He’s a cool dude. But who is Dagny Taggart? People should be asking that question.
I’m in the middle of Atlas Shrugged, another one of my favorite books. I’m celebrating the end of the school year with Ayn Rand and her characters. I finished filling out report cards yesterday—sitting in a cramped room with the others teachers, swatting flies off my nose, listening to Burkinabe music and one random Nelly song. Next week we have a conseil to discuss the students’ grades and the preparations for the BEPC, which takes place on June 3. But after next Thursday, I am le done.
I’ve been here about a year and I have approximately one year left. Unless I decide to extend my service, but I don’t see that happening. Anywho, lately I’ve been trying to plan what I’ll do with my last year. This first one passed by so quickly that now, at my review of it, I feel like I didn’t have enough time to actually get started. I taught one year of school, I had an English Club that went the way of the buffalo, and I coached soccer and did sensibilizations on HIV/AIDS and moringa.
But there’s nothing in those things that will still be here after I leave Burkina. I was pleased to see that some of my students’ math grades improved after tutoring sessions with me; hell I was pleased to discover that I didn’t actually loathe teaching; I had fun talking to students about HIV/AIDS preventions and I hope that they’re now informed of how to maintain a healthy lifestyle in that respect. But none of those things are tangible or lasting, nothing that 5 years from now the people of BB will look at and say, “Yep, that right there is something that white girl did while she was living here.”
Enter World Map Project. This summer I’ll start planning a World Map Project for Bouroum-Bouroum. I’ve found the perfect place for our world map—it’s on the side of the 6eme building of our CEG. The wall faces the road (not the goudron, as my house and school are 2 km off the main road), so everyone passing by as well as all the students will be able to see it. I won’t be able to start the actual painting of the world map until after the saison de pluie, so I’m thinking November.
Though I realize that PCV’s plans are often revised or thrown out completely, I’ll do everything in my power to paint the world in Bouroum-Bouroum. Even if it’s the size of my palm. Next year I also will set up a correspondence program between my students and the students of a middle school in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. The only problem with this correspondence program is that it ends once I leave. My students will lose their correspondents unless they’re able to pay for postage and to pay for transport to a place where there’s a post office. Oh well. It’s not sustainable, but it’s something that these kids desperately want.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
in my haste
The rain came yesterday and my heat rash is going away. Life is beautiful.
This past week Jillian came to my three classes to do moringa sensibilizations with my students. The moringa tree is so important here in Burkina because its powder contains a crapload of nutrients—Vitamin A, C, calcium, protein, etc. Since malnutrition, especially in children, is a huge concern in Africa, moringa serves as an important supplement to the peoples’ diet. During certain months it’s difficult to find any vegetables at all, and meat is expensive. So it’s difficult to stay healthy when you have neither the means nor the resources. But moringa combines a lot of the essential nutrients a body needs into a powder.
At the CSPS (hospital) in Bouroum-Bouroum, women mix moringa powder into porridge and give it to infants to help them gain weight. Jillian told me she once saw a little girl at the CSPS who weighed about 12 pounds at the one-year mark. No bueno. But after about a month of eating bouille containing moringa, the girl had gained another two pounds.
During our sensibilization, we gave students moringa seeds and showed/told them how to plant and maintain them. You can even buy a moringa tree in its adolescent stage in BrBr for 100 CFA, which is about 25 cents. They require very little water—a good thing considering how close we are to the Sahel—and the rainy season is almost upon us. The only obstacle with moringa is making sure those blasted goats don’t eat them. Earlier last year goats ate my papaya tree, but I won’t let them take my mango tree!
Good stuff, moringa.
Jillian and I had a girls’ night on Thursday. A little surprised? Yep, me too. But I had a great time and Jillian made dinner at my house—a place where food is never prepared. She made spaghetti and garlic bread. We listened to Lucky Dube, shaved our legs (quite a lot of work for me), and painted our nails. We even had honey/sugar facial masks, though we had to remove about 10 or 15 bugs out of the honey (BrBr is known for its honey and yams) before we could use it. Pictures are posted.
In about a month the new Secondary Education stage is arriving in Burkina. If you’re wondering what you should bring, I can tell you that a solar charger is probably one of the best things I have here. That and peanut butter. Unless you’re going to teach IT, there’s a very good chance that you won’t have electricity at your site. And if you’re anything like me then you need to listen to music every day. My Solio Magnesium charges both my iPod and phone, and it’s simply magnificent.
Next week, exams. The week after, grades. The week after that, no more l’école. As I said before, life is beautiful.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mamita and Shelly! And Grandma, Nana and Aunt Mary!
This past week Jillian came to my three classes to do moringa sensibilizations with my students. The moringa tree is so important here in Burkina because its powder contains a crapload of nutrients—Vitamin A, C, calcium, protein, etc. Since malnutrition, especially in children, is a huge concern in Africa, moringa serves as an important supplement to the peoples’ diet. During certain months it’s difficult to find any vegetables at all, and meat is expensive. So it’s difficult to stay healthy when you have neither the means nor the resources. But moringa combines a lot of the essential nutrients a body needs into a powder.
At the CSPS (hospital) in Bouroum-Bouroum, women mix moringa powder into porridge and give it to infants to help them gain weight. Jillian told me she once saw a little girl at the CSPS who weighed about 12 pounds at the one-year mark. No bueno. But after about a month of eating bouille containing moringa, the girl had gained another two pounds.
During our sensibilization, we gave students moringa seeds and showed/told them how to plant and maintain them. You can even buy a moringa tree in its adolescent stage in BrBr for 100 CFA, which is about 25 cents. They require very little water—a good thing considering how close we are to the Sahel—and the rainy season is almost upon us. The only obstacle with moringa is making sure those blasted goats don’t eat them. Earlier last year goats ate my papaya tree, but I won’t let them take my mango tree!
Good stuff, moringa.
Jillian and I had a girls’ night on Thursday. A little surprised? Yep, me too. But I had a great time and Jillian made dinner at my house—a place where food is never prepared. She made spaghetti and garlic bread. We listened to Lucky Dube, shaved our legs (quite a lot of work for me), and painted our nails. We even had honey/sugar facial masks, though we had to remove about 10 or 15 bugs out of the honey (BrBr is known for its honey and yams) before we could use it. Pictures are posted.
In about a month the new Secondary Education stage is arriving in Burkina. If you’re wondering what you should bring, I can tell you that a solar charger is probably one of the best things I have here. That and peanut butter. Unless you’re going to teach IT, there’s a very good chance that you won’t have electricity at your site. And if you’re anything like me then you need to listen to music every day. My Solio Magnesium charges both my iPod and phone, and it’s simply magnificent.
Next week, exams. The week after, grades. The week after that, no more l’école. As I said before, life is beautiful.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mamita and Shelly! And Grandma, Nana and Aunt Mary!
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