I found out my site for the next two years!!! It’s called Wangala and it’s in the south east region of the country, really close to Ghana. So if you want to google it there you go! The other language I will be learning is called Bissa if I haven’t said that already. It’s spoken in Ghana, Burkina, Togo and Benin. Training will be finished in three weeks yay!!! I know I’ve been bad about pictures but I have a friend whose been taking a lot of pics and I will take them from her sometime this week and post them…..Scouts honor!
I learned that my house is pretty big and it’s a two bedroom with an indoor shower (I don’t know what that means since I still won’t have running water). I have a veranda and my own courtyard. I will be the third generation of PCVs there will be a lot of furniture there already! I will probably do some remodeling anyway but we will see. There is a market in my village every three days and I will have access to a lot of different vegetables and fruits all year round so I will probably go back to not eating meat (sorry!) I’m excited about getting back to living on my own and being able to cook for myself. The two volunteers who were there before me said that they loved it very much so hopefully I will have the same sentiments at the end of my two years.
In host-family news, I really love my host family! I always compare them to the Burkinabe version of the Cosby’s. Their children are all either married professionals or currently in school, and they are raising their niece (my host sister) and putting her through college now. She and I hit it off pretty well and hang out when I’m tired of hanging with other Americans. As a small token of my appreciation, I made the members of my family, and our servant girl, natural soap with shea butter and coco nut oil. So, I don’t know if I mentioned this in a previous post but, one of the income generating activities I will probably be doing in village includes making liquid or hard soap with women. We had two separate soap making workshops: one on liquid soap and one on hard soap. I preferred the hard soap because it was just a lot more natural. (I would right?!) The only thing about making the hard soap is this chemical called “caustique” I can’t remember the name in English, but this is some chemical that’s added to the soap as a cleaning agent and if it touches the skin it burns immediately. In fact, this stuff can cause really bad chemical burns and so what do I do while we are making the soap? I spill some on my linen pants and it goes through and starts to irritate my leg. Luckily there was water nearby so I don’t have any burns or anything but I still freaked out. I think when I do this in village, someone else will have to handle mixing all of the ingredients because I’ve learned, time and time again, that I am entirely too clumsy to handle stuff like caustique. Nevertheless, the soap turned out really well and I gave three bars to my family. They loved it of course and use it daily! Well, actually I don’t know if they use it daily but they did really like it….So I’m sure you can guess what I’ll be sending back to the states for Christmas!!!
I keep getting the question from home about the men here. Thus, with regards to men, it is not uncommon for me to get free stuff or marriage proposals daily. I will leave it at that.
After first arriving here, I found out that it’s very inexpensive to have clothes made at the tailor: all one has to do is by the material, bring in any design and for no more than like 4 million cfa or 8 american dollars you can have almost anything made. I went to the tailor and got a very pretty dress made for the swear in ceremony. I ‘ve been going to the tailor a lot lately.So naturally, I already have a personal tailor! I have had a vest, pants, and a dress made so far for all under 10 dollars. I now spend most of my time dreaming up different designs to bring to the tailor. Now, when I come back to the states and people ask me, where did you get that outfit from? I can say, oh you can’t find this here. I had my tailor make this in Burkina Faso. LOL. Just kidding, I wouldn’t do that….or would I? Also, this is like vintage heaven! There are a ton of places called Freperies or vintage stores here. I had to buy a rain jacket the other day because after all, it is the rainy season and boy does it rain and I didn’t really believe in rain jackets in the U.S. Long story short, I found a really nice rain jacket for the equivalent of two American dollars. Needless to say, I’m going to lose my mind being here for two years.
Well it’s about that time! I hope all is going well over in America land! I probably won’t update again until I swear in as a volunteer three weeks from now on the 27th of Aug. To my friends and family, I love and miss you all very much!!!!
Peace and Blessings
Song: Anytime You Like: Robyn
