i'm calling you out

I can smell the end coming. It smells like roasted green chile and moose track ice cream, like Taco Bell and chocolate bloop donuts. It smells like a lot of good things.

It also smells like my last blog entry.

I hope you've enjoyed these accounts of my life as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Burkina Faso for the past two years.

Thanks for reading!

Things I Will Miss About Burkina:

1. the gateau--slightly sweet, crunchy fried balls of delight--and my Lobiri-speaking gateau lady who always gave me a cadeau (a free one)

2. the fact that staring isn't considered rude. I'm not very stealthy when I people-watch, and here there's no need to be. Stare away, my friends!

3. Herman, Boris and Bruce

4. if I'm forced to shake hands with the same people everytime I see them, then I'm glad that we do the clacky handshake. Before we release each other's hands, we snap each other's fingers. Hence, the clack. I may have to bring that one to the States.

5. having to navigate through cows, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens and guineafowl all the time

6. coke in the glass bottle

7. my friendship with my sitemates: my first year, Jillian, and my second, Brenda

8. my friendship with the Sidibe's, Alice, Leti, and George and his family

9. the proximity of my house to my workplace

10. things said to me in languages I don't understand. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss

11. the amount of free time I have and the amount of sleep I get. I know I'll miss the hours of alternately reading and staring into space when I no longer have them.

12. traditional Burkinabe dancing, especially Lobi dancing. A full body shake, similar to chickens ruffling their feathers, but with rhythm. It's a dance that I can't make my body do, but at least I've provided entertainment for others while trying

13. the colorful pagnes

14. wearing loud colors and mismatching my clothes and not having anyone comment on it because their clothes are loud and mismatched, too.

15. the stars. They're so clear and bright and I can see so many of them (one of the benefits of not having electricity). They're my natural flashlight.

16. watching the honey and yam vendors race each other to the vehicles of prospective buyers passing through Bouroum-Bouroum. Hours of entertainment there.

17. women with babies strapped to their backs and buckets balanced on their heads

18, foutou. Delicious stretchy globs of pounded yams.

19. eating freshly-picked mangoes off my own tree

20. how foods I used to hate (e.g. tuna sandwiches, peas, rice , mangoes) have become mouth-watering delicacies here. Back in the States I'll probably revert to my past hatred

21. eating everything with my hands if I choose to, including rice, and having it be culturally appropriate

22. having entire conversations with grunts, hand gestures and clacking of the tongue

23. the lizards that do push-ups and have jowls like frogs. They're blue, black, orange and brown and they really do push-ups with their front legs.

24. the call to prayer at the mosque, even at 4 AM

25. their generosity

26. speaking French

27. seeing buffed-out grown men with Hello Kitty! backpacks

28. watching kids ride bikes that are 5x too large for them. They remind me of Bill Denbrough riding Silver. Hi-yo Silver, Awayyy!

29. women making dolo, the local beer, in huge cauldrons.

30. market day in Bouroum-Bouroum. The organized chaos, drinking cold bissap, eating fried dough, wandering through the maze of beads, jewelry, clothes, vegetables, and meat (I'm not too fond of stepping over the smelly carcasses, however).


Things I Will Not Miss About Burkina:

1. Sweating.All.The.Time. I drip sweat here as if I'm doing Billy Blank's Advanced Tae-Bo video, when in reality I'm just sitting in a chair.

2. Sweating.Absolutely.Everywhere. Remember my tirades on arm sweat?

3. my movie star status. I'm the Angelina Jolie of Burkina Faso and I've never wanted anything less in my life. Honestly, if ever you (an American) want a taste of what it's like to be famous, come to Burkina Faso and your wish will be granted.

4. doing my business in a hole in the ground, with cockroaches and the occassional snake. On the positive side, I've gotten really good at squatting. I could be a catcher if it weren't for my total lack of hand-eye coordination.

5. rocks in my bread and rice

6. rice

7. riding buses. Kids tend to vomit on me.

8. witnessing the cruelty to animals and getting laughed at by the assholes who find my anger amusing

9. going through extensive greetings with everyone (Bonjour? Ca va? Ca Va? Bien dormir? Et la famille? La sante? Et le travail?) everytime I see them

10. my tan

11. flies--the desperate, persistent little bastards and the scum of the earth

12. bucket baths

13. the delicate combination of the smell of excrement and body odor in the air

14. the creepers. The old creepers who want to give my family livestock in exchange for me. The younger creepers with their bejeweled tight pants, unveiled invasive staring, and unabashed remarks which they oddly think make them charming.

15. meeting my food before I eat it

16. "toute de suite" and "J'arrive" = in 2 or 3 hours. WAIT--West African International Time

17. trying to find and keep change. Do you know how difficult it is to break a 10 mille in village?

18. eating with my right hand. I'm in a country that considers the left hand the "poop hand". I've lived 23 years of my life eating with my left and I've spent the last two years eating with my right to be culturally appropriate. I now resemble a toddler, with food on my face and in my lap.

19. losing my hair due to my malaria prophylaxis. I already have fine hair as it is, so I'm horrified when I pull a fat brown hamster out of the teeth of my brush.

20. washing dishes, clothes and anything else in buckets

21. market day in Bouroum-Bouroum when men are douchey and grab at me

22. being called la blanche, nasara, dablo, and tubabu. Yes, I know I'm white. Thanks for telling me.

/>23. sleeping in front of my screen door February-May in the hopes that a breeze will cool me down some. This goes with nearly having a heart attack when goats and roosters cry out and cock-a-doodle, respectively, on my doorstep while I'm sleeping. Them clever animals, sometimes I think they do it on purpose.


And now I bid you all adieu!

Jane