Moving For Real

I have two nights left at my host family and Stage is nearing an end. I have a meeting with my Country Director tomorrow morning and Swear-In is on Friday in Ouaga. Also, site announcements were almost two weeks ago I think. My site is located near a hippopotamus marsh north of Bobo-Dioulasso, kind of near Mali. I will be the first Health Volunteer at site, but there was an Secondary Education Volunteer several years ago and from what it sounds like a SED Volunteer before that who worked a lot with women's groups. Apparently hese women convinced their all-male CoGES (organzation that oversees community health initiatives and funding) to request a female Volunteer. The primary languages spoken are Jula, Mooré, Bobo and French. I will be living in a family courtyard in a two room house, with my own private outdoor douche and latrine. The family I'll be living with is out en brousse (cultivating and living in the fields) right now and will be back in October. My courtyard is also 100 meters from the CSPS and the houses of several of the CSPS employees and a water pump. The CSPS has solar panels which I will be able to use to charge my cell phone.

I met the Major (head nurse/dude in charge) of my CSPS this week during our Counterpart Workshop. He's young and speaks excellent French and a little bit of English. I'm very happy to have someone I already know before I get to site and he seems to be a very nice guy. Because I'll be the first Volunteer at site, I will be purchasing all the essentials for my place, like a gas range and gas tank, a mattress, buckets, goblets, kitchen stuff and food and I guess I will order furniture from a carpenter in village or something. Thankfully, the Peace Corps will be giving me a 200,000 CFA move-in allowance for this endeavor. I will be traveling from Ouaga to Bobo and staying in Bobo a couple of nights while I buy the big stuff, then a Peace Corps Landcruiser will be dropping me off in Padéma and the driver will help me set up my range and gas tank and make sure I don't break down. ;) Should be fun!

I am glad Stage is done, because this being back in school thing is way old by this point. I can't wait to start saluer-ing people in Jula and hanging out at the CSPS not knowing what to do with myself! After I get to site, I may not update for a while because I'll be busy integrating into the community and doing my étude de milieu (aka figuring out what the community actually needs from me). Also, navigating public transport from site to Bobo will probably be terrifying for me the first time, so I may procrastinate on doing it until I can actually function in Jula on a basic level. I'm super excited and nervous!

I feel like integrating with my host famly wasn't that difficult, but I think that's because I lucked out and got a hilarious family full of teenage girls and a very jolly old man father. I'm going to miss them mucho! I'm definitely going to return to Koudougou/Palogo to tease my sisters and joke around with Yvette about couper-ing la tête! She has quite the sick sense of humor and I love it! Also, now I'm pretty sure she's 16 and that people here say they're a couple of years younger than they actually are. I still don't understand why that is, but I've heard this from other stagiaires as well.

Anyway, I'm super glad Stage is almost done, but I will definitely miss my crazyass friends. Shout out to my Palogo crew, Casey, Halley, ZZ and my sis Marina, with whom I will be dining in an hour at the invitation of my host father! Living in village has been excellent and also annoying, but mostly fabulous because of these hilarious freaks. :D

Btw, I have successfully brought the game of Monopoly Deal to Burkina Faso.