So Far So Awesome!

     Where to begin!  I'm currently writing this post from an internet cafe in Leo.  This internet cafe is pretty new and was created by a current Peace Corps volunteer who is doing his third year in Burkina!  Leo is a "city" in southern Burkina, about 15k from Ghana.  It is a city for Burkina Faso standards, however, it is far from what we would call a city.  There is one main paved road with some kiosks that sell food, small grocery stores and places where you can buy minutes for your cell phones.  There are also a few hotels and they have decent restaurants where we eat lunch when in Leo for training.  Peace Corps has us on a pretty set schedule during our training months, so Monday- Friday we have different sessions all day.  These have consisted of language training, safety and security, cultural exchange, international development, and some health related sessions for us health volunteers.  
     The trip from Ouagadougou to Leo took about 3 hours and we arrived just in time for our adoption ceremonies.  Our group was split up into three villages that all surround Leo.  I am placed in a village called Sanga with 8 health volunteers.  Our big group is also down to 26 because one of the girls actually already decided to leave and go home.  The adoption ceremony was incredibly awkward, funny and awesome.  Everyone got matched to a family that we will live with for the next three months.  I got matched with the chief of the village and I am still trying to figure out how many wives and kids he has!!  I live in my own small house in their family courtyard.  I have two rooms in my house, one with my bed and one with all my luggage.  The first night was pretty crazy and I tried to just soak it all in.  My family mostly speaks their local language called Nuni so communicating with them is really interesting.  I usually just use hand motions with random French, Nuni, English and Spanish words.  Little by little though, we manage.  The first night my family served me spaghetti which was a nice surprise.  I figured out how to shower with a bucket and tried to figure out how to sleep in an incredibly hot mud house.  The bucket shower I managed but the sleeping I did not. So, the next night my host dad and I constructed a bed outside with a mosquito net and the mattress from the bed.  I had a much better night sleep and have slept outside ever since.    
    My week has gone by pretty fast.  I wake up when the sun comes up about 5:30/6.  My family gets me 2 buckets of water and I go take my bucket bath.  I get ready for training, eat breakfast and then bike about 7 miles to Leo for training.  We usually end training around 5 and then we bike back home to get back just before the sun goes down.  It gets dark really early in Burkina and it is usually totally dark by 6:30pm.  The bike ride to Leo is kind of hard because it is uphill but the way home is my favorite part of the day.  On the way home we pass a few other villages and all the  kids run to the road to say hello.  They all yell "nassara" which means foreigner and they love to give high fives or hear us say hello back.  Once back in village I say hello to the family.  Saying hello in the Burkina culture takes a long time.  You have to say hi, ask how your day was, ask how work was, ask how the family is, etc.  And you do this routine each time you say hello.  I've been trying to learn how to say hello in Nuni.  Last night about ten kids and I translated some common phrases or words that I know in French into Nuni.  The women and kids get a kick out of me practicing Nuni and everyone loves to come to my courtyard to hear the white girl try to speak the local language.  After saying hello I wait for them to get my water for my second bucket bath.  The stars here are unbelievable so taking my nightly bucket bath is really enjoyable.  I also live right by 2 mosques so I usually hear the call to prayer during my shower.
     This past Sunday we did a tour of our village and did a mapping exercise to learn where everything is.  My house is really close to two other volunteers.  There is also a small restaurant, 3 mosques, a water pump, and a health clinic.  The village is much prettier than I expected, and has a river and lot of green grass and trees.  We spent Sunday afternoon under a tree hanging out with some local kids.  We did face painting and ate some yummy potato things my host mom gave me.  The face painting was a big hit and even adults wanted to get a small drawing.  I also like to have dance parties with the  kids in my courtyard or play a memory game out of some old maid cards I brought from home.
     Yesterday we had an opportunity to visit the local clinic.  The health care system in Burkina is really interesting.  In the past, the system was run by the Ministry of Health.  They had all the power and all the decisions were made by them.  This meant that small rural health clinics had to follow rules set from the capitol city.  In the 90's however, this changed to a community health approach.  Today, the community has a huge influence on how the clinic is run and who is in charge.  The Ministry places a Head Nurse in each rural clinic but a lot of the other positions are filled by local villagers.  In our village, our Head Nurse is a woman, which is really exciting and pretty rare.  Visiting the clinic was really shocking.  Each room looked like a scene out of a horror film.  The clinic has no electricity so after 6:30 it is completely dark in the rooms.  The clinic had a waiting room, a pharmacy, a maternity house, a malnutrition house, and a few other rooms and houses.  There is also a vaccination program that was going on last night in our village.  When we entered the maternity house there was a woman on a mattress on the ground waiting to give birth.  The midwife was not on duty yesterday so one of the male nurses was explaining that he was going to be doing the delivery.  He also explained that if she has the baby after dark, he will deliver the child using just a flashlight.  He invited us to come watch the birth but Peace Corps doesn't allow us to do that because of security and sanitary reasons.  One positive thing about the clinic was that if there are problems that occur at site, Leo has a free ambulance that they can send!  This is really awesome and usually people have to pay a lot of money to get access to doctors in a bigger city nearby.  The clinic really put into perspective the type of work and projects I will be doing once I get to my site.  It was also helpful to talk to current volunteers about the projects they have done with their local clinics.
     This coming week we get to go back to Ouagadougou on Wednesday!  We spend the night in the city and then we get to "Demyst".  This is when we get to spend the weekend with a current volunteer at their village site.  I'm not sure where I will be going yet but it will be a small village close to Ouaga.  The volunteer will also be a health volunteer so I'm hoping to see what her clinic is like and spend some time at it!  Hope to write again soon.  N