went to work early and then headed out for a tennis lesson about 9:15ish. The lesson started off pretty bad, but got better and I finished feeling pretty good, but tired. After the lesson I biked up to the Air Moroc office to inquire about flight prices to head back to the states to visit graduate schools. It took 40 minutes to get a quote, of which about 30 was spent waiting for my turn to talk to one of the two agents they had working… So the price is about 800,000CFA or 1800USD. I would fly into Boston visit MIT, then hit up Stanford and finish with Duke. The 1800USD doesn’t include the domestic fares either. I have been offered some money to cover travel expenses, but I don’t think it is enough and I don’t know if I really want to go through the stress of traveling and leaving for 10 days and then coming back to Burkina. I am afraid of what the adjusting will be like… I haven’t made a decision yet, but am in general pretty stressed about how I am going to make a decision without visiting the campuses.

Anyway, after Air Moroc I rode to Marina Market. I only had about 15 minutes to get what I need because I have to be back to 2iE to check on my filters! I luckily had a list which made things easier. The shopping was a 100% success and I made it back just in time. I also then started cooking lunch. I had invited Maggie and Leanna over for lunch and wanted to make baked ziti. So first I had to make the sauce, then put it all together with the pasta and bake it… I also tried to make roasted garlic to spread on the bread. It turned out alright, but I think the garlic was a little old, too dried out. The sauce turned out okay, but lacked a little kick. The baked ziti was good, but I didn’t buy parmesan cheese, I bought like swiss cheese which still tasted excellent, but just not quite the same.

I would also like to briefly relate a rather upsetting encounter with my housemates. I was in the kitchen cooking. I mention that I am having 2 friends over for lunch and they go, oh so are we. In my head I was like YOU ARE KIDDING! But no, they weren’t. Luckily they ate outside and we ate inside. This was doubly annoying because this morning I found the guys who they had been hanging out with the night before had crashed for the night on the couches in the living room. I am NOT down with that. And surprise surprise it was same two guys who came for lunch. Also, to add insult to injury they mentioned they went to look at their house again and it still isn’t ready and probably won’t be ready for a long time. I said something along the lines of having to be persistent and one of the girls retorted “Well, it really isn’t in our control…” with a tone that hid a message like “I don’t really care if you want us out of here…” That was not good. Finally, while we were still finishing up the girls came an introduced themselves to my friends and Leanna being super sweet asks them about their house and they indicate they have no real incentive to move because this place is so nice! AHHHH!!!! My heart about sank. I think it was grad school confusion, decisions about going back to the US for a visit, not really enjoying them at all, them having people over the same it all kind of just piled up.

But, all the nonsense aside, lunch with Leanna and Maggie was lovely. We talked to Maggie about what she liked about Burkina and generally just got to make her feel special and enjoy one last meal with this exceptional girl.

After lunch I headed back to work, finished up with what I had been doing and had my French lesson. It went well. I was surprisingly able to focus. After the lesson, I connected with my Mom to talk online. She was still sick and not doing well with that. I was a mess with the housemates and grad school stuff so the conversation lasted about an hour and a half. I am happy to report though after the ninety minutes was over, I felt way better. That’s what happens when you can talk out your problems… I also went home that night and made a list of things I need to talk to my housemates about. I am getting myself ready to talk to them about what needs to change around the house.

So I get home from talking to my Mom and go right to my room. I smell a burning smell, which isn’t unusual here because they burn trash outside all the time. However, this smell I realize is coming from my kitchen. I walk in cautiously and see that my housemate has left beans to burn on the stove. As I am there taking in the scene, deciding what to do, she walks in… She fell asleep on the couch! What I don’t get is why the flame was up as high it was. First you never cook anything with a flame that high and secondly you don’t walk away, AND fall asleep! Can you imagine! Needless to say I was happy to close the book on Tuesday and start over on Wednesday. But before I could tuck in the covers I had to prepare for a conference call that would take place at 5:00am the next morning. This meant getting up at 4:30. Wow. That is early friends.

Tuesday night, however, brought a lovely surprise. Leanna had mentioned the Mango Rains at lunch noting we hadn’t had any yet this year. Well, speak of the devil, it rained on Tuesday night! and it rained hard. I woke up to the sound of pelting rain and rushing wind. Disorienting sounds if you haven’t had any precipitation for 6 months… So I wake up to this rain at 3:00am and my first thought is what am I going to do if it is still going at 4:30am when I have to go take my call? But lucky for me I just went back to sleep hoping it would stop by then, and it did :) Oh, but the smell of the wet earth and cool feeling the rains left was absolutely enchanting. Walking to my office in the early hours of the dawn basking in the freshness after the rain I forgot about all the housemate issues and other challenges of life in Africa and was for those few moments incredibly happy in every way.

The conference call went well. I am on the steering committee for the IWA sustainability toolbox initiative and this was a call concerning the next steps we are taking. It was very productive and I am looking forward to what this resource can turn into. After getting up so early I went back to bed for an hour… But work was calling so at 7:30 I pulled myself out of bed ready to take on the day.

Wednesday’s highlight was definitely fabric shopping with Susan and Mary Ellen. We went to the Marche St. Camille. I bought a great print I am going to have a dress made out of. Susan also bought a very beautiful blue fabric. The three of us rode our bikes there together and it was funny to think about how our little caravan of white women must have looked to the African passers-by.

This visit to the market was not as pleasant as other trips I have made. The vendors were more aggressive and one wouldn’t leave me alone about some shoes he wanted to sell me, grrr…. I liked the shoes, but didn’t have any need for them. And they felt like they would fall apart in a second. On the way home from the market, I stopped at the Shopette and picked up some dried mango pieces to give to Maggie as her going away present. Together on our Mali trip we had discovered that they make excellent travel food :) I also got candied peanuts and strawberries to have with the ice cream at bible study.

After getting home from the market, I washed and chopped the strawberries. I also was adventurous and tried to make crepes. I used the recipe on the corn starch box and man were they great crepes. Like the consistency of the kind from a restaurant. The problem was I spent so much time putting the meal together I only had about 10 minutes to eat it, during which time I also had to plan for bible study. Upon reflection, I see that I was trying to do many things at once ;)

Anyway, bible study went well. We reviewed James and then had ice cream. I had ordered the ice cream the day before from an ISO student who makes and sells it. They were supposed to deliver it to Rosie and Anna’s apartment in the morning, but I was so afraid they would forget. But I texted the girls and they said the ice cream had arrived and everything was set. Thank the Lord for that! I stuck around after study and chatted with Maggie one last time. When I left we said goodbye. It wasn’t so sad because I really think I will see Maggie again sometime in the future. I will miss her, but I am also so glad she gets to go home and was so blessed to have her here for the time she was here.

Going back to work was not high on my list of things I wanted to do, but it was high on the list of things I needed to do. I worked on some MES measurements. They didn’t go as well as planned. period. Anyway, on Wednesday night I tried to make hummus again. I wasn’t sure if that was a good plan or not, but it turned out great! I made it in the chopper attachment to my blender. Perfectly smooth hummus spread :) I was two for two with the crepes and hummus on Wednesday. Go me!

