May 2019 – Reflections

Ten weeks.

I moved to Burkina ten weeks ago already and it feels like the blink of an eye. What’s been going on with me? What hasn’t been going on with me? Here’s a quick recap of the top ten highlights (in no particular order).

IMG_20190326_153741983_HDR — One rainy day at the MCC office

Baked goods, including: banana bread (twice), strawberry biscuits and mango crisp/crumble (coming soon). Somehow, baking has become a bit of a hobby this year..(I know, me? Baking?) Anyway, I’ve had some fun figuring out what to make with whatever fruit is in season.
A couple really weird rainstorms. We have been (supposedly) in the thick of hot season and nobody was expecting rain until June at the earliest. However, we’ve had at least five good rainstorms in the past ten weeks which generally cool things down a few degrees.
So many geckos! Geckos are a constant in my life. I hear them chirping in my room. In my office. In the house. In my compound. They scurry around taking up residence behind wall hangings and under my bed. They peer down at me from my walls and eat up all the annoying mosquitoes buzzing around my room. I’ve seen some that are shorter than my pinky and others as long as my hand and some without tails. I named the little guy in my room Mr. Squeaky. Don’t ask. It just felt right.
Three weeks of language class that I completed in March. I studied the local language in and around Ouaga which is Morre (pronounced like “moray” in moray eel or like “that’s amore” except without the “that’s a-“).
Field visits! The first was to Po, close to the southern border with Ghana, which I mentioned in my last blog post. The second was a visit to an agriculture project in the western part of the country in a village called Koti.
Seamstress-ing? One of my host sisters is a seamstress and I started hanging around after work most days to chat with her and the other girls working there. In response, she put me to work! I’m thrilled because sewing has always intrigued me, but I’ve never had the patience to really sit down and work at it. Everyone at the shop calls me the “stagieaire” (intern) and I’m hoping to make myself a few nice souvenirs before I leave.
A visit to Kigali, Rwanda. (Again.) This time, it was so that I could provide childcare for an MCC meeting with a bunch of the country representatives. I spent the week working with the two SALTers in Kigali to care for 3 girls and two boys. We played entirely too many variations on tag and even created a game called “Duck Duck Goose Charades Tag.” I can send you more information on the rules and strategy by email, if you’ve got little ones to entertain for a week or more.
The MCC Partner Gathering. This was one of the big projects that I have been working on with MCC since I arrived. In the end, I planned a two-day training and meetings with all of our MCC partners and learned so much about the partners and projects in the process!
Zumba class. Because sometimes you just need to find a safe space to get down with some other ladies.
Get-togethers hosted by MCC reps which sometimes involve real brick oven pizza and swimming! These are much appreciated after eating my fill of rice and fish and after 10+ consecutive days with temperatures in the triple digits.