Thursday was a tough day. I was tired from my week. Gosh, I wonder why… I did, however, finish reading my book omnivores dilemma which was a huge accomplishment. That book was good, but took me twice as long as I had hoped to finish it. For lunch on Thursday I invited Susan over to help me finish the leftovers from Tuesday with Leanna and Maggie. She happily accepted. I was planning on finishing off the crepe batter with Susan after lunch so I made up some more banana syrup to put on them, but we were too full after lunch so we decided against the crepes. Shame, because the banana syrup is to die for :) Mary Ellen was also supposed to come to, but I guess she lost her phone and was crazy busy, ect. Anyway, she called and said she doesn’t think can go to Bobo and Banfora anymore next weekend. Talk about a bummer! So now I am stuck looking for other travel mates. Not the boat I was hoping to be in. In the afternoon, I took samples again and ran the lab tests. I finished at 3:30 in time to see part of Kokou’s presentation on his work. I only stayed for part of it because I went with Susan over to an art gallery place only a short walk from 2iE. The owners of that sweet Gondwana’s restaurant have a showroom of African masks, tables, rugs, dolls, sculptures, ect. It was so cool! I felt like I had walked into a Pier 1 Imports store, except nothing was imported… I didn’t buy anything, but Susan did. She is heading back to the States and was looking for some gifts for people.

When I got back to my office around 4:45, I talked to my briefly online with my Mom and then I looked into my Columbia application situation since I haven’t heard anything from them which is odd. Turns out I may have checked the wrong box on the application. Not good. I don’t think my application was reviewed! So I sent the office an email on Thursday about it. I haven’t gotten a response yet, but when I do I will let you know. Thursday evening at 5:30 I had a visitor coming. Who it was, however, I wasn’t 100% sure. I knew it was someone from toastmasters. I had gotten a call from a woman on Monday and set up a meeting with her for Thursday, the only slight issue was I didn’t recognize her name. Luckily for me, I did recognize her face when she walked in. I helped her come up with her role descriptions for the next two meetings. It was a short meeting which was nice because I had to get to WIRED at 7:00. I usually love coming to youth group, but this week I was pretty much going because I felt I had to be there. Commitment means going even when you would rather not. So I went.

After WIRED, I made myself a crepe dessert; one with a mango, yum and the other with the banana syrup. I liked the banana syrup one the best. Oh and while I was making the crepes I practiced flipping them in the air without a food turner. It was pretty sweet. I am going to have to keep practicing, but that is definitely a skill I want to master and it seems surprisingly easy once you get the hang of it. Following my awesome dessert, I sat down to write my speech for the toastmasters meeting on Saturday. I had been putting it off and putting it off… I could kick myself sometimes for doing stuff like that! Anyway, I sit down and I just can’t write it. Nothing is coming to me. So instead, I write about one-hundred and fifty different childhood memories…much more fun. However, I still don’t have anything ready for Saturday and that is a problem. But I said whatever and went to bed. I started reading another book I picked up from Alice called The Friendships of Women by Dee Brestin, all about how women interact with their friends and why women needs friends, ect. It was a very fast read; in fact, I finished it on Saturday.

By friday I was ready for the week to be over. In the morning I ran MES tests again and read from my book. That was nice. Also, Friday morning I got a confirmation that Mary Ellen could not come to Bobo/Banfora as she had suspected so instead I emailed Pam a woman at the embassy who had expressed interest in going. She responded right away with a positive answer. The only glitch is we have to leave Friday instead of Thursday, but I think we can make it work and Pam has her own car which will make the travel much nicer in general as well. We are waiting to hear if another girl, Emilie, can make the trip with us. I hope she can!

In contrast to that good news, I still hadn’t planned my speech and now things were looking bleak. I also started feeling myself slipping into one of those depressed type attitudes that I have been trying to fight off. Recognizing the situation I went to the gym to workout. I ran 5 miles, and the change in pace and physical exertion seemed to help pull me out of any negative attitude. I ran hard and fast it felt nice.

After running I went home and showered. I went to the lab to read the test results from Thursdays work and prepared for my French lesson. I was not at all in the mood for French, so when my teacher came 15 minutes late, I told him we would do only a half lesson today and make it up on Tuesday, hoping Tuesday I would be back to my happy self. This was an excellent choice. It allowed me to work on my speech starting at 6:00pm. I finally had incentive to write it as Bianca invited me to dinner with her and her friend Heather at Verdoyant. Le Verdoyant is a very popular restaurant, but to my disappointment I hadn’t eaten there yet! So I worked feverishly on my speech so that I could go. I was about ¾ of the way done and had to stop to go to dinner. I figured I could finish the rest when I got home. I was so happy I didn’t decline the dinner invite on account of my unfinished speech because during dinner I get a call from Susan that the meeting for tomorrow is cancelled on account of the planned demonstrations. Yeah, maybe I should mention that about 3,000 people planned to march in Ouagadougou in protest of rising food costs. Hum… I did feel a little bad going to dinner because I told Leanna I couldn’t help at a Youth Group event they were holding that night called, “Underground Church”. But I got over it.

I would like to note I took a taxi by myself to the restaurant to meet Bianca and Heather. I was very please with my ability to communicate and get around. When we were done with dinner we all headed back to the Peace Corp hostel. I picked up a French book Bianca had gotten for me and then together we walked over to Leanna’s place. It is all of a ¼ walk… When we got there Ben, Will and Tyler were waiting. They had helped with the “Underground Church” and Leanna had promised them smoothies as their reward. The problem was, Leanna got stuck driving some kid home, so while she was gone I stepped in and helped make the smoothies. I think they turned out ok. When Leanna got back we all just chatted for a while and then Bianca headed home. She had been up really late the two nights prior and just seemed a bit out of it. Since Toastmasters was cancelled I was up for something, and Leanna was just starting Spring Break… So Leanna drove me back to my place to pick up my stuff and then I went back to her house for a sleepover! Fun.

We watched a movie, which Ben stuck around for. The movie of choice was Ernest goes to jail. It is just as funny as I remember it :) Adam and I used to watch it all the time and loved it! Remember the scene where Ernest dresses up as the old woman trying to get out of jail, or at the beginning where he is using the floor polisher and it goes crazy and drags him up the wall! Oh, what fun.

Anyway, when the movie was over I went to bed, reading for a while first. Oh, yes and the other reason for agreeing to spend the night was that with the prospect of protests in the morning I thought it better to be with Leanna at her place and not at the University. However, Saturday morning came and went and we heard no signs of protest. Later I would learn that there was a very large demonstration, but it was centered downtown and remained peaceful.

In the morning we made pancakes. I insisted that they be silver dollar sized. Trust it just makes them much more fun to eat. We hung out and practiced some worship songs. Leanna and I are going to perform a song for the prelude at one of the EDGE worship services. Should be fun. So we picked out a song for that. We also started watching Sweet Home Alabama and made lunch. We had sausages which reminded me of being in London. I’m not sure why, but whatever. After lunch we finished the movie. I have decided is a not a movie one can watch over and over again. The major logical flaws in the movie start to stick out and the characters become rather pathetic and less endearing. After the movie it was time for me to go home. So Leanna drove me back.

I just felt like I needed to be home. Having the spent the night without planning that ahead threw me for a loop, as far as doing the other things I wanted to do this weekend… yeah, like relax. Definitely did not happen. Anyway, I went to my office and talked with my family for a few minutes. They told me they received the package I sent them :) I was happy to hear that. I worked so hard not to tell them it was coming; I wanted it be a genuine surprise. It was, and I love to imagine the expression on my Mom’s face when she read the package return address and realized what she had in her hands was from me. While that was exciting news from home, I had no good emails waiting for me which was certainly disappointing. I was hoping to hear back from Columbia in regards to the email I sent them. But no. I did, however, get a text from Susan about going to her friend Keith’s birthday party. Keith and Cheryl are two of Susan’s friends from the embassy. Against the urge I felt to stay home, I went. I think it was a good choice. I met several very interesting people and it was nice to see some other familiar faces I hadn’t seen in a while. We got there at about 7:30. I would say by about 9:00 there were 20 people there. However, most everybody cleared out by 11:30. I say most because several of us hung around and danced until like 1:30 in the morning. It was crazy… all these older people, and I say older as a compliment, dancing like they were 20! I just had to smile and join in :)

Susan and I got a ride home and I wish I could say that as a responsible person I went to bed. However, that would be a lie. Instead, I outlined this post and then watched Save the Last Dance. Yeah, you tell me. Why I couldn’t wait until the next day is beyond me… So I go to sleep at the ripe hour of 3am only to wake up at 9:30 to start my filters for the day. That, my friend, took dedication. But I had to get the timing just right. So you do what you have to. I also made some banana bread. This turned out smelling and looking great. It tasted great too, but I regret to inform you that as I was making it one of the eggs I put in had just a tinge of a funny smell to it. But alas, I had already put it in, so what is one to do except hope it bakes okay and that the smell was only in my imagination. Anyway, on Monday I had some stomach issues and have since suspended the banana bread eating to see if that is what it was… I may just throw it out, which kills me... but I learned my lesson with the ground beef. I hope I don’t have to remind you of that lovely episode.

So Saturday night at the party I met Paulina, a Columbian woman whose husband is French. They own a great place called Hotel Ricardo by the barrage in Ouagadougou. Susan used be good friends with her, but they hadn’t connected in a while. Anyway, after the dance party the night before, Paulina invited us both over for lunch on Sunday. Susan and I rode our bikes there :) It was great fun, hot, but nice. I want to ride back the same way sometime because there were some great clothing vendors I would like to investigate. So lunch, lunch was amazing! They served paella which is a Spanish dish. It was amazing. The hotel cooked everything. Delicious salads to begin with, the paella main dish and then pineapple-strawberry skewers for dessert accompanied by homemade strawberry ice cream. I can’t believe this woman eats like this all the time.

Paulina was such a funny lady! She was quite petite and spoke English with a Spanish and French accent if that is even possible… She loves animals. She has 10 dogs. Not kidding. Anyway, after lunch Susan and I went for a swim in the awesome pool at the hotel. A guy named Dane who was also at the party the night before and staying at the Hotel Ricardo joined us. Important to note that the pool had a 8ft diving platform… So, of course I had to jump off of it! I was going to dive, but the first time I got up there I was too scared so I just jumped in feet first, which is still quite a drop. However, I had to conquer my fear so I climbed up again and this time dove in! I was so happy. Since I did it, I challenged Susan and Dane to jump too… to my delight they both took my challenge so we all took the giant leap. I think we started a trend because when we left there were some younger French boys jumping off too. It was quite the charmed existence that afternoon. Lunch at the hotel, swimming in the pool in March! I had a momentary thought of, Wow I love Africa, how am I going to leave? But don’t worry it only lasted a brief second. I still am looking forward to heading home in June.

I had a tennis lesson scheduled for 3:00 and I needed to be back by 2:50 to check on my filters. BUT we got of the pool and I was pretty dismayed to see it was 2:45! Susan and I changed and headed out quickly, but not before I made plans with Dane to play tennis before he left. We didn’t get back to 2iE until 3:15. This was not good for my filters and worse for my tennis stuff. I showed up 30 minutes late for my lesson :( I didn’t really have a lesson and the guy who did play with me for like 20 minutes was more frustrating than anything else. The only upside was I would get another chance to play on Monday with Dane. You’ll have to wait until the next post to hear how that went.

So I get back from the tennis lesson and feel pretty wiped out and disoriented. I hadn’t had more than 3 minutes of down time. I was going from one thing to the other and it didn’t feel very good. To add to my consternation Keith and Cheryl were having a Palm Sunday movie marathon with Passion of the Christ and Jesus Christ Superstar. Did I mention that Keith and Cheryl have an amazing DVD collection, because yeah, they have an amazing DVD collection... Some are still in the shrink wrap! And they told me I could borrow some whenever I wanted to. A-mazing. On top of the movie marathon option, Leanna and Bianca were also having dinner and watching LOST; a lovely evening they wanted to include me in. BUT I was so wiped, so unable to function I just laid down in bed. I listened to some Christian music and dozed off from 5 until 7ish… I did get up again to go talk to my parents online, but that only lasted a little while and I came back and worked on this post. Dinner consisted of a big bowl of popcorn and a smoothie. Just the way I like to end my weekends ;) So bottom line, what I learned is that you can have a fun filled schedule everyday, but in less you have some down time to bask in the goodness and memories of those activities you might as well not do them at all. Reflection on life’s blessings are almost as important as the blessings themselves!

Sorry this is late in being posted. It’s because I couldn’t finish it all on Sunday and I vowed I would go to bed at 9:30, read for 30 minutes and then fall asleep.

Even though I was asleep by 10pm on Sunday I could not get up on Monday. More on that in the next post, I don’t want to start mixing weeks. Not this late in the game.

Just a funny note… there is a gecko in my office that has no tail. I have seen it several times now and I know it’s the same one, well because it has no tail. Today it was really having issues. Running in circles and not being able to stick on the wall. I feel bad for the little guy. Also, another day I saw a gecko missing a hand… talk about a bummer.

Susan and I have matching dresses, and I played soccer in Burkina ;)

Just to clarify, all these pictures are from the International Women's Day Celebration, or as we like to say here in Ouaga, La Journee de la Femme. Enjoy!

Presentations, Grad School news and Soccer!

This first week of March was crazy. It started out really stressful and then the stress miraculously turned into immeasurable joy and excitement with the reception of great news and success on many fronts.

The trip to Nazinga was definitely a blessing, but I had planned on spending the weekend catching up with work and planning for the presentation I was to give at the first 2iE Scientific Forum to be held this Thursday. Needless to say none of that planning got done. So I started out the week working like mad to gather resources and read up on the subject of point-of-use water treatments so I could write my talk. I was able to get my computer hooked up to a printer, and Monday and Tuesday I was printing articles, getting sources together and taking time to actually read them! I stuck with my 30 minutes of French each morning this whole week which extends my streak to 2 weeks. Pretty good.... One more week and I think it becomes a habit.

Monday I worked with the librarian again trying to get access to JSTOR. Turns out we had another set of forms to fill out! So we couldn’t finish the process on Monday. I did, however, go and talk to the secretary and computer people to get the relevant information we needed to complete the forms. Also, I was able to email the JSTOR people and learned on Tuesday that we don’t have to fill out the complicated licensing form. Phew. Monday I took a flow rate measurement, but realized that the second filter had grown some major algae. When I moved the table to get Filter 1 out of the sun, it put Filter 2 in the sun in the early morning hours. This would have to be remedied.

Around lunch time as I was trying to pull something together to eat. I think I made chicken salad… yes I did :) my housemates came in and said they had gone to see their new place this past weekend. Oh I was so so excited to hear that. I just want my house back to myself. This has really been a trying time for me. I was so excited about getting my new cooking things, but my housemates are always around making it hard for me to cook. So when they leave I will be much happier. I think, subconsciously, I am waiting to go grocery shopping until after they leave… They said sometime in the next week they would be leaving. I am counting down the days. Monday night I worked out at home doing my workout video. My housemates were around though and couldn’t figure out how to use the back door to get outside and had to disrupt me by walking through the room, twice…which was annoying. But I didn’t let it stop me.

Tuesday morning I cleaned the filters before lunch which took more time than anticipated… as usual. I should just anticipate it taking longer! I also moved the filters into the back room which is better shaded, hoping to avoid further algae growth. Around lunch time I went to the rec center to run on the treadmill and what do you know… One of my housemates was there running on it! Talk about a frustration. I guess it just serves me right for being nice. Next time if I don’t want to share something, like my gym equipment, I should just learn to be heartless and not try make friends with people because now they are inconveniencing me. Some lessons you have to learn the hard way. I was able to lift a little and swam in the pool, something my housemate also did after her workout which again annoyed me. After my swim I stuck around the pool and relaxed a little, or at least as much as I could after my gym fiasco. I ordered Shwarmas for lunch, a Lebanese wrap type dish, very tasty.

In the afternoon the power went out. At first it was fine; actually good because it encouraged me to read the articles and not be distracted by my computer. However, that night I had planned to pretty much write my talk and without my computer that would be tough. I had my French lesson as planned since that doesn’t depend on the power being on, and I am happy to report it went well again. This whole studying thing is paying off! Later that night, while I was waiting for the power to come back on I planned for bible study the next day. Always a good thing to do. We are going to finish up James this week. Yeah!

The power came back on around 7:30 so I quickly finished the bible study lesson then went to my office ready to get to work. However, just as I am ready to go the power goes off again…. sigh* By this time I was getting pretty nervous I wasn’t going to be ready for Thursday, and this whole power thing was not helping the situation. Anyway, I went back home made some popcorn thinking that would make me feel better. It did at first, until I found bugs in the popcorn requiring me to throw it out… However, in the depths of my popcorn dismay, the power came back on! Excellent. So I camped out at the table spread out all my articles and got to work…starting about 9:30. I knew it would be a late night. At about 11:30 my housemates came home with two guys. Thankfully, they went out the patio out back and left me alone. It was still annoying though because I could hear them talking. I did my best to ignore them, which I was miraculously able to do. The guys left about 12:30 and the girls went to bed. I stayed up another hour or so finishing up my plans. After spending 4 hours on my talk I was confident in what I would do. It still needed some work, but I had all Wednesday and Thursday in the morning to work on it.

Wednesday I got up and headed to work. I found it very hard to get myself on task, but finally did get to work. I think the fact I was up so late the night before with it that made me not want to work… I made up a one page executive summary to hand out with my talk so the professors would have something to walk away with and be able to reference if they didn’t understand everything I had said. At the same time as I was trying to prepare all these materials, I was also pretty distraught about my filter stuff. The flow rate in the large filters was slowing down again, and I hadn’t refilled the ceramic ones because I wanted to test them for ways to improve flow rate and was too busy with my talk to think straight. I determined in a moment of clarity to put my monitoring things on hold until after my talk on Thursday. This was a good plan. Right around ten o’clock Pascal, the woman I went to Nazinga with, stopped by my office to see if I wanted to grab a soda with her as a nice little break. What a pleasant idea! We chatted a little bit and it was nice to have an excuse to get out of the office. Additionally, I should mention that Susan’s power was acting really odd on Tuesday and it fried the charger for her computer. Since we both have Toshibas I have been charging hers for her. She goes home on March 22nd and will bring a new back with her then, but until then I think I will be helping out with keeping her computer going. I don’t mind. I know I would want the same thing if I was in her boat.

Wednesday I went over to Rosie and Anna’s for lunch before bible study. They are they new short term missionary girls from England who have offered to help with bible study since Maggie is leaving on March 12th. Sad. I will miss her a lot. Lunch was lovely and bible study discussion was good considering the circumstances. The power went out again just as we were starting and with no fan the room got pretty hot. After bible study, I wasn’t looking forward to going back to 2iE because I wouldn’t be able to continue my work without power. However, when I did finally bring myself back I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was power! Fantastic! So I made up the PowerPoint presentation to go along with talk, and printed out the first draft of the handout. I worked until 6:30-ish and then went home firstly because the tailor was at Susan’s house and I needed to try on the dress so he could make alterations have it ready for Saturday, and secondly to make dinner. I tried to make rice which turned out terribly. Sticky and gooey on the outside, and yet crunchy on the inside, blah. But with nothing else to eat I made it work… I would later learn the trick to cooking rice was putting a lid on the pot. Good to know.

I went back into the office after my sub-par dinner and worked until 9:30ish. When I left I was very happy with my plans for Thursday’s forum. I stayed up later than I had planned that night working on getting the Nazinga pictures ready to give to Pascal and Christian and to post online. This actually takes a while, b/c like I have mentioned before, I want to pass out good photos and you would be surprised how hard it is to narrow down 250 photos to 115-ish.

I slept in a little on Thursday not going in to work until 7:45. I made some finishing touches to the handout, printed it up and went to the copy room to have copies made. I also went to see the librarian and we filled out, what I hope is the last set of forms for Jstor access. I had lunch with my student friend Pascal, not the Nazinga lady… It was nice and I got to practice my French more. Pascal will be going to Bobo to complete his thesis work, which they call here a “Memoir”. Whatever. After lunch I took a short cat nap and then did my abs of steel toning workout just to get me energized for my talk. I went back to my office around 2:45 ran through my presentation one more time and then headed off to the room to set up.

The Forum was to start at 3:30 and at 3:40 Susan and I were still trying to get the computer projector to work. Talk about frustrating. But it was actually okay because just about everyone was late and if I had started right at 3:30 a lot of people would have missed my talk. Professor Maiga and many of the GVEA faculty showed up which was great. I really wanted these people to see my presentation. It went great. In fact, I would wager to say I nailed it :) I had their attention the whole time. And at the end many people had questions and comments which I take as a great sign of people paying attention and being interested in the topic. I answered questions as best as I could. It was the first forum like that I had ever participated in and what great practice it was! Following my presentation, the power went out! Talk about bad luck for the next presenter. He did a good job adapting and using the chalkboard. The power did come back on for his last two slides. The final presenter also did a nice job, but it was a presentation similar to one he gave at the conference in November that Marcia had helped put together. In general, the first Scientific Forum was a great success. There is another one in the works for April. I worked so hard on my presentation it was nice to see the hard work pay off. I knew this was my one shot to share this important information with my colleagues. It was also my one chance to show my boss what I have been up to and what I am capable of. I think he was impressed :)

After the Forum I starting soaking Filter 2 in a basin to backwash it. I brought in the filter as a visual aid in my presentation and took advantage of having it with me to start the experimentation with ways of improving flow rate. I figured if water flowed through one way it should be able to flow the other way thus dislodging the built up particles. I would know the next morning when I went to check back. Once the filter was set up I went to work editing the scholarship application I submitted on Monday. It was due Thursday night by midnight and I thought I was all set since I sent it in on Monday and hadn’t heard anything negative. Except on Thursday afternoon, right before I gave my talk actually, I learned I would have to reformulate the answers because they were a line too long and they were very strict about length limits. The time crunch for completing it didn’t help, but I was luckily able to put it out of my mind until after I gave my presentation. So anyway, I sat down and wordsmith-ed my answers. Once I was satisfied with the results I resubmitted it. This thankfully didn’t take too long and I still had time to quickly look up some information on prayer for the lesson I was teaching with Ben at WIRED that night. Leanna picked me up at 6:30 and the only downside of the night was my lack of time to get something to eat, so resorted to dried coconut. I bought a bunch of it with Susan two Saturdays ago and have since discovered it makes a great snack and/or dessert. It is good! Just not so good for you I would later learn…

The lesson at WIRED went really well. The kids were attentive and engaged. Two words I didn’t think I would use to describe junior highers… We were also at a different house that night. Since the Harrison’s didn’t have power, we went to the Higby’s house because they have a generator. Nice. After WIRED I came home and watched Anchor Man. It was awesome. I just needed a nice release from the stress this presentation had put me under. Wow, having gotten done with that I felt like I could take on anything!

Friday morning was really quite a good morning. I arrived at work and found an email in my inbox informing me I was accepted to Stanford. Can you believe it?! Oh, I was so HAPPY! It really helped set the mood for the rest of my day indeed. In the morning I followed up on the suggestions I had made at the Scientific Forum; mainly, for 2iE to join the World Health Organization’s International Network on Household Water Treatments and Safe Storage. In the morning I also found Pascal, the Nazinga lady, and got her the pictures from our trip. She was so happy to get them. We also exchanged contact information. It is great all the neat people I am meeting here… I left work to go to my tennis lesson at 9:30. The lesson went well. I hadn’t played tennis in almost two weeks, owning mainly to the fact that the last lesson was so unpleasant being sick and all. After the lesson I went to the market and picked up some fabric I needed to cover the large filter to prevent leaves from getting in as well as some lemons I planned to juice and use on Filter 1. The idea was to have the citric acid open up the pores by eating away at the calcium carbonate deposits which can form. Anyway, I also picked up two pastries and a piece of piece of pizza from a very nice looking bakery to have for lunch. On the ride back, I couldn’t resist buying some mangos and other fruit from a lady on the side of the road. All is well that ends well. I got back to work to find Omar working on unclogging the big filters. Yes! Finally. I worked on juicing my lemons and supervised what he was doing with the cleaning process. Later Pierre helped me install the fabric I had purchased. Everything was set with the big filters! Great. I finished with the lemon juice and applied it to Filter 1. I am not sure how this will turn out. I am pretty skeptical at the moment. Anyway, when I checked Filter 2, the backwashed one I was pleasantly surprised to find my idea had worked and by comparing the turbidity of water inside and outside of the filter I was able to confirm some of the clogging particles were dislodged. Just to make sure everything was removed I setup the backwashing again. This time the turbidity test showed no difference, so I could assume all the removable clogging material had been removed.

After having completed the lemon juice application I filled up both filters and took flow rate measures that afternoon. I did get to connect with my parents before they went to work to share the great Stanford news! I am still elated :) I took a nice repos on Friday, taking time to read and enjoy my pizza, mango and pain au raisin for lunch. The pain au raisin was actually not that great. Maybe it would have been better warm. I will probably never know… Anyway, in the afternoon I went back to the office and found myself reading a blog called “Things White People Like” my brother Adam had forwarded the link to me. Hil-lar-ious. Susan stopped by that afternoon and I was able to share my good news with her :) She also gave me a copy of the video recording she took during the forum. What a great resource to have to learn from and to use to show people my presenting style, ect… As I was killing time browsing Facebook, the mail guy came by and handed me a letter. It was not an international letter, so I opened it with a bit of skepticism over what it could be. Boy was I delighted to read I had been invited to a dinner of the Scientific Council to be held at the Director’s residence on Monday evening. I don’t know how my name got on the list, but I am not complaining. Sounds like a great networking opportunity. I really wish I had that awesome book, How to Work a Room with me here. I need to buy a copy of that when I get back to the states. It really is like gold.

I usually have French on Friday which is why I was sticking around my office, but I got a message from my teacher 15 minutes before my lesson time telling me he wasn’t coming. Nice. I can’t be too mad though, he said he was sick and frankly I would rather him stay home than get me sick too! So instead I went home read a little, and attempted to make rice again. This time, however, I read up online on the proper way to make rice and this time I came out with rice that was not sticky, yet cooked all the way through. Success! Now the trick will be if I can repeat this amazing feet again… I also sautéed up some onions and tomatoes and made a nice little dinner. I say little because I was planning to go out with some other ladies to a wine restaurant. I knew I wouldn’t get a normal meal there and I didn’t want to have wine on am empty stomach so that is why I ate before going to the restaurant. While Susan and I were waiting for our ride, the tailor came by and dropped off our dresses for the next day. Since we were waiting outside, we couldn’t try them on and the tailor charged us way more than usual which was not okay.

Our ride finally came and we made it to the restaurant in fine time. The wine we ended up choosing was in my opinion only so-so. It was white though so I couldn’t complain too much. There were 6 of us in all and the occasion was a pre-celebration of International Women’s Day which was on Saturday. The conversation was fun and Susan’s friend Sandra came. Sandra is from Italy and has a great British accent when she speaks English. She is a really interesting lady and I was glad to be able to talk to her little bit that night. She gave Susan and I ride to and from the restaurant. After the wine evening Susan I watched Miss Potter. Susan lasted about 30 minutes into the movie before falling asleep, but I watched the whole thing. Oh, how I do like that movie!

It was late when I went to bed and I knew I would be getting up early the next day, but oh well. I had just completed a killer week at work AND I got into Stanford! I was entitled to a little celebration. Saturday I got up about 8:30 and headed over to the ampitheater about 9:00 for the Women’s Day Celebration they were having. Since there was no one there yet, I went to my office to check my email. Just when I thought things were about as good they get, I received an email notifying me that I had been admitted to MIT. Yes, the MIT; The leading engineering school in the nation. Can you imagine? If I get a PhD from MIT that about writes my ticket to where ever I want to go later in life. Yahoo! I found Susan and told her the good news. She was so happy she almost started crying for me… Yeah, the whole morning I felt like I had rays of sunshine happiness falling down around me. After three hours of speeches, a role playing exercise and gifts presentations we all went outside and the women took a group picture in our coordinating outfits. It was so cute.

After the picture taking there was lunch where I sat with the lady who ran the role playing exercise. She was quite fascinating. She was from the Netherlands and had lived in Burkina Faso for 28 years! That, my friends, is a long time to live in Burkina Faso. She had interesting things to say about how they celebrated Women’s Day when the past president was still around. I guess the men had to go to the market that day… a revolutionary idea for this place.

Lunch finished up and I started more flow rate measurements, read some more of my book I am trying desperately to finish, and got ready for the soccer game. At 4:00pm the women students in Ouaga were facing off against the women students from Kamboise, the other campus. I would play for the Ouaga team. What fun! Of course the game didn’t start until like 4:30, but hey I was happy it started at all. There were times when I wasn’t sure if it was going to organized enough to play at all. Anyway, I had a great time. My soccer skills from years ago came back, even on the all dust no grass terrain. At the end of the first half I missed a penalty kick which was really quite disappointing. I had, however, played well. I have to say though after the first couple of minutes my throat burned so badly. I wasn’t sure I could keep playing. The dust, the heat, ect. But I made it through. In the second half my team scored and we went on to win the game! I hurt my ankle a little bit and will definitely have a bruise on my leg, but it was worth it. I gained a lot of respect on the field and impressed quite a few people who I am sure were skeptical of the white girls soccer skills… Afterwards, I got to relish in the victory celebrations. It was nice to connect with the other women students on campus. I had seen them around a lot, but hadn’t really had much interaction with them. I think playing this game with them was a huge step in the right direction in trying to build relationships with the other female students here.

The day’s festivities would last well into the night, but I was about done celebrating La Journee de la Femme. So I talked with my parents online for a like 20 minutes, just enough time to share with them the awesome news of getting accepted to MIT. My Mom is sick right now though so she didn’t have quite the reaction I was hoping for. Talking to her felt a lot like talking to my Dad when he is half asleep after dinner. Leanna came to get me about 6:30 for the Edge church service and I was able to share both the Stanford and MIT news with her. It was nice because she came to get me first, so I was able to tell her one-on-one my good news! While I am excited, I don’t want the whole world to know… at least not yet.

The Edge service was lovely. It was nice to be able to worship in English with songs I am used to. I had Leanna bring me home afterwards since I really needed to just go to sleep. I was exhausted. One from the week in general, two from the late night before, and three from the grueling soccer match I played! I went sleep about 10:30pm and got up at 10:00am. Nice.

Sunday I worked furiously finishing up my post from two weeks ago I put on the back burner in light of my presentation preparations. I also got my pictures ready to post on my blog and wrote up the February update I send out to the select people in my life luckily enough to be on that list ;) This whole writing operation takes much longer than you would imagine at least three hours a week. The thing is though I have actually come to enjoy it! I listened to a sermon at noon time and around 4:00 I went in to the office to post and mail what I had been working on. I also made some mashed potatoes from the potatoes I had cooked up on Friday but hadn’t had a chance to mash. They were quite yummy. I played my guitar until 6:40 when I headed over to Gondwana’s for Maggie’s send off dinner. It was nice to get the group together, but the table was so long I didn’t even get a real chance to talk to Maggie. The great thing was Leanna sat by me and we were able to talk. We sat across from Ben and Tyler B. The conversations that followed between the four of us were quite entertaining. Not wanting to order a full meal Leanna and I ordered some Tapas to share. The Tapas were not so great and that idea will not be repeated. The company was good though and I got home but 9:45. Before spending a chunk of time finishing this post I read some essays I wrote back in high school and the beginning of college. It is so great to be able to look back and see where I was at different points in my life and how I have changed. It is now past midnight and I am calling it a night. I did, however, want to finish this post tonight so I would be all caught up with communicating my life to those parties interested enough to read about it.

All my Love,
Sara

Tiebele and Nazinga Photos... Love the Elephants!

Spinach Soup, Tiebele, and Nazinga :)

So the big news is that I figured out that my internet connection at work allows me to update my blog again. This is huge because now I don’t have to go to the café all the time. While much more convenient, I will miss the lunch hours in the cute café. Wait… who says they have to stop, maybe now instead of bringing my computer I can bring a book and order some tea. Sounds delightful doesn’t it?

Wednesday was a crazy day! But good crazy. I was working on my experiments in the morning, and tried to finish last weeks blog post. It was to no avail and I ended up spending about another hour at the café trying to get in everything I had to say… I left work at 11:30 and went to the gym. I was going to run and then swim a little. Go to the café for lunch then head to bible study. Everything was going great. I got to the gym and there was no one there. I started running on the treadmill and I was just cruising. Really enjoying the run, working on getting faster, ect. Then with about a mile left the treadmill just shuts off! Like someone pulled the plug… At first I thought the power went out which is not at all unusual, but the machine next to me still had power. I checked the converter and it looks suspect, but I couldn’t seem to see what’s wrong and the machine would not turn back on. So alas I had to abandon my running and instead lifted a few weights before hopping in the pool to finish things off.

From the gym I headed to the café where I again order the excellent cheese and ham panini. However, this time to my disappointment the cheese was not quite melted enough for my liking. Unfortunately, I don’t know the French for “Can you please cook my cheese more?” so I ate it as it was. I was supposed to leave at 2:30 to get to bible study on time, but 2:30 turned into 2:45 and then I realized I left my lesson papers at home and would have to make a slight detour! I rode really fast and was only 5 minutes late and Maggie was there and everything, but I really just hate being late. Bible study was great. We went through the topics of wisdom, humbling yourselves before God and boasting about tomorrow. We have one more chapter to go which we will tackle next week. The following week will be Maggie’s last week before she goes home to Germany so we will be doing a quick review of James and then a fun ice cream party!

I had to get back to work to check my microbiology tests, even though I had about a million and one errands I wanted to run… After successfully counting my coliform colonies I worked on some of my personal stuff and then met up with Mary Ellen. She came over for dinner which we made together. We made Cream of Spinach soup which was really quite terrible… We put in too much spinach, which was canned spinach to begin with so you know already that it has some obstacles to overcome. Susan came over to partake as well and the tailor made an appearance to pick up some fabric Susan had to make us both dresses for the “International Women’s Day” which is March 8th. Susan had been in Fada for Monday and Tuesday and it was funny how much I missed having her around. It will sad when she goes to the states for two weeks at the end of March! She did bring me back some excellent skin blam which was super nice of her to do… After dinner we looked at some awesome fabric pieces that Mary Ellen has been collecting to make a hoopa for her Jewish friend who is getting married. She had about one hundred 1ft by 1ft scraps of fabric. Pretty impressive. I made us up smoothies for dessert which were thankfully more appetizing that the failed soup. When all else fails put some fruit in your blender and you will please a multitude!

When Mary Ellen left I had a strange desire to talk to my family so at 9:30 I headed to my office, but to my dismay no one was online. Sad. So I wrote an email and then headed back home to go to bed. It was nice getting to bed early.

Thursday was an awesome day. I feel like I had so much going on… it was non-stop. I didn’t take a repos and ended up working in the evening as well. In the morning I took the time to type up my results from the last week and a half or so for the ceramic filters and started a data file for the slow sand filter information I am collecting. Moving right along! In the afternoon I really wanted to rerun the tests from Tuesday, but I didn’t have the Petri dishes made up or the time to run them and I was confused on what to do with taking samples the next day and I didn’t have anyone to go to for advice…sigh… I felt like I was caught up in a whirlwind of having a million things to do and not being able to finish anything because it was all tied together and there was always something missing! Anyway, I pushed on and made up some Petri dishes and finished just in time to go to the lecture of the professor visiting from Duke University. His talk was interesting. Thankfully it was in English. This guy has a theory called Constructal theory about how every system evolves to provide easier access to the flow of energy or something like that… It was a little hard to follow at times, but interesting none the less.

After the lecture I was planning to go get some work done and then I found out there was a 2iE personnel meeting to meet the new 2iE Foundation president. La-dee-da. So I sat through that, yawn. Oh, I should mention that Thursday was the 28th of February, the day that was supposed to be some sort of call to action against rising food prices, ect. Well, there were no disturbances near me which was good. There were some demonstrations and tire burnings in a few of the neighborhoods, but in general is wasn’t too bad. We got emails from the embassy saying not to go out if possible. I stayed at 2iE and was fine. Still pretty funny though. The ISO students got a half day. In the states kids get half days for unexpected snow storms. In Africa you get half days for civil unrest. What are you gonna do?

So by now it is about 5:30 and I get a text from Leanna that WIRED is cancelled. Hallelujah! I just needed a week off of youth group. Instead I stayed at work and got done the experiments I had been needing to do. I wanted to finish things up so I could start again with a clean slate on Friday. I worked until like 8:00pm. It was exhausting and I hadn’t had dinner. BUT I wanted to talk to my Mom who had just gotten home from school, so I stayed in my office and talked with her. This was all for the best though, because at 8:45 I would have had to come back to weight some filters anyway. So I avoided a trip home AND got to talk to my Mom. Yeah. It was so nice to just catch up and talk. When I got home I made some popcorn and watched the first half of the excellent comedy Starsky and Hutch ;)

Friday I was able to get up and go to work excited to get back to what I had been working on. I like when I like what I am doing. I worked straight through from 7:00 until 2:30 taking a short break for lunch. I made myself some of the left over soup from Wednesday which was FYI just as bad if not worse the second time around… I couldn’t finish my bowl of it and ended up throwing away what was left in the pot. Such is life. I did, however, enjoy reading all the star gossip in the US Weekly magazine Claire and Carolyn sent me. It’s nice to get to just shut off your brain for a while… At about 3:00 I headed over to Leanna’s house and helped her decorate some cakes for the Sadie Hawkins Dance at ISO that night. It was pretty awesome. Leanna worked in a bake shop for a summer so she learned this trick of dipping the icing knife in water for the last pass over the cake to make it really smooth. It was incredible! The cake designs turned out great if I do say so myself. The other reason I wanted to get to Leanna’s was that she had the stuff my family sent me. The latest mission team had arrived and brought it with them. So I got my new ipod shuffle which I love! Miss Potter the movie, measuring spoons and cups, and power bars. What more is there to want in life?

From Leanna’s I went back to work just in time to get there before Moumini came for my French lesson. Oh-la-la… I had forgotten to do the homework he gave me. Well, whatever. I have been doing at least a half hour of French study every morning, just not the stuff he gave. In general, though, that has to count for something.

Friday night I was planning to have dinner with some 2iE personnel and the visiting professor and his son. Susan and I were supposed to be getting picked up for the dinner at 7:15. So I finish with French and rush home to try and get in an abs of steel session before leaving. I’m in the middle of doing like a million situps and I get a text from Susan asking where I am. I all of sudden freak out that they really meant 6:15 and not 7:15 and they are waiting for me. So I anxiously called Susan and she just wanted to talk to me about something… but it could wait. Phew! Finishing my workout I showered and got ready to go. The guy coming to get us was about a half hour late. I mean really. If you mean to come at 7:45, just tell us 7:45… Don’t say 7:15 and then show up later, because when you do that you may have been able to get something else done in the mean time but I on the other hand wasted my time waiting for you. If you value me, you will value my time and not make me wait, or at least let me know when you intend to come if you are running late so I can plan accordingly. Alright, I am stepping down off my soapbox now…

When we did finally get to the dinner it was lovely. Professor Coulibaly hosted us all at his house and his wife cooked. It was well done indeed. The funniest part of the evening though was that the son of the professor, who was not 21 but this is Africa so drinking laws don’t apply, drank like three bottles of beer and was very talkative. He studied several years of French and it started flowing much more freely and loudly as the bottles were emptied. Remind me never to let that happen to me. It’s just not classy. The best part of the evening was getting a chance to talk to the professor about my choices for grad school for next year. He was very helpful in that he teaches at Duke, went to MIT and now has a daughter at Oxford in their graduate program. At the top of the list was MIT, Oxford and Stanford which was kind of how I had the top three in my head, but I can’t really say because I have only heard that I got into Oxford I don’t know about any other schools yet, so I am not arranging eggs I don’t have yet.

Oh yes, I forgot to tell you what Susan wanted to talk to me about. She had met a visiting Swiss professor going to Nazinga from Saturday to Sunday who had an extra seat in the car if I wanted to come along. YES! Can you imagine my joy?! Nazinga is the animal reserve I have been wanting to go to… There was talk about bringing the visiting professor’s son there, but that fell through so I had pretty much resigned that I would have to wait until the next missions team came that wanted to go and hope that they would have an extra seat for me. But God is pretty darn amazing if you ask me. He takes away one opportunity and it looks like things are bleak, but then he opens another door that was even better than what the other one held. God’s blessings are undeserved, unexpected, but surely appreciated when accepted! So at 8:00am Saturday morning I was to off to Nazinga! Now just to pack and get everything ready…

Friday night I didn’t sleep so well. I was anxious about leaving the next morning and my roommate was being quite loud in the room next door… I really would like if they moved out, like yesterday!

Anyway, Saturday I start the day with a refreshing bowl of oatmeal which is not the instant kind and so I never make it quite right. I finished up my packing and headed over to my office to send my brother an email. I was supposed to Skype with him in the morning his time, but obviously wouldn’t be able to make it as I was heading out of Ouagadougou. Wouldn’t you know, to my great frustration, the internet was down! I felt terrible… I knew Jordan would understand but I hate to not show up for something like that it just makes the other person feel not so great . But there was nothing I could do. I stopped by my house to pick up my belongings. I also went by Susan’s place to get her video camera to take some video footage of the elephants I was hoping to see. I walked out to the Charles de Gaulle and hailed a green taxi. Lovely. I needed to get to the Hotel Centrale, which not surprisingly is in the center of the town. I made it there a little before 8:00am. Early. That’s the way I like to roll…

I waited in the lobby for the professor to come. His name is Christian and he is an older guy teaching a 3week course on construction engineering. In addition, another woman named Pascal joined us. She is also teaching a 3week course at 2iE. She is Swiss, and incidentally about 5-6 months pregnant. Quite the adventurous one indeed! We headed south from Ouagadougou towards a town called “Po”. It is about 2 hours from Ouaga and all paved very nice roadways. I slept most of the way. I was exhausted! We had a nice 4x4 vehicle that I would later end up paying about $40 towards… which is actually kind of annoying because the guy was going anyway and dude I am pretty poor right now. So anyway, instead of heading straight to Nazinga we went West instead of East and stopped by the town of Teibele. This little village is just about like every other village you will see except that they paint weird designs on their houses and the people have an elaborate King and Royal court social system. You pay a tourist fee to visit Tiebele which gets you a guided tour of the Royal Court. All I can say is if that is the way the royal family lives, I would hate to see how rest of the people make do with what they have…

There are three things I would like to tell you about:

1. When we first pulled up in the 4x4 and we all got out I saw this girl walking past holding another little girl’s hand. This is a common enough sight, but it still made me smile… what’s more as they pass us I see the older girl is pulling a cardboard box on a string. How cute, I wonder what is in the box…? I look inside as it slides past kicking up dust and you know what I saw… a cucumber! Of all things! Just plain bizarre. I can’t begin to come up with a reason why this girl was walking her pet cucumber in a box. Talk about other-worldly. She did really make me smile though :) What a sight!

2. From the car we walk to this tourist encampment. The other two order some soda’s and I just kind of chill there trying to catch the French conversation that is going about a mile a minute between the group of guys who are sitting around under the restaurant cabana and the two Swiss folks. Anyway, the one guy who turns out to be our guide tells us that there are 400 people in his family, extended family included… But still that is a heck of a lot! Okay, the point, right. One of the guys lazing around has this very stylish looking shirt on that says in English, “Allow me to introduce myself, my name is SPEED from THAILAND.” Yeah, do you get it, because I sure as heck don’t. The T-shirt sayings you see around here are great. Really funny sometimes because they have no idea what their shirt says. It is kind of like when we used to wear shirts with the Chinese symbols on them we thought were so cool… Who even knows what those said!

3. After lunch we are all just sitting around waiting until about 2:30ish before hitting the road again. The A/C in the car doesn’t work so going when it is super hot is not the best idea. It sounds horrible, but with the windows down it’s not bad. I also have a ridiculous capacity to tolerate heat. Surprisingly so did Pascal. She never once complained of it being too hot! I was impressed… Anyway, we’re sitting around and I want to go get my book from the car, but I don’t know where the driver is. Christian finds him and I go out to get my book. While I am there the little boy who wanted to sell me a maraca for 1000CFA offers it to me for 500CFA. I was actually planning to go buy it for 1000CFA before we left, but hey, whatever, you want to take 500 that works for me :) So I pay the kid 2000CFA and am waiting for my change. It is taking longer than usual and I beginning to think the little rascal ran off with my three dollars… The other kids keep assuring me that he is coming back. As I’m standing there the wind whips up right behind the car in what looks like a tornado! It was crazy cool! I was a bit nervous, because it was pretty big and impressive looking… I don’t know what I would have done if it hadn’t died down as fast as it came up. Talk about getting your blood pumping. “Girl caught up in freak tornado, luckily deposited at the top of a mango tree!” I could just see the headlines ;)

From Tiebele we start off for Nazinga. It is about an hour and half drive from one to the other. It was no big deal except that most of roads were not paved. However, after experiencing Mali I have to say these roads where in pretty nice shape. On the way to Nazinga we came across a group of people getting their cotton ready to ship off to Sofitex (the cotton company in Burkina). We pulled over because Pascal wanted to go talk to them. I guess she studied cotton production before and just wanted to chat. It was actually really cool and I got take some pictures which I otherwise would not have been able to do.

We finally arrived at the entrance to the wild animal reserve park. Little did we know that the encampment where we would stay the night was like smack dab in the middle of the park which was another 35km on unpaved roads away. The only benefit of this next leg of the journey was that the whole time we were on the look out for animals! On the way we saw a baboon as well as a bunch of elephants grazing. It was neat. Like a real African safari! Oh wait, it WAS a real African safari :)

When we got to the camp we found our rooms which were really nice actually. Working shower, toilette, electricity from 6pm to 10pm… It is amazing how my standards have changed ;) For dinner we ate at the restaurant. We had to order like two hours in advance or else we would have waited a long time. It is the only place to get food and there are quite a few people who stay here. In fact, when we arrived at the entrance to the park we saw a vehicle waiting because they hadn’t made reservations and couldn’t get a place. Boy was I glad we had called ahead! I slept well. The temperature became quite comfortable at night. The only issue was Pascal woke up part way through the night saying she heard a mouse by her head. That freaked me out. We looked for a little and then decided to just try and go back to sleep. Well, that wasn’t too easy and just as I am about to drift off, I hear the mouse noises. Scratching and little scampering. Not good. So Pascal and I both get up. We move all our stuff onto the beds and move them away from the wall. Making a quite a racket in the process. Finally, the mouse scurries out and that was a bit disconcerting to say the least. We open the door thinking it might run out, but it didn’t. Instead it ran by our beds again, this time we couldn’t see it and didn’t know where it went. After waiting quite some time and not seeing or finding our mouse friend we decided to try and sleep. This time we switched the which way our heads were facing. Luckily, I slept fine and was able to get up at 5:45 as planned to watch the sun rise over the lake. It was beautiful and I took some nice pictures. The only downside was I wasn’t the only person with the idea and I had to share the look out point with some other tourists…. grump.

At 6:30am we pilled in the 4x4 to go drive around looking for animals. We saw some deer looking creatures with an African twist to them, but that was about it. No elephants. I was sitting up front and kept falling asleep. The rocking of the car, the unchanging landscape and lack of animals made it hard to stay awake. The cool thing was when we got back all the elephants were headed to the water hole adjacent to the encampment. I guess they come every morning to bathe and drink their fill of water. Why we drove around for an hour and a half when we could wait to have them come to us is a question that will remain unanswered. I took a ton of photos of the elephants at the watering hole. It felt every Lion King-ish just with elephants instead of large dangerous cats.

We stuck around for the morning and had breakfast and lunch at the same restaurant. Since it was Sunday I listened to a sermon and took a nice nap. I also drew a picture of the lake in the down time before lunch. Talk about relaxing! We left about 2:00-ish and headed back to Ouaga. I got dropped off at 2iE which was much appreciated. I showered quickly, went to my office to chat with my family for a few minutes and then rode over to Leanna’s to watch a movie with her and Tyler. It was nice and low key. I also brought my dirty laundry with me and used Leanna’s washer to do a load of clothes. When I got home, I hit the hay exhausted, yet so happy with my weekend and the chance to go to Nazinga.

Sorry this is so late in coming. The next post which should be up by Tuesday will explain why. I had a very busy week this last week!

A day at school in Burkina